Day 8: History Museum

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Today I decided to go to the History Museum. It was built in 1929 by French colonists, so naturally it was very grand with immensely tall ceilings and elaborate ornamentation. Walking around, in the sun (which is hot and humid), it is hard not to be tempted by the numerous street vendors selling a vast range of chilled soft drinks. I've taken to filling my water bottle and quickly freezing it in the freezer just to keep cool.

The entrance is the same one for the Saigon Zoo - most of the travel guides discourage visiting the Zoo cause the living conditions aren't that reasonable for animals.

The museum follows roughly a chronological set up tracing the development of Vietnam from the earliest humans (where they diverged to Vietnamese) right up to the present day and the current South East Asian nations.

Photography in most of the museum isn't allowed and gift shops abound with relatively expensive souvenirs (some things never change).

The pottery and, in particular, wooden statues are some of the oldest artifacts from ancient Vietnam. The guns are also still loaded (though there's no powder to set them off...luckily).

There are a considerable amount of dioramas all showing the Vietnamese resistance to various invaders (Chinese, Mongols, French, etc.). Half way through the museum, I stumbled upon a Traditional Vietnamese Water Puppet Show (a lot of places perform them).

The show started at 3 and about 10 tourists were there. The person told us to take a seat and we waited patiently for the show to start. After about half an hour, we thought something was amiss because the show still hadn't started. We then realised that the person at the desk thought we just wanted to look at the theatre and surrounding statues (because naturally the performance cost a couple of dollars to view). After getting over this misunderstanding, the show began.

I've been having issues with the upload of the video (about 15-20mins) but hopefully this is just because I have slowish internet here. The performance was quite incredible and features aspects of mythology and daily activities such as dragons and fishing.

The mummy is the oldest surviving remains in Vietnam which is of an old, aristocratic woman.

The Hung Kings Temple (opposite the museum) didn't allow photos inside as it was a sacred place but it was magnificent and no expense was spared in its decoration.

The amount of Christmas shops here is quite incredible. Initially, before coming to Vietnam, I thought there wouldn't be much of a Christmas celebration, given the country is Communist. But the Cathedral has a massive celebration (which I am very excited about) and it seems to have been well embraced by the locals (but then again, what's not to love about getting presents).

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