Day 11 - Hanoi

15th March 2011
With my 3D2N Halong Bay tour cancelled, I was left with two free days in Hanoi. But I was bored of this city (I already did most of the things I wanted to do) so staying for another two days was not an option. I was determined to change my flight plans. I spent most of the morning rushing back and forth around the city centre to various travel agencies and airline offices asking for information on tours, prices and flight times. Initially I wanted to go to the other popular tourist destination - Ninh Binh, Hoi An or Phu Quoc Island but unfortunately all the flights that I wanted were booked out. So my last option was to catch an early flight back to Saigon. I managed to change my flight time incurring additional fees. But it was ok as I was flying out in the evening.

With the booking done, I was left with a free day with nothing planned. I finally had time to just leisurely stroll around the city. This was quite a change of pace as I was so used to a packed itinerary and doing as much as possible in one day. After a while of walking around the city and getting hassled by street hawkers, I had enough. I realised I haven’t been to any museums since day 2 so I decided it was time to get cultured. I took a motorbike taxi to the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology, about 20 minutes outside of Hanoi's centre.

The museum covers a large area, and is very interesting, one I was glad that I got to visit and enjoy. The Museum has a huge collection of artefacts and objects of daily use on display from the 54 different ethnic groups in Vietnam. Some of the items on display included traditional clothing, musical instruments, bamboo and rattan hats and agricultural tools. Some of the exhibits were built to replicate an everyday activity, such as weaving, and an accompanying documentary would explain it.

Upstairs there were more displays and objects relating to art and craft making, jewellery and various miniature models. Artefacts related to various religious customs, rituals wedding and funeral ceremonies are also kept at the Museum. It gives you a great insight into the various tribes that go to make up the country and shows how they live.

Outside the museum’s building was even better. They had recreated houses of various ethnic groups in Vietnam in the same way as it was traditionally designed and built. It was good that visitors were able to walk into all the different homes. These houses included:

Tay house rests on very highstilts, creating an area below that is used for animals, storage and other activitiessuch as for women to dye and weave cloth.

Bahnar communal house constructed by the Bahnar people from the central highlands was the centre piece as it towered over the museum complex at 19 metres in height. The interior only consisted of one floor allowing forgreat ventilation and kept the inside remarkably cool.

Ede long house (over 42 meters in length)

Hanhi House

Cham House

Besides the houses, there were also some other cool stuff to check out. This included a water puppet theatre, pottery and ceramic art exhibition, sculptures and various tradition objects that you can interact with and even a tomb of the Giarai people carved completely out of wood. The outside of the tomb was decorated with carvings of pregnant women and sexually explicit scenes. I wasn't quite sure why a tomb would need these kinds of carvings, but it was quite a funny sight to see.

The museum was very informative and well presented. I really enjoyed both the museum and the traditional architecture exhibit in the museum’s grounds. It’s good to see the ethnic culture of Vietnam is being preserved for future generations to learn about.

After about 2-3 hours, I came out of the museum to find the motorbike taxi driver I had from earlier on was still there waiting for me. He must have been desperate to make some money. I spent the remainder of the day just walking around the markets and shops and getting souvenirs for friends and family. The low prices of the Vietnamese handicrafts mean that it’s pretty hard to not go shopping in Hanoi. Also went pass another of the city's landmark, St Joseph's Cathedral. It was covered in bird shit.

Walking around Hanoi I notice that the streetscape seem to shifted magically from morning to afternoon to evenings as different vendors enjoyed their share of passing trade, a street stall suddenly opening here, a women selling a bunch of fruits there. But soon there was a thunderstorm and the city received a drenching. And in the rain they all disappeared, leaving the streets to soak in solitude. I couldn’t wait to get out of the city and leave the misery behind. I made my way to the airport to catch my flight back to hot and humid Saigon.