We went to the museum…..
Hanoi, Vietnam
As our children’s friends go back to school after the summer holidays, we remember back to the annual obligatory “What I did in the holidays” story that had to be written. Our story today would start “We went to the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi.”
Just getting to the museum was fun – there’s something adventurous about travelling on local busses where you speak only three words of the local lingo, have no idea where you’re going and every street seems to have a phong, kim, nyang or hang in it.
The museum was great. Well, actually the building itself is pretty ugly, but outside is a large area with fascinating house reconstructions from various people groups in Vietnam inviting you to walk through, climb up, inspect closely…..we wandered around gathering ideas for our own dream-eco-sustainable-home in NZ….carvings on timber, decorative window-frames, thick mud walls, sleeping lofts accessed by a ladder, removable screens made with posts set into grooves in the floor and roof overhang…..
The indoor displays (with explanations in French and English as well as Vietnamese) were comprehensive (and our kids wanted us to read ALL of them IN FULL so it ended up a very educational visit!)…..and we marvelled at how much we have seen in real life. So much that was on display we have witnessed in our travels – it really struck home, what a rich experience we are living.
We even managed to take a photo of all the new boots beside the village cobbler!!!!
Tags: children, housing, postcard: Vietnam, recreation, tradition
rayres
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