So anyone who know me knows how useless I am at reading a map – any hidden talents I might have had were totally destroyed by my trusty GPS!
No seriously, I genuinely can’t read a map….I have no sense of direction …scary thought given I am often in far flung places around the world with only a local map to depend on!
Yeah I know …Google Maps…but you have to work out which direction to walk in, otherwise it gets really confusing!
…but then I can’t spell either and now I am an English teacher so go figure!
So when I first checked into my hotel in Old Hanoi the receptionist gave me a copy of map…but this map had pictures of the main attractions!
Logic says that a map with pictures should make life easy…well I seem to be able to defy logic…
You need to understand that the weather in Hanoi is so hot that simply standing outside makes you sweat so after about 10 minutes you are completely wet…and the thing about the streets in Hanoi is that they change names sometimes for just a section of the street but on the map they don’t so at any given time when you stop to check the map and the street names they may not match!
…so getting lost is pretty easy…
Anyway on my trusty map was a picture of this magnificent Gothic Church…St Joseph’s Cathedral.
Professor Google gave me some interesting facts…
The Cathedral, the oldest in Hanoi, was built around 1880’s but in order to build it the French demolished the Bar Thein Pagoda, a Vietnamese temple from the 12th Century Ly Dynasty.
No Comment about the French!
Still I do love Gothic Churches so …
Holy shit I looked for that church every day….yet somehow I just couldn’t find it and always ended up somewhere else, sweating like a pig, dying for a cold beer and air-conditioning and after about 4 hours I would go home defeated!
On my 5th day I was determined that I would find this cathedral even if it killed me…I did have a better idea of other landmarks by this stage so I started and slowly but surely I narrowed down the options…
I finally found the exact location of the Church….yes the street names matched…and there was…
nothing – Fucking Nothing!!!
I am serious… a triangle of concrete with some trees and a man sitting on a office chair talking on his mobile phone – the church had become a …… carpark!
Well you can imagine how pissed off I was at this stage – well actually beyond pissed off …how was this possible …after all Professor Google could not be wrong…could he?
So again defeated, I started walking in the general direction of my hotel – hot, completely wet from sweat and a few steps later I was walking past the Bishop’s residence – well fuck you I thought to myself – you’ve hidden your fucking church!
…and then ….as I walked across the next cross road …I looked up and there it was!
One of the most magnificent Gothic Cathedrals I have ever seen…just sitting there all on its own in the most incongruous location – a concrete square with Vietnamese shops all around …
…and surrounded by, yep a fence! For God’s sake!
Of course now that I had found the cathedral I was not going to be defeated by a fence!
I back tracked to the Bishop’s residence and walked in as if I knew exactly where I was going ….and bit by bit, I weaved through the beautiful grounds draped with old leafy trees.
until finally I found the back entrance to the Cathedral…
It was simply awesome!
The actual doors were locked so if I want to see inside I will need to go to mass on Sunday morning and hope that God doesn’t strike me down!
Happy Bumbering!
