West Lake

Only 3 kilometers from Hoan Kiem Lake, in the middle of Hanoi, is a sight people must look at for a while before they believe it is real. It is a sheet of calm water covering about 500 hectares. The road around its shore runs 17 kilometers. More than 60 historic sites surround it.

This is West Lake, the largest natural lake in Hanoi. It is also one of the places in Vietnam where culture and history run deepest.

West Lake is not man-made. It is a remnant of the Red River. Thousands of years ago, the river flowed through here. Then it changed course and slowly silted up, leaving a great hollow that filled with water. Geologists call this an oxbow lake, a lake formed from an old stretch of river. West Lake is a piece of the Red River that has been resting for a thousand years.

The lake has had many names, each tied to an era and a story.

The oldest name, according to the book Lĩnh Nam chích quái, is Đầm Xác Cáo, the Marsh of the Fox Corpse. The story goes that a nine-tailed fox once hid here and harmed innocent people. The one who ended it was Lạc Long Quân, a sea dragon lord of Vietnamese legend. He raised the waters, broke open its den and killed it, leaving a wide marsh. That is how the marsh got its name.

Then came Hồ Kim Ngưu, meaning Golden Buffalo Lake. As the tale is told, a golden buffalo came from the north in search of its mother, a buffalo of black bronze. It lost its way and ran wild, trampling a whole forest flat. The ground sank, and a lake was born.

In 1010, Emperor Lý Thái Tổ moved the capital to Thăng Long, the city now called Hanoi. The lake became a place the emperor and his officials loved for outings. The emperor often found the water covered in thick mist, as dreamlike as a painting. From that time on, the lake was called Dâm Đàm, meaning the Misty Marsh.

Then, in 1573, Emperor Lê Thế Tông came to the throne. His personal name was Lê Duy Đàm. The Đàm in his name was the same as the Đàm in the lake's name. By the old custom of never using a ruler's personal name, people had to rename the lake. They changed it to Tây Hồ, meaning the lake to the west. The name also likened it to the famous West Lake of Hangzhou, in China. The name Tây Hồ has been used from that year to this day.

Over thousands of years, people built 64 historic sites around the lake. Of these, 21 have been officially classified as heritage sites. Palaces of the Lý and Trần dynasties once stood along the shore. So did palaces of the Lê. Their sites are now old pagodas and schools. The Thuý Hoa Palace dates from the Lý era. Its site is now the grounds of Trấn Quốc Pagoda, the oldest pagoda in Hanoi. Another palace of that era, Từ Hoa, is now the grounds of Kim Liên Pagoda. The Thuỵ Chương Hall dates from the Lê era. Today its site is Chu Văn An High School.

One of the most important spiritual sites on the shore is Phủ Tây Hồ, on the Quảng An peninsula. It is dedicated to Lady Liễu Hạnh, one of the Four Immortals of Vietnamese folk belief. Two of them are Tản Viên Sơn Thánh and Thánh Gióng. The other two are Chử Đồng Tử and Liễu Hạnh herself. She is a Holy Mother in the worship of the Mother Goddesses of the Three and Four Realms. This faith, devoted to female deities, is distinctly Vietnamese. In 2016, UNESCO recognized Vietnamese Mother Goddess worship as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Phủ Tây Hồ is one of the three main shrines to Liễu Hạnh in the country. Another is Phủ Giầy, in the old Nam Định province, now part of Ninh Binh. The third is Phủ Sòng Sơn, in Thanh Hoá.

West Lake is also famous for something found nowhere else: the Bách Diệp lotus. It is a variety with one hundred petals, layer upon layer. From May to July, the lotus ponds of Quảng Bá and Nhật Tân burst into bloom. The water turns pink from the shore out to the middle of the lake.

The Bách Diệp lotus is used to scent West Lake lotus tea, one of the most expensive fine teas in Vietnam. The scenting is painstaking work. The lotuses are picked at five in the morning, just as they open. The flowers are broken open for their fragrant stamens, which are layered with the tea. The tea is dried and roasted, then left to rest, over and over. Each kilogram of tea takes about 1,000 lotus flowers.

Beyond the lotus season, West Lake keeps a calendar of flowers. April is the season of trumpet lilies, sold along the lakeside. November is the season of daisies in the Nhật Tân marsh. At Lunar New Year come two kinds of Nhật Tân peach blossom, the most famous New Year flowers in Hanoi.

Along the lake runs a walking street 900 meters long. It bears the name of Trịnh Công Sơn, a gifted songwriter. His song "Remembering Hanoi in Autumn" pictures West Lake on an autumn afternoon. On weekends, his music rings out from the stage on the Art Bridge. It blends with the lake breeze and the lights shimmering on the water.

Cycle the 17 kilometers around the lake and you pass old pagodas, old villages and lotus ponds. Then come the stony flats beside the Red River, and the small lanes where native Hanoians live beside the water. This is not the Hanoi of postcards. It is a thousand-year-old Hanoi, still breathing.