Museums: Hanoi

I arrived back in Vietnam (Ha Noi) in the evening of 10 November. The next morning I met up with Ellyn and Elsbeth (former colleagues at ILA Vietnam in Vung Tau) for brunch. Then Elsbeth and I went to the Ha Noi Museum of Fine Arts, conveniently located just across the road! Elsbeth's mission was to visit as many museums and cultural places in Ha Noi as possible before she left Vietnam to return to Minnesota later in the month. This museum was also part history, because it charted art, ceramics and sculpture in Vietnam from the earliest times. Some of the most impressive works I saw were modern, socialist-era pieces using traditional lacquer-ware techniques. The colours were used brilliantly to give life to the pictures.

Museums were really the recurring theme of my visit to Ha Noi, apart from walking many times around Ho Hoan Kiem (Returned Sword Lake). I tried mainly to visit places that I hadn't seen before, but in this time I revisited Van Mieu (Temple of Literature) as well as Ngoc Son Temple on the island in Ho Hoan Kiem. Van Mieu seemed very different to the first time I visited with David in 1999. This is partly because of a new, though traditional-looking, complex added behind the main Khue Van Pavilion, to record the contributions made by some of the most significant kings to the creation of the university.

At the Museum of the Vietnamese Revolution and again at Hoa Lo Prison museum I got some great insights into the long nationalistic struggle of the Vietnamese to gain independence. This journey started almost at the same time that France gained it's stranglehold in Indochina, and so (at the Museum of the Vietnamese Revolution) includes the resistance of some of the nationalist emperors, as well as the long list of revolutionary heroes throughout the 20th century. I ran out of time (because Hanoian museums have very early closing times and shoo everyone out at least 15 minutes prior to that!) so was still only part way through the struggle for reunification.

At Hoa Lo Prison the focus is three-fold: firstly, on the demolition and up-rooting of the community that lived here at the time the French decided this was the perfect location for the prison; secondly, on its use as a political prison; and thirdly, on its history as the Hanoi Hilton, housing American prisoners of war. Through visiting both these museums I started to recognise how many streets are named after revolutionary heroes - men and women.

One afternoon, I walked from the old quarter across to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum area. It was too late and the wrong day to go and pay my respects to Uncle Ho, but I did get the chance to look through the Ho Chi Minh Museum which has a great mix of exhibits combining Ho Chi Minh's personal/political history with the development of socialist Vietnam. Again, the closing-time wardens pounced just as I got through all the exhibits. Supposedly no cameras are allowed here (s0 I checked mine in) but I saw it happening all the time so took a couple of surreptitious shots on the phone-cam . Walking back I took a quick geek at the One Pillar Pagoda (I remember David's extreme disappointment the first time we visited - he expected so much more, and found an oversized bird-box!), and the Flag Tower in the old Ha Noi Citadel.

The other museum I visited was the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology. This required a taxi ride because it's some distance away from the city. It was very interesting to come here after going to Sa Pa and it helped me to get a much more expansive idea of the different minority groups in the Vietnamese population. The museum has good indoor and outdoor exhibits. For once I agree with LP - it shouldn't be missed.