It is a ritual that when you travel to a country, you should visit some museums. Beyond a repository of antiques, these 3 museums in Hanoi will amaze you with captivating cultural and artistic heritage tied to our historical-political contexts.

1. Vietnamese Women’s Museum

Address: 36 Ly Thuong Kiet Street

Entrance fee: VND 30,000/ticket

Opening hour: 8h-17h from Monday-Sunday

It is very rare that a country has a museum dedicated to women. However, you can find two women’s museum in Vietnam: Vietnamese Women’s Museum in Hanoi and Southern Vietnam Women Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. We honor women for their silent sacrifice and contributions in family life, agriculture and wartime.

There are three themes which are exhibited in Vietnamese Women’s Museum: Women in Family, Women in History and Women’s Fashion. Narratives in Vietnamese, English, and French can be found for every object. Visitors will be fascinated with colorful and impressive traditional jewelry and costumes made by skillful handicrafts of ethnic minorities. You will surely respect mostly-neglected women’s contributions in marriage and childbirth, admire Vietnamese heroics during two resistance wars and be attracted by the rituals of Mother Goddess worship. Don’t forget numerous colorfully-painted nón (Vietnamese women’s traditional hat) hanged impressively throughout all five floors of this museum.

2. Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

Address: 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street

Entrance fee: VND40,000 dong/ticket

Opening hour: 8.30 - 17.00 from Monday-Sunday

If you are seeking for an aesthetically curated museum whose architecture is the combination of modernism and colonialism, Vietnam Fine Arts Museum is the place to go. Formerly belonged to French Ministry of Information, this museum proudly exhibits and preserves many Vietnamese art treasures. Visitors can find more than 20,000 works of art which are chronologically presented: Prehistoric arts, Fine arts from 11th to 19th century, Contemporary arts from the early 20th to present, Folk fine arts and Ceramics. Not only paintings, lacquers, sculptures but other antiques such as clothes, musical instruments and ritual objects created by ordinary Vietnamese handicrafts are also exhibited. You should see the Guan Tin’s thousand-eyed, thousand-armed sculpture, which is one of the most giant and skillful works in the 16th century.

 

This museum is completely ideal for photographing. You will find every window in this place perfect frames for your photos. Several lifelike lacquer paintings will be extremely suitable for vibrant and lively backgrounds.

3. Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

Address: 1 Nguyen Van Huyen Street

Entrance fee: VND 40,000 dong/ticket

Opening hour: 8.30 - 17.30 from Tuesday-Sunday (closed on Monday)

Vietnam Museum of Ethnology is insightful preservation of the socio-cultural and daily life of 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam. Constructed on the land of 4 hectares, this museum is divided into three buildings: Bronze Drum Building, Kite Building, and Garden of Architecture. The Bronze Drum building displays symbolic antiques such as clothes, jewelry and daily objects relating to their living, farming, raising cattle and other spiritual rituals of seven ethnolinguistic groups. On the other hand, the Kite Building contains four exhibitions: Southeast Asia Cultures, Indonesian Glass Paintings, A Glimpse into Asia and Around the World.

 

Garden of Architecture exhibits ten models of folk architecture constructed by ethnic people. Visitors can understand the differences between each ethnic group in the context of their ecological environment. Furthermore, traditional water puppet shows occur frequently in this garden. Sitting in a tranquil garden, felling the rural atmosphere, travelers can fully contemplate the cultural distinctiveness of a Southern East country.