Water Puppet show or Mua Roi Nuoc is a unique art which has it origin in the delta of the Red river in the tenth century. The farmers in this region devised a form of entertainment using what natural medium they can find in their environment. In ancient times, the ponds and the rice paddies after harvest were the stage for these impromptu shows.

This art form is unique to North Vietnam and only finds its way to the world stage in recent years as a result of the normalized relation with the West. Today the Thang Long puppet troupe is the most well known in Ha Noi.

Modern, water puppetry is performed in a pool of water with the water surface being the stage. The puppeteers stand behind a screen and control the puppets using long bamboo rods and string mechanism hidden beneath the water surface.

The puppets are carved out of wood and often weigh up to 15 kg. A traditional Vietnamese orchestra provides background music accompaniment. Singers of Cheo (a form of opera) with origin in north Vietnam sing songs which tell the story being acted out by the puppets. The theme of the skits is rural and has a strong reference to Vietnamese folklore.

It tells of day-to-day living in rural Vietnam and Vietnamese folk tales that are told by grandparents to their grandchildren. Stories of the harvest, of fishing and of festivals are highlighted.

Legends and national history are also told through short skits. Many of the skits, especially those involving the tales of day-to-day living, often have a humorous twist.

Ho Chi Minh’s Residence - After 1954 Ho Chi Minh had the run of the Presidential Palace, but the ostentation was too much for the ascetic president, who openly shunned luxury and preferred the humble former home of the palace’s electrician, where he lived for four years. Then, the story goes, in 1958 Ho Chi Minh moved to this simple but tasteful wooden house on stilts, which served as his living quarters and work space until his death in 1969. An elegant but spare study — some books, his small typewriter, a few newspapers, and an electric fan presented to him by a group of Japanese Communists are visible — adjoins his equally spare bedroom. Downstairs he received his guests: foreign dignitaries, Politburo members, army cadres, and schoolchildren. Surrounding the house are well-tended gardens with flame trees, willows, mango trees, and aromatic frangipani. Cyprus trees thrive on the edge of the pond, which Ho had stocked with carp. A crisp clap of the hands apparently still brings the fish to the surface.

Regardless of Ho Chi Minh’s Residence faith in the accuracy of the city’s antiaircraft gunners, some doubt must be thrown on the claim that Ho Chi Minh spent so much time in this open-air sanctum, with only the trees, his wooden house, and a trusty old war helmet as protection. American bombers targeted Hanoi during the war, and they surely would have emptied their loads on Ba Dinh District had they known their archenemy was feeding fish and conferring with his generals in the unprotected confines of his stilt house. Indeed, Ho’s Politburo ordered the construction of a nearby bomb shelter, later dubbed House No. 67. Legend holds that Uncle Ho refused to use the shelter as a home, preferring to confer with the Politburo in this fortified bunker but to sleep in his stilt house.

Before visiting Ho Chi Minh’s Residence, wait for the rest of the group that accompanied you through the mausoleum to go on ahead; it’s much more enjoyable to walk through the jasmine-scented compound unhurried and without the inevitable chatter of other tourists. You’ll exit this area via a pebbled pathway to the south of the mausoleum. As if they were themselves sights on the tour, older Vietnamese intellectuals wearing bifocals and striped cotton pajamas sit on park benches and read the Communist Party mouthpiece, Nhan Dan (The People), or sip green tea and smoke cigarettes.

Vietnam Ethnology Museum - Almost no foreign tourists to Hanoi refuse to visit the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, where they can look into a vivid picture of the miniaturized Vietnamese ethnic community’s life.

Briefings of Vietnam Ethnology Museum. Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country, which is composed of 54 ethnic groups. With a view to preserving and presenting the cultural heritages of these ethnic groups, the Vietnamese Government decided to establish a museum of ethnology in Hanoi. Hence, the today’s Vietnam Ethnology Museum was constructed on the land of 9,500 square meters on Nguyen Van Huyen Street, Cau Giay District, around 8 kilometers from the city centre. The construction started at the end of 1987 and was completed in 1997.

The mission of the Museum is to collect, document, research, preserve and exhibit the cultural and historic patrimony of the nation’s different ethnic groups. In its future planning, the Vietnam Ethnology Museum intends to present the cultures and civilization of other countries in South-East Asia and in the region as well.

What does it have? Since the opening day, the Vietnam Ethnology Museum has attracted a huge number of visitors as well as ethnographers and researchers from all over the world. To date, the Vietnam Ethnology Museum has collected 15,000 artifacts, 2,190 slides, 42,000 photographs, 237 audiotapes, 373 videotapes and 25 CD-ROMs, to be displayed for all visitors. Besides a tourism spot, it is also a centre for ethnographic research employing many experts on the different ethnic groups. Coming here, visitors may find out that the Vietnam Ethnology Museum has successfully recreated the daily life together with the religious rituals and the symbolic festivals of each ethnic group in Vietnam. All displayed objects mingle and supplement one another to create a colorful and diversified picture of Vietnamese culture.

Virtual indoor tour of Vietnam Ethnology Museum. The indoor permanent collection occupies the majority of the exhibition space. However, there is a separate area for the temporary exhibits. The permanent collection is divided into 9 main sections, each of which includes objects displayed in glass cases and dioramas:

Vietnam Ethnology Museum introduction:

Introduction of the Viet group (Kinh)
Introduction of Muong, Tho, Chut ethnic groups
The ethnic groups belonging to the Tay, Thai, and Ka Dai group
The ethnic groups belonging to the H’Mong-Dao group, Tang Group, and San Diu, Ngai ethnic groups
The ethnic groups belonging to the Mon-Khmer group
The ethnic groups belonging to the Nam Dao
The ethnic groups of Cham, Hoa, Khmer
The exchange and mingle among different ethnic groups

Virtual outdoor tour of Vietnam Ethnology Museum. An open-air exhibition in the museum’s spacious and peaceful ground features ethnic houses from all over Vietnam. The outdoor exhibition area is only large enough for the most popular architectural styles to be presented. Already presented are the Ede long house, the Tay stilt house, the Yao house half on stilts and half on earth, the Hmong house whose roof is made of pomu wood, the Viet house with tile roof, etc. Between the houses, there are trees indigenous to the area of each house, zigzagging paths and a meandering stream crossed by small bridges. The outdoor museum is of much captivation to most tourists not only for the cultural values but also for a natural landscape. Some even said: “Walking around here makes me feel like I were in a beautiful park, very relaxing!”

The Old Quarter of Hanoi is probably the city’s greatest asset from a tourism point of view. However, the adjective ‘old’ is something of a misnomer for a European because only a small proportion of its buildings are more than a hundred years old. In Vietnam, and Asia in general, the term has a different connotation. Here, what is ‘old’ is not the building, but the activities that are carried on in it. On that basis, the Old Quarter can claim a continuity stretching back to Hanoi’s birth almost a thousand years ago.

Many centuries ago, Hanoi relied upon the Red River as its primary trade route. Small cargo boats would ply back and forth carrying goods and provisions. The muddy breadth of the river made it difficult to land the cargo, so a system of small canals was dug to allow boats access to the centre of the young city. The various wharfs became associated with a particular commodity – tin, silver, silk, sailcloth and so on – and merchants built their warehouses and workshops on the canal bank.

Much later, the French colonists filled in the canals to create a network of 36 narrow streets that quickly acquired the name of the commodity traded there. The names survive, as do some of the original trades – Hang Ma (votive decorations), Hang Gai (Silk Street), Hang Thiec (Tin Street), and Hang Dong (Bronze Street).

Most, however, have taken up new commodities, but still cluster together along a single street – Hang Can (once scales, now stationary), Hang Dau (once oil, now shoes), Hang Buom (once sailcloth, now confectionary and wine) and Thuoc Bac (once medicine, now tools), for example.

Architecturally, the 36 Streets are a hotchpotch of artisans’ cottages, ‘tube’ houses (so called after their long narrow design, the result of a frontage tax), colonial houses, the occasional surviving merchants house (built in wood, Hoi An style), and modern buildings of various shapes and sizes.

However, Old Quarter‘s commerce that draws the visitors, as it has one throughout its long history. The range of goods is amazing, and it’s a Mecca for souvenir hunters. An additional bonus is the food available – not only delicious specialities such as Cha Ca (marinated barbequed fish), Nom (a green papaya and peanut salad in a cold sauce) and the best noodle soup in Vietnam, but also an increasing number of speciality restaurants offering international cuisine.
Often overlooked, but very interesting, are the many religious buildings in the Old Quarter. The Bach Ma (White Horse) Temple was founded in the 9th century and derives its name from a legend. Bach Ma, the guardian spirit of Thang Long (the old name of Hanoi), appeared to King Ly Thai To to help him to overcome the problem of the heavy city walls collapsing because the ground was too soft to support them. It’s an attractive temple and worth of a visit.

Among the many sacred sites in the area is the surprising Guiding Light Mosque, the only mosque in north Vietnam. Built in the days when Hanoi had an Islamic community, it now caters only for diplomats.

To the north of the Old Quarter is Dong Xuan, the city’s largest covered market.

The One Pillar Pagoda is a historic Buddhist temple in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. It is regarded alongside the Perfume Temple, as one of Vietnam’s two most iconic temples.

The One Pillar Pagoda was built by Emperor Ly Thai Tong, who ruled from 1028 to 1054. According to the court records, Ly Thai Tong was childless and dream that he met the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who handed him a baby son while seated on a lotus flower. Ly Thai Tong then married a peasant girl that he had met and she bore him a son. The emperor constructed the temple in gratitude for this in 1049,[1] having been told by a monk named Thiền Tuệ to build the temple, by erecting a pillar in the middle of a lotus pond, similar to the one he saw in the dream.

The One Pillar Pagoda was located in what was then the Tay Cam Garden in Thach Bao, Vinh Thuan district in the capital Thang Long (now known as Hanoi). Before the pagoda was opened, prayers were held for the longevity of the monarch. During the Ly Dynasty era, the temple was the site of an annual royal ceremony on the occasion of Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. A Buddha-bathing ceremony was held annually by the monarch, and the One Pillar Pagoda attracted monks and laymen alike to the ceremony. The monarch would then free a bird, which was followed by the people.

The One Pillar Pagoda was renovated in 1105 by Emperor Ly Nhan Tong and a bell was cast and an installation was attempted in 1109. However, the bell, which was regarded as one of the four major capital works of Vietnam at the time, was much too large and heavy, and could not be installed. Since it could not be tolled while left on the ground, it was moved into the countryside and deposited in farmland adjacent to Nhat Tru Temple. This land was widely inhabited by turtles, so the bell came to be known as Quy Dien chung, which means Bell of the Turtle Farmland. At the start of the 15th century, Vietnam was invaded and occupied by the Ming Dynasty. In 1426, the future Emperor Lê Lợi attacked and dispersed the Chinese forces, and while the Ming were in retreat and low on weapons, their commanding general ordered that the bell be smelted, so that the copper could be used for manufacturing weaponry.

The One Pillar Pagoda is built of wood on a single stone pillar 1.25 m in diameter, and it is designed to resemble a lotus blossom, which is a Buddhist symbol of purity, since a lotus blossoms in a muddy pond. In 1954, the French Union forces destroyed the pagoda before withdrawing from Vietnam after the First Indochina War, The One Pillar Pagoda was rebuilt afterwards