Christmas Eve in Hanoi

A day to visit the museums on foot. As normal the traffic is mad with scooters using the pavements as well as the roads!! However, the museums here are well organised and have recently been refurbished. I would advise a visit to the Women’s museum as it gives an insight into ‘street vendors’, ‘family life’, ‘women’s role in the war’, ‘fashion’ and the future all displayed using video, images and models over 4 floors. Two other museums include the History museum and revolution museum found near to the opera house and include war relics and propaganda. Both informative and interesting and will certainly fill an hour or two each.
Bare in mind that both the ’Mausalium of Ho Chi Min’ and the ‘War Museum’ are shut on Friday and Monday.
Finally ‘Midnight Mass’ is held at the Cua Bac Church in English was quite an experience, and although not in a Cathedral the church was decorated for Christmas with a complete nativity scene lit up on the outside and hundreds of people in attendance. Due to our early arrival Stef and I had front row seats to the service (which meant of course that we had the eyes of the congregation on us as we indicated when to stand/sit etc 0_0). However, the service progressed well and at times in Latin! And we emerged at 1am to head back to the hotel, which was the biggest challenge as the first taxi we stopped and showed where we wanted to go just said no and sped off!! Still found one for the run in the end…