I’m am now in a desperate rush to catch up on blogging before I get too far behind to ever get up to date. So the next few posts are going to be very condensed versions of my travels so far.

We arrived in Hanoi tired but for once having slept on the bus. We found ourselves somewhere to stay and passed out for the morning before getting up and going to the Museum of Ethnology.

Hanoi was different to other places in Vietnam. The whole city was full of very small narrow streets making the incessant traffic even worse as they had smaller spaces to squeeze through. Pavements were non-existent and you spent the whole time dodging bikes and pedestrians that seemed to come at you from all directions.

By the time we reached Hanoi we were at the end of our Asian adventure and ready to get to a country where we could be understood and didn’t feel like we had to watch our bags constantly. Had we arrived in Hanoi at the beginning of our adventure we would probably have developed a different opinion but as it was I didn’t desperately enjoy it.

Our fist afternoon was spent at the Museum of Ethnology. This was one of the best museums I’d been to during my travels. It was well laid out, followed a logical path and loads of information was provided on the exhibits. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon wondering around learning about the ethnology’s of different groups of Vietnamese people. Although to be completely honest most of the knowledge I gained had now seeped from my brain and been replaced with stuff much less interesting!

Our fist full day in Hanoi was spent at the Temple of Literature. Three Israelis we’d met during breakfast joined us, we think because they didn’t have a map and couldn’t be bothered coming up with something to do themselves. They just seemed to be happy to follow us and do whatever we were doing!

The Temple of Literature is Vietnam’s principle Confucius sanctuary and is its historical centre of learning. The temple is also one of the few remnants of the Ly kings original city.

The main gate lead us into a peaceful garden modeled on Confucius’s’ birth place in China. We passed through two peaceful courtyards full of trimmed lawns and large trees before coming to the Han Cac gateway. This gateway was built in 1885, it has a double roof and its wooden upper story is said to be decorated with four radiating suns – although I failed to see them! As I passed through the gate directly in front of me was a large green pond known as the Well of Heavenly Clarity! Around the sides of this courtyard were the temples most valuable relics – 82 stone steale mounted on tortoises. These steale contain the exam results and bibliographical details of some of the students state examinations held between 1442 and 1779. The eldest two tablets are in the middle, the Americans helpfully built stone coverings to protect them from the elements. Many of the tablets were weather beaten and decidedly worn away in places with much of the ancient writing missing. It was a very strange sight, a courtyard full of giant public school reports!

From here we passed through the Gate of Great Success and entered the main temple buildings. Two pavilions on either side of a courtyard once contained alters dedicated to the 72 disciples of Confucius. These buildings now house gift shops and refreshments along with admin offices.

The temples ceremonial hall stands at the end of the courtyard. In this building the king and his mandarins would make sacrifices before the alter of Confucius. With a gift shop in one end of the building it was very hard to imagine the building as it once looked.

Directly behind the ceremonial hall was the temple sanctuary. At one time this would have been forbidden to even the king. In there Confucius sits with his four principle disciples. I found this room dark and not really worthy of the reverence it attracts. Although I guess if you hold Confucius in high regard even a statue of him is worth seeing.

The fifth and final courtyard houses the national academy. I would really like to have seen this but we couldn’t find a way in so assumed it had been closed to the public, but whilst walking around the outside of the grounds we saw people in there. I guess we just missed the way in.

After the Temple of Literature we grabbed a bite to eat then went to the Vietnamese Fine Art Museum. This should have been a lot more interesting than it was, bar a really good photograph exhibition as we went in the rest of it was a bit boring. I think this is partly because we were museum and art galleried out and just couldn’t be bothered to read any more information and attempt unsuccessfully to take it in. I wondered around in a daze wishing I was paying more attention than I was. Then we left and went back to our hotel for dinner and bed.

Luckily we were going to get away from it tomorrow with three days cruising around Ha Long Bay.

* Posted by j150vsc on 15/09/2007.