87 Ma May Traditional House

This is 87 Ma May although it looks like the rest

The interior of the tube house

A tube house is long and narrow and it is divided into different sections such as the living room, bedroom, kitchen, toilet, courtyard and so on. It was purposely built this narrow in order to minimise tax as the properties were taxed based on the width of the house facing the street. (Source: http://www.orientalarchitecture.com)

A place to entertain guests...

Wall painting and artwork on display

87 Ma May Traditional House as it is known, is actually a souvenir shop operating in a traditional tube house in the Old Quarter. However, visitors are required to pay a small admission fee to enter this souvenir shop. Well, this is our first time paying to enter a souvenir shop but anyway, our main focus is to view the Vietnamese tube house architecture, not the souvenirs. We did buy something from this shop but eventually found out later that we could get the same souvenir at half the price from other shops. Yes, we should have compared the price first.

Courtyard for cooking activities

Cooking the old-fashioned way

It is worth a visit if you do not know what a tube house is. There was no guide to explain about the different parts of the house but we referred to the English explanation pasted on the wall. We  chatted with the shop assistant and she was helpful and explained to us about the details. She also helped us to take our photos inside the house since we did not bring our tripod.

Let's play Chinese chess...

Pottery and puppets for sale

Here, we also saw a lot of Chinese influenced stuff like the altar table, Chinese chess and pottery. If you have not seen an old squat toilet, they do have it here for display. We were fascinated by the colourful artwork and felt like we had stepped back in time. 

The second floor of the house

There were two floors. The stairs were quite steep. The upper floor consisted of a living room (with the altar) while the second part had a leisure area (with Chinese chess on display). The last part of the house featured the bedroom furnished with a bed with wooden carvings, wooden side table and antique looking cupboards.

Artwork for sale

Figurines of Vietnamese women in traditional costumes

The traditional house gave us an insight of a real tube house and we appreciated that. However, I just feel that visitors should be well-informed that this is also a souvenir shop!

The details of the place:
Address: 87 Ma May, Old Quarter, Hanoi, Vietnam