Andrew Buncombe's Hanoi Notebook: The day I felt a police hand on my shoulder

The young Vietnamese seminarian is terribly nervous but he also wants to talk. Hours earlier police in riot gear had arrived at Hanoi's Catholic Cathedral, blocked off roads and started work building a park on a property that once housed the Vatican embassy and is still claimed by the Church.

Leading me to a quiet room in the French-built cathedral complex he tells me: "Our priest came and said we had to go outside because the police were here. The police were wearing riot gear and they were hitting people. The media came but the police made them go away."

His last comment is a vast understatement. Such is the Vietnamese authorities' desire that this latest twist in a long-running conflict with the country's Catholic minority should be hushed up, that when the bureau chief of the Associated Press had arrived that morning to take pictures he was arrested, taken to a police station and beaten up. The journalist, Ben Stocking, recieved stitches for cuts to his head. He had been taking pictures of bulldozers starting to dig up the land and of the few dozen Catholics who had gathered for a prayer vigil and who were being videoed by plainclothes police.

After less than five minutes, I too receive a firm hand on my shoulder from a policeman and his colleague, who demand that I leave. Foreigners are not allowed here, they say. Where is my passport and visa? I tell them (honestly) that they are at my hotel. They demand that I fetch them for inspection. I tell them (dishonestly) that I will do just that.

Memories of McCain

At Hoa Lo Prison, aka the Hanoi Hilton, the uniform of Lt Cmdr John McCain hangs behind glass. The now US presidential candidate spent five years here as a prisoner of war. The display contains no mention of the torture he was subjected to, rather a series of photographs of prisoners playing table tennis and enjoying Christmas dinner.

Only a small part of the prison remains and it now houses a museum. The remainder has been replaced by an upmarket block of flats. From the prison yard I can see children running around in the apartments' playground.

There’s the rub...

Every day people come to exercise around Hoan Kiem lake. Tai Chi, press-ups and aerobics, all shapes and sizes. Who needs expensive gyms? Best is the mutual massage conga; a line of elderly ladies who massage the shoulders of the person in front and then about-turn so that no one misses out.