Arrival in Hanoi

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Today we went to the Ethnology Museum. We saw lots of houses which different tribes live in. One of the houses was really long because the whole extended family would live there. It is called a "customary house", a family would live there. It is thought that the place signifies fertility and growth. The first communal room is for guests and ceremonies. The centre room is for the wedding and then becomes the room for the couple. The last room is the "abdomen" it is used to store rice seeds. There were some people cooking in a room, the whole wall was black and it was really smoky. They were cooking in a pot over a little fire. We learnt how different tribes lived in different houses and how they survived. Sophie

Today we went to the Army Museum. The war was against the French and the Vietnamese. How it started. The people wanted Vietnam to be free from the French. In the War of Independence they used planes, boats, tanks, submarines and cars. The war lasted 8-years until the French surrendered (7th May 1954).

Then a war broke out between the north and the south. They used more deadly things, for example, when you opened a door a block with metal spikes came down. Also they covered spikes in the ground so you could walk along a path and fall on them.

The war last lasted from 1955-1975. There you could see the Jeep that brought the southern leader to the radio station to announce that they had surrendered. Jonathan

Parental Perspective - something for both the hunter and the gatherer.

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Comments

[Bryan Pannett]

Hanoi
I have really enjoyed your photos and learnt a lot from them. Unfortunately not many people seem to travel to SE Asia perhaps because of its turbulent background, and we all miss out by not learning of its culture and history. Your trip has been an amazing experience. Johnny and Sophie must have learnt a lot more than could every be taught at School. How is their french? I have been trying to follow some of your journey via Google maps but they don't have enough detail and many of the towns just don't show up.

[katherine]

You are epic.
That sounds awsome our half term isn't nearly so exiciting we've got our au pairs sister over from spain for the week so we have quite exiciting things planned. Nothing quite as exiciting as what your doing I expect.