If you plan for a trip to Vietnam, you not only research about Vietnam’s famous landscapes, destinations, cuisine or culture, but also best museums in Vietnam. The reason is that museum is the best place to understand Vietnamese people, culture, history and even art. Traveling does not only mean visiting beautiful places and enjoying good foods, but learning more about other sides of a country.

Here are 5 museums you should visit when you travel Vietnam

1.    War Remnants Museum

Vietnam is now a peaceful country, but war is a very significantly big part of Vietnam’s history. And it is important for you to understand this part when you visit Vietnam. Therefore, the perfect place to find out is War Remnant Museum.

War Remnant Museum is located in Le Van Tam Street, district 3, Ho Chi Minh City. It contains exhibits relating to the American phase of Vietnam War. The museum comprises series of themed rooms in several building, along with military weapons and equipments placed in the walled yard. The most popular room is photography rooms, which filled with gruesome photographs and a real guillotine, depicts some of the worst brutality that happened during the Vietnam War. The other notable place is display rooms, where illustrates the cruelties involved in killing innocent people, torturing prisoners, effects of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliant sprays and the war atrocities such as Mi Lai Massacre. Other buildings include “Tiger Cage”, room for devoting to the protest that went on across the globe during the war, etc.

Visiting the museum, you will witness the truths about Vietnamese War, what Vietnamese people had been through that horrible war, no matter your opinion of US involvement in Vietnam. The most obvious opinion that you got after visiting War Remnant Museum is how painful and horrible that a war can cause for both sides.

2.    National Museum of Vietnamese History

Housed in a beautiful architectural building in Hoan Kiem district, Hanoi capital, National Museum of Vietnamese History is a museum showcasing Vietnam’s history with very large displays covering every period, from prehistory (about 300,000-400,000 years) to the August 1945 Revolution. The main exhibit system contains four parts: Vietnams ancient history, from the first stage of the national building to Tran dynasty, from Ho dynasty to Anti-French Movement & the August 1945 Revolution, Champa stone carving art.

The museum keeps more than 100,000 specimens and artifacts of different materials, including many rare and valuable items, especially the collections of objects dating back the ancient’s cultures (Hoa Binh-Bac Son, Dong Son), Vietnamese ancient glazed ceramics, Champa stone sculptures, bronze items under the Le-Nguyen Dynasties. It still keeps updating new found items and collections to meet increasing demand of visitors and researchers.

3.    Vietnam National Museum of Ethnology

Located in Hanoi city, Vietnam National Museum of Ethnology is reviewed as the most interesting museum in Vietnam. It is also ranked as Top best 6 museums in Asia by TripAdvisor.

The museum focuses on the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam, bringing out all the aspects of tradition and culture of both ethnic majority and minority group of Vietnam. It is divided into 2 parts: the indoor and the outdoor exhibition. The indoor exhibits collections, artifacts, photographs, videos and audiotapes about traditions, cultures, spirit ritual, symbolic festivals, customs, costumes and activities, divided in to 9 main sections. The outdoor is a special part of the museum. Its display and actives make the museum stand out from others. It is an open-air exhibition in the museum’s green and peaceful space featuring ethnic houses from all the regions around Vietnam, surrounded by green trees, zigzagging paths and a meandering stream crossed by small bridges.

You will be excited about relaxing and beautiful landscapes that is not supposed to be in a museum. Moreover, you can join traditional activities such as water puppets show, calligraphy or stone game.

4.    Hue Museum of Royal Fine Arts

If you visit Hue ancient capital city, you should not miss Hue Museum of Royal Fine Arts. The museum is located inside Long An Palace, an impressive building constructed in 1845 by King Thieu Tri used for King’s accommodation and relaxation after Tich Dien Festival. This is wonderful architectural structure, built base on royal architecture of the Hue. The palace includes 128 pillars. Almost artifacts in the museum had collected and preserved since 1913. Now, artifacts display up to 10.000 unit. It is made from all kinds of material such as: gold, silver, stone, wood, leather, paper…

The museum collected more than 700 artifacts of Royal life, from Ly dynasty to Nguyen Dynasty, such as pottery, royal clothes, coin collection, King and Queen’s items,…All of them reflect the noble life of Nguyen Royal families.

5.    Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture

Situated in Hai Chau district, Da Nang city, Cham Museum is the largest collection of Cham sculpture and artworks in the world. The museum was built in 1915 according to the motifs of ancient Cham Architecture to display the impressive architecture and sculptural works of Cham Pa Kingdom.

The Kingdom of Champa was founded in 192 AD and controlled what is now south and central Vietnam from approximately 192 through 1697. It was a mighty empire with an unique architecture style.

The museum displays an intensive and diverse collection of Champa sculpture dating from the 7th to the 15th centuries, when a matriarchal society prevailed. Artifacts include sculpture arts such as reliefs, animas, human statues,… Especially, the museum displays approximately 300 sandstone and terra-cotta sculptures, among which some are made from terracotta.

Visiting the museum, you will see one of the most creative architecture style which the ancient Cham had contributed to the world.