Custom Vietnam, the Museum of Ethnology & Bat Trang Dinner

This weekend was absolutely packed. On Saturday I went to Custom Vietnam Travel in Hanoi where I paid for part of my trip with Lily. I found the address easily enough on the map and got directions of google but when I went, I couldn't seem to find the right way. The office is very close to Vietclimb but there are two ways to go and chose to walk from the Southwest instead of from Vietclimb. Eventually, I had to give up with the route I took and went via my Vietclimb route. I got to the address much quicker but still didn't see the office. Luckily the coordinator, Minh, gave me a phone number so I called and it turned out I that I was in fact standing right in front of the office. It was hard to find because there's no sign and it's located on the third floor of the house. What gave me away to the woman on the phone is that there were dogs at the auto shop across the street who were barking at me. She immediately knew I was in the right place because she could hear the dogs outside and through the phone. She brought me upstairs and I met all of the women who work for the company. Minh wasn't there herself but another woman helped me paid and gave me a paper itinerary for the trip. I was planning on walking back to Sofitel Plaza to catch the Ecopark bus afterwards but she offered to give me a ride there on a motorbike! So, one of the other employees drove me back to Sofitel Plaza. She went out the way I was originally trying to go and I saw how close I had been to finding the office before I re-routed. It was a very short motorbike ride but I unfortunately missed the bus by about 5 minutes. I had to wait another hour for the next one and got pretty cold in the rain. Subsequently, when I got home I had a big bowl of soup and some tea. I was very chilly the rest of the day so I bundled up while I was doing my homework.

On Sunday I was up very early for another language with Viet. The bus was late so I was a little late to class but as it's just Viet and I, the schedule is very flexible. In the afternoon we had bun cha before heading off to the museum of ethnology. The weather was fantastic - sunny, about 70 degrees, and totally dry - so it was a good day to eat out on the street and view all the tribal houses at the museum. It was about a 15 minute bus ride from Van Mieu and when we arrived we toured through the main building first. The museum is set up with the original building as an introduction. You first learn about the 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam (the Viet being of highest population - about 87%) and go through exhibits of some of their traditional clothing, instruments, and artifacts. The museum had all of its piece descriptions in Vietnamese, French, and English, so I got to read back and forth and learn some new words. Outside the museum in the back is where they have all of the different house styles of the ethnic groups. This was my (and I'm sure everyone else's) favorite part of the museum. They had transplanted or rebuilt the traditional houses of the Hmong, Viet, Cham, Ba Na, Khmer, and a few

others and you could go inside all of them. The coolest was the huge communal stilt house of the Ba Na people. The floor didn't feel super sturdy to me but seeing as there were tons of visitors and I'm sure there have been many in the past without incident, I trusted that I would fall through the bamboo slats. There were some other cool houses as well like the Eto longhouse. The longhouse was on short stilts and was over 45 meters long! It was cool to walk through but again, didn't feel very sturdy.. We ended up spending much more time at the museum than we had planned and didn't leave until after 4. Luckily I was able to catch an Ecopark bus near Van Mieu. We thought I might miss it but we actually got to the stop early and had to wait a little while for the bus. Anyway, I got on and headed back to the Ecopark for dinner "out".

When Dung said we were going out for dinner I assumed it meant that we were eating on Truc Street in the Ecopark but we actually went to Bat Trang! If I had known we were going somewhere different I would've brought my camera but as I didn't know, I didn't have it. We went to this very old house that was apparently built around 100 AD! The old couple who lived in the house and hosted our meal said that the family has lived their for over 600 generations and they had paintings of the original owners. The house was truly amazing and reminded me of the kind of old houses you see in

Chinese movies with dining rooms open to the courtyard and elaborately carved columns. Dung said we could go when Lily is here so if we do, I will definitely bring my camera, the house was amazing. Dinner was good too but a few of Dung's friends couldn't make it so we had sooo much extra food. We could've probably had half the amount of food they served us and still have had too much.. Anyway, we split the food between us and Dung's friends and took it home. I think I'll be having some leftovers for breakfast tomorrow. We finally left the house around 8:45 when Anh, Dung, and her friends had eaten and drank a LOT. The walk back to the car was very dark; like many residential areas in Vietnam, the house was accessible by a narrow and winding alley. But we found our way out and made it to the clearing near the river. I walked with my grandma and we admired the beautiful view of the river and the lights on the other side. Dung's friend had brought his car so he ferried us back to the Ecopark. I got the first ride with my grandmother, grandfather, and Anna while Dung, Anh, and her other friend walked slowly back from Bat Trang. They got picked up too after we were dropped off and got home only about 10 minutes later.

Since we were back so late I started this post late and now it's past 11. I've got school tomorrow with more test preparations. Most of my tests are next week so I have time to study but I'm actually pretty confident with most of the tests. I'll be back Thursday with another update. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy all the photos!