Museum of Ethnology

This past Wednesday I went to the Museum of Ethnology with Thế-Anh, Nam, and a friend visiting from Saigon named Toàn.  It was very hot, just like most of this week has been.  As a matter of fact, right now it is 99 with a heat index of 117.  The hardest part is when the power goes out.  Many of the friends live in outlying areas that lose power frequently for long durations.  It's hard to sleep at night when it's this hot and you don't at least have a fan blowing on you.

Anyway, about the museum.  I actually went on my first visit to Hanoi with my mom and took a ton of pictures.  You're supposed to pay an extra 50,000đ to take photographs.  When I pointed to that on the sign Thế-Anh and Nam laughed and said Vietnamese people never do that.  If they want to take pictures they take pictures.  Then they thought about it and admitted that it was a lack of respect for others that caused that kind of thinking.

Only Toàn took pictures, so we paid the extra and went in with a clear conscience, LOL.  I still have a ton of pictures from last time, and nothing has changed at all.  Toàn took so many pictures that his battery died, so I let him borrow my camera to finish up.  There was a very pretty tree near the Bahnar communal house that ended up on my camera, so I'll post it up here.

While the guys were up in the Bahnar house checking it out I hung out in the shade under the building.  There were a number of students down there and they were so surprised to hear me speak Vietnamese that they all took out their cell phones and started taking pictures of me.  Then the kids started coming up and getting their pictures taken with me, LOL.  I got a picture with two sisters and their cousin who were there.  Thủy asked me how old I was, and when I told her she said "you're as old as my mom!"

Museum of Ethnology