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Photo: vi:User:Rungbachduong, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Exhibitions cover mainly the culture and ritual practices of the various ethnic groups in the whole of Vietnam. One of the key attractions of the museum is the open-air exhibition, which has reconstructions of traditional houses from multiple ethnic groups, which even comes with inhabitants in costumes. The museum features actual explanations of the exhibits in Vietnamese, French and English. There is an excellent café on the premises.
The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is a museum in Hanoi, Vietnam, which focuses on the 54 officially recognised ethnic groups in Vietnam. It is located on a 43,799-square-metre (10.823-acre) property in the Cầu Giấy District, about 8 km from the city center. The museum is a member of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, an academic institution of the Vietnamese government.
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Đền Voi Phục
The western temple, dedicated to Prince Linh Lang, a son of King Lý Thái Tông and his 9th concubine Dương Thị Quang, who was killed in action at the Battle of Như Nguyệt River in a war with China's Song Dynasty. The name Voi Phục means "kneeling elephant", and you can see two statues of elephants in a kneeling position at the front of the temple, hence its name.
Huu Tiep Lake
Until 19 Dec 1972, this was just a small brackish pond just off Hoàng Hoa Thám St., about 1 km west of the mausoleum. On that day, in a twisted retelling of the Hoan Kiem legend, Vietnamese anti-aircraft missiles blasted the enemy's eight-engine, 100-ton aircraft and sent it to the shallow bottom of the lake, where it remains.
This gleaming white museum and its gloriously ham-handed iconography is the perfect chaser to the solemnity of the mausoleum. The building, completed in 1990, is intended to evoke a white lotus. Some photos and old letters are on display on the second floor, but the main exhibition space is on the third floor. It includes cars crashing through walls to represent the chaos of post-war American capitalism, soldiers charging around with bombs that looked like electric plugs, a cave hideout re-imagined as the inside of Ho Chi Minh's brain, and several other postmodern confections integrated with the detailed main story of the man's life and his country's struggle. There are plenty of photographs, prison documents and newspaper cuttings tracing his life along the way. The tour ends with a burnt bridge signifying the separation of Vietnam, followed by a reconstructed bridge showing the unification of Vietnam after the war. One of the more informative museums in Vietnam. Free guides are available in English, French, Chinese and Russian. The displays are labelled in English and French.
Bảo tàng Hà Nội
Local natural and human history down the ages.
The exit from the mausoleum takes you right into the grounds of the, uh, vestige, where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from 1954 until his death in 1969. The nicely landscaped complex includes Ho Chi Minh's two homes (one a small one-story house, the other a traditional stilt house), kept shiny and "as he left them" by the authorities, as well as a garage with two of Ho's presidential cars and a carp-filled pond. You also get to see Ho Chi Minh's work room and Politburo meeting room. The Presidential Palace is nearby, but it's not open to visitors. Pamphlets are available in English, Chinese, French and Korean. Guided tours are usually available if you wait.