Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
This morning Quong met me for the last time at my hotel as it was my last day in Hanoi as I was booked on the overnight bus to Hue this evening, but Quong wanted to show me around the museum where he volunteered before I left. When we arrived at the museum, Quong showed his ID badge to the guard at the door and managed to get me in for free.
The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology features a collection of art and everyday objects from Vietnam with maps, videos and dioramas supplementing the collection. Luckily for me I had my own personal guide who worked their explaining everything to me, but all of the displays also had descriptions in English as well as Vietnamese.
We had a walk around the inside of the museum first before heading out in to the grounds and to the water puppet show that the put on for free once a day. The show was very similar to the one that I had seen a few days ago, but not quite up to the same standard but as it was set outside rather than in a theatre a few of the puppets did include some pyrotechnics. One good thing about this show was that all the scenes were introduced in Vietnamese and English and it did last for about an hour. It was really good considering it was free.
After the water puppet show we went off around the rest of the grounds to the museum where they had many replica hill-tribe homes all built to full size so that you could go in and have a look around. These buildings were amazing and probably the highlight of the museum.
While walking around we saw another couple having their wedding photos taken and I told Quong that I had seen lots of people around having their photos taken in their wedding outfits and he told me, that unlike the UK, the couple have their wedding album taken before the wedding day so that it is on show at the wedding ceremony for everyone to see.
Also in the ground of the museum were two tombs that the hill-tribes normally have their dead placed for two years before that are then buried. One tomb obviously catches more attention than the other one, you will probably see why, but it has sculptures of the life cycle all around it, including having sex, being pregnant, thinking, fighting, harvesting, etc. I bet you can guess which one gets photographed the most?
After finishing off in the gardens of the museum I went back inside and Quong left me alone so that I could wander round again on my own and stop and see some of the exhibits and spend a bit more time reading the descriptions on the walls. I was also allowed to take some photos inside so I took a few as I walked around again. Once I had finished, Quong dropped me off in Hanoi city centre and we went our separate ways.
On the way back to the hotel, I popped in to an electrical shop for a look around and also to use their air conditioning as it was another 42˚C day in Hanoi. While browsing, I spotted a Panasonic waterproof compact digital camera and asked to have a look at it......to cut a short story even shorter, I bought it because I have not been taking my SLR out in the evenings as it is too big and I am afraid I will lose it and it would be really nice to be able to record some videos of my trip.
Back at the hostel I watched another poorly dubbed film while waiting to be picked up for my first bus heading south. The first one was a night bus to Hue (pronounced whey) which was 13 hours long. I boarded the bus only to find that the only beds left were on the back row, which was 5 beds side by side in two levels. Luckily (if you can call it that), I got the one nearest to the window and on the lower level. It did feel like we were squashed in like sardines and with every bump we all nearly head butted the ceiling. All I can say is that I didn't get much sleep that night and I had to strap myself in with the seatbelt just so I stopped bouncing around so much. One good thing, being this close to people you definitely have something to talk (moan) about to each other
- comments
dave Niice sign Pete, but I wouldn't have it as a t-shirt !!