Day of Culture in Hanoi

After our day of organisation we leapt into sight-seeing properly. One of the nice things about Lonely Planet guides is that they have suggested "self walking tours" to get you out and seeing the city. We had arranged to meet Russell at 1pm for lunch and then a visit to the Museum of Ethnology, which we reckoned gave us loads of time.

The walking tour was around the Old Quarter, where our hotel was too. It starts at the Den Ngoc Son temple in the middle of Hoan Kie Lake, "Lake of the Restored Sword"; Le Loi, a 15th century Vietnamese hero, had his miraculous sword swallowed by a golden turtle/oise in the lake. There is another small island in the lake known as Tortose Tower, and people apparently still see turtles in the lake from time to time, which is a very auspicious event. The guide says something about taking a respite from the bustle of Hanoi in the peaceful surroundings of the temple. What rubbish! This was certainly the busiest temple I've ever been to. We think it may have been down to it being the last day of the Spring Festival ("Tet" in Vietnam), but I had to fight my way to the kiosk to pay our entrance, then we had to barge our way around the little island to get a glimpse of anything at all of the temple. Children were running wild, Vietnamese people were burning (fake mostly) money all of the place, and the smoke from the incense was unbearably thick. We think the money burning is something to do with sending money to your dead anscestors, but it's defintely got something to do with luck. You can buy $5000 notes on "Fake Street" we discovered later on the walking tour.

Eventually we were able to shove our way back out of the temple and continue through the streets. By now we were getting the hang of the traffic: you just start walking across the road, because there is no point waiting for the lights as they mean nothing to the bikes, and try to maintain a steady pace; this way the mopeds are able to swerve out of your way to which ever side is most convenient to them. At crossroads, they take the same approach and just zigzag past the orthogonal mopeds and cars. The cars seem to be large 4-wheel drives mostly, which seems rather unfair and completely out of place next to all the mopeds. We visited an old restored Chinese Merchant's house, Memorial House, which was lovely and also had lots of lovely arty things for sale. We past one of the old city gates, only standing apparently because the emperor Ly Thai To prayed at a temple we also passed, after the city walls collapsed several times.

We passed a couple of markets and saw the bundles of fake notes for sale for use in Buddhist ceremonies.

A traditional house at the Museum of Ethnology

We didn't have time to finish our tour before we met Russell and headed to the Museum of Ethnology. On the bus on the way there we were joined by another tourist, Laura from England, who realised we were also heading to the Museum. Although this is a big museum, a large tourist attraction there were no signs up for it or anything, and the guide book only had directions as far as the bus stop we had to alight at. After a bit of asking and pointing we found it. The outside area of the museum was quite good fun: they had all sorts of activities engaged in by the various ethnic groups, and a little bit of a historical background to how they arose. We watched people making "clay crackers", which are like large clay ashtrays (still wet), which are then dropped from a height, upsidedown. They pop.

Stick fighting at the Museum of Ethnology

And the one whose cracker spreads the furthest wins. Apparently it's got to do with defending the river against dragons or something, but now it's jsut a bit of fun. There were also reproductions of loads of different dwellings from a variety of ethnic groups, some of them inexplicably populated by on or two school children doing their geometry homework. Then there was the stick fighting, which seemed to be all about children being humilated by their parents urging them to have just one more go with the opponents who have already beaten you three times in a row. And of course, no museum is complete without a swing.

The inside of the museum was incredibly dull. Maybe it was all just a bit too highbrow for us, but it was one of those museums I hated as a child: lifeless artifacts; glass case after glass case. We didn't spend long inside. Even the visiting "Catholicism in Vietnam" exhibition couldn't hold our interests.

Water puppet performance

So on to the Water Puppetry for our final installment of culture. Joanne had decided on this event, so I had really no idea of what it would entail. All I knew was that the name reminded me of "Puppetry of the Penis", which was so successful at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I hoped it was nothing like that. When it started it was obviously just going to be puppets in the water, which I thought was going to be awful, however it was actually quite good; the puppets were very cleverly made and they were very skillfully brought to life, but best of all was the band who played the sound track of traditional Vietnamese music on traditional Vietnamese instruments.

Day of Culture in Hanoi

Hanoi, Vietnam