Tourist vs. Tortoise

We were making our way back to the hotel after a delicious lunch in Hanoi when we started seeing large crowds of people.  They were concentrated around the edges of the Hoan Kiem Lake.  This lake is the residence of a legendary genius turtle.  We 'know' the story of the turtle through a series of dreadfully confusing pictographs at a temple situated on an island on said lake.  There were no English translations of the story so we had to extrapolate.
Our best guess is that: according to legend this genius turtle teamed up with an 11th century Vietnamese general to kick some ass with a sword that it strapped to it's shell.  At some point in history the sword was stolen from this giant half-shell and caused some strife.  The turtle was a real thorn in the side of the Vietnamese people until they gave it back.  The lake's name in Vietnamese translates to 'Restored Sword Lake'. The Genius turtle may or may not have had an accomplice, a red horse that has a larger than life statue-tribute in the temple of the genius turtle. 

Anyway..this was the information we had before running into the crowds.  In the middle of the lake there were eight boats manned by what appeared to be military personnel, 20- 30 nearly naked men screaming and jumping into the water, and a man holding a megaphone wearing a three piece suit.   The boats were hovering around a net the size of a basketball court and there were 5-6 men swimming inside of it at any given time.  The man on the megaphone had me thinking sporting event until they started frantically wrestling big bundles of net while screaming orders. They were catching the 1000 year old turtle!

We watched this scene unfold for over an hour.  Not once did we catch a glimpse of this turtle, or it's sword.  Once the giant bundle of net which may or may not have contained an aquatic creature was wrestled onto a boat it was rowed to another island on the lake where a crane was set up.  We assumed this might be a yearly moral building exercise for the Vietnamese government..'The Turtle Still Lives!'  Or possibly a groundhog's day-esque exercise where the weather or harvests depend on the turtle's ability to see its shadow,  but even when the bundle reached the crane we were left without a visual.  The roads were blocked off, police were keeping kids from acting up, it was a really big deal.  I suppose we could have asked someone then and there what was happening but trying to figure it out was helping pass the time.

The real story is that we may have witnessed the last living member of this particular species of giant tortoise (a shell of six feet in diameter) being hauled from a polluted lake for medical treatment for lesions and general poor health.  It is unknown whether this tortoise is a Rafetus swinhoei (in which case it is one of four remaining on the planet) or another closely related species with no other surviving members.
Another great afternoon.