Fito Museum ~ The Museum of Vietnamese Traditional Medicine 15 Nov 2017

It took us quite sometime to the FITO Museum, also known as the Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine.

We were quite surprised to find out that the museum is one of the few privately operated museums in Saigon.

We immediately felt welcomed once entered the museum, because the staff were very friendly from the start, and the museum had a wonderful cosy, almost family run feel to it.

The Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine is housed in a five story home, built and renovated to resemble a traditional style Vietnamese home. The wooden carved decorations and details within the house were incredible.

The owner of the Museum moved the whole house from his ancestors’ birth place from the north Vietnam to south Vietnam. We can see the very traditional and ornaments carvings in the house.

There was a guide whom gathered all the visitors and gave us a brief history of the museum and the Vietnamese traditional medicine.

The philosophy seems to me is the same as the Chinese traditional medicine roots from the same place, which was China.

The Vietnamese traditional flourished from there, and it had become more and more prominent till in Vietnam have traditional medication practitioners side by side with the western medication practitioners in the public hospitals.

Our tour started from the 5th Floor. We have brought to the area which shown The Historical Chronology of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine. The chronicle of Vietnamese traditional medicine has shown an important events and a remarkable people during its forming and developing process.

After which we came to the Altar of Medicine. This room dedicated to 2 greatest physicians in Vietnam: Tue Tinh (14th century) and Le Huu Trac (18th century).

A Prehistoric Traditional Instruments room displays some items from Stone and Bronze Age that were used in traditional medicine.

Before we turned to 6th Floor, we saw The Tree of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine which a wooden carved picture named “Viet Nam Bach Gia Y”. It shows a big tree with 100 royal physicians and Vietnamese traditional medicine authors from 12th to the early 20th century.

At the 6th Floor, there are a 15 pictures of famous physicians and authors of Vietnamese traditional medicine from 13th – 18th centuries in the Vietnamese Physicians Room. These showpieces were created by Vietnamese traditional handicraft ways, especially the painting on the yellow pigment paper.

The highlights of the 6th Floor is The Charm Tower. An architecture of museum shows an unique traditional architecture of Vietnamese regions. There are house in the style of North, of Red River valley (a portal of temple),the Hue style (a balcony) and some styles of Cham people.

The other side of Cham tower looks like the gate of Thang Long which was built in Ha Noi in 1780. Its top has a 2 stone carved words “Medical Temple”.

In this room of The Oriental Traditional Medicine, we have been introduced to the oriental medicine along with a history of Chinese medicine, a history of Vietnamese traditional medicine and medicine in Korea.

At the 4th Floor, we came to The Collection of Medical Ingredients, where this room displays a medical trees, animals, minerals that were used in the traditional medicine. There also displays a collection of paintings “Vietnam Ban Thao” - it includes a 20 pages (1,2 meters high) and an images of nearly 300 medicine herbs.

The Oriental Apothecary Instruments: knifes, boat mortars. This is a collection of tools for preparing of traditional medicine such as knifes and apothecary’s mortars. An apothecary’s mortar is a tool to grind a dried herbs into powder.

Every visitor can try to wear a doctors traditional clothes and take a photographs here.

The Pharmacy House Model of 19th Century corner of this room is situated the full size model of oriental pharmacy.

The Collection of Wine Jars room shows some jars to keep medicine wine. Almost in all houses in countryside was made a wine in the past. A herbal wine was the one of main methods of medicine preparing.

Came to 3rd Floor, The Collection of Ceramic Teapots room is called “Tang Kham Khai”. There are some pictures describing traditional medicine operations such as picking, preparing medicines, feeling the pulse and writing a prescription. An exposition of this room shows an items such as bowls and teapots.

The Collection of Scales and Mortars room shows an items from drug stores or usual life of Vietnamese people such as mortars and pestles, scales and set of weights of 19th century.

The Collection of Metal Teapots room shows some pots collecting from the whole Vietnam (from Ha Dong, Lai Thieu, Hoi An & etc.).

The Collection of Tincture Jugs room displays some items in the collection of our museum such as small bottles of wine, wine jars, wine pots. Their styles and materials are much diversified with different dates from Han Viet pottery (1st-3rd century) to modern pottery (20th century).

At the 2nd floor is The Royal Medicinal Academy floor. This floor is decorated according to the palace style of Royal physician academy. This academy took care of the King and the royal family.

Finally, we have came to the Ground Floor again, arrived in the Cinema Room. All of us invited to watch a short fifteen minute film about the progression of ancient Vietnamese medicine.

We can enjoy a complimentary cup of tea on the Ground Floor in the small Pharmacy and Souvenir Shop. The cup of tea, used specifically to reduce anxiety, stress, and to help one relax. All visitors could try and buy a tea, wine and other medicine made from plants.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised with the FITO Museum, and I thought it was a very educational attraction. Also, there were a couple hands on things to try, like putting on a traditional Vietnamese medicine doctor outfits, and rolling a sharp stone to grind medicine.

We left the museum around 12.25pm and headed to our next destination - Cơm Gà Xối Mỡ Su Su.

Thien Hau Temple (Chùa Bà Thiên Hậu) 15 Nov 2017

For our final stop in Cholon, we headed over to the well known Thien Hau Temple, another Taoist temple in Saigon. Just a few steps away, we saw a typical shop selling all the Lion Dance accessories.

There was a vendor selling pigeons just in front of the temple, for the Chinese are to believe that release the captive pigeons and set them free is a good deed ritual in Buddhism and Taoism.

Thien Hau temple was built in 1760 to honour Mazu the ‘Lady of the Sea’ and when we enter through the iron gate we saw massive stone incense burners in front of the entrance of Mazu’s altar.

The exterior is beautifully designed with the traditional curvy roof on which small porcelain figures are standing symbol for themes from Chinese religion and legends.

From the outside, the temple looked incredibly old and dark from years of being weathered. Honestly it didn’t look amazing.

The entrance wall face was well weathered, rather unmaintained (but this did also give it an ancient feel), and it had almost a haunted feeling to look at.

However, as soon as we step inside, the beauty of the temple, mostly through the intricate details and carvings, is revealed. Inside, it was much larger and not nearly as ornate with gold, although it was still well decorated.

In front of the main shrine at Thien Hau Temple was a courtyard filled with burning incense.

Another highlight were the giant coils of incense that burn slowly, hanging from the ceiling, and filling the temple and atmosphere with smoke. The entire temple seemed to be rising in smoke.

Some people that visited the temple offered sticks of incense, while others purchased the big coils, lit them, and hung them from the ceiling.

The interior has colourful dioramas decorating the roof by representing scenes from the nineteenth century in a Chinese city.

Besides this, the most prominent visible interior design items are the three statues of the ‘Lady of the Sea’ that dominate the main altar.

Another part of Thien Hau Temple that was interesting to see were the intricately carved sculptures within the top facades of the building.

They were colourful, but weathered, and had accumulated years and years of incense smoke, making the sculptures look ancient and dusted in black soot.

When visiting make sure you take your time to look at all the small corners this temple has, as there are many sculptures, statues and artworks to discover.

There were few groups of tourists after we have arrived at the temple, and most of them were from Asia countries, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan.

We quickly snapped a few group selfie before we left the temple. We decided to took a taxi and headed to the FITO (Museum of Traditional Medicine).

Chulon Local Wet Market 15 Nov 2017

After Cha Tam Church, on our way to the famous Thien Hau Temple, we were walking through a street which filled of the shops which are selling fabric materials. I only came to know that Cholon is the distribution hub for the fabrics and clothes.

As we walked down the streets, we bumped into a fresh wet food market in Cholon. We just walked through the wet market. We were literally excited and happy when we came to one of the fresh market.

As much as visiting both Ben Thanh and Binh Thay Markets are wonderful things to do when you’re in Saigon, a trip to the city would not be complete without getting lost in one of the countless fresh wet food markets scattered throughout the city.

While the other two markets mentioned above are more wholesale goods markets, going to the neighbourhood alley fresh markets is kind of like going to the supermarket in Saigon.

The reason both Alvin and I love walking through markets in Saigon (or anywhere else) so much, is because it offers a personal experience and real glimpse into the local life and culture of the destination.

People sell and shop, hang out, sleep, eat and drink, and do just about everything you can possibly think of at markets in Vietnam.

Other than that, I found that many of the people in the markets throughout Saigon that I visited were extremely friendly. Even as I walked by taking photos and videos, many people smiled and laughed and said hello to me and even invited me to stop for something to eat.

Additionally, exploring a wet market in Saigon, we would see a near mind-blowing quantity and array of different vegetables, herbs, meats, and ingredients, all the raw things that makes Vietnamese food so good. This is indeed true while we were first time on our Thai Binh Market walk yesterday!

So along with visiting the two main largest well known markets we encourage you to go off the main paths, into the alleys of Saigon, and deep into some of the local wet markets to explore.

For me, learning about the local life by exploring alley markets was one of my favourite things to do in Saigon.

Cha Tam Church (Nhà thờ Cha Tam) 15 Nov 2017

After spending only around an hour wandering through the colourful packed lanes of Binh Tay Market, and cruising through the countless little passageways, we were ready to move on and explore a few of the other attractions in Cholon.

Because Saigon’s Chinatown is so spread out, and since the city doesn’t exactly have nice wide pedestrian sidewalk system, it’s not all that convenient to walk around.

But Alvin and I like to walk, so we decided to walk to some of the famous temples and churches in Cholon, of coarse you can choose to jump in a taxi or on the back of a motorbike to reach your destination.

Located within Cholon, is Cha Tam Church, and it took us about 30 minutes to walk there from the market in the hot weather of the sun!

When we were arriving at the Cha Tam Church, there were a group of tourists too. The tour guide was talking about the history of the Church. Officially known as the Church of St. Francisco Xavier, was completed in the year of 1902.

Generally the church has Gothic design, the same as European church but it still has the Chinese culture style. The name of the church is written in Chinese scripts. The roof is covered with ying and yang tiles. Two side of the ross has two carps. The tops of the church is put lotuses. Two scripts lines on two sides of the gate are written in Chinese scripts.

The four pillars in the main worship place is painted red colour, which doesn’t have in the Christian churches. The place where hang the Jesus Christ statue has 2 script lines written in Chinese. It was like a church but decorated like a Chinese temple style.

Located in the centre area of the church compound, is a St. Mary stature constructed under a Chinese style roof. There are bronze crafted plate which indicated the history of the church behind the statue of St. Mary.

Both sides are single storey and double storey buildings, which looked more like the quarters for the church helpers.

There are a church operated an orphanage and a school in the church ground. We can hear the children were reciting what their teacher was teaching.

We noticed that the church is still used frequently. We sat in the bench for a while, then we continue our journey.