If you ask me to show you the best museum to visit in Hanoi, I will recommend visiting the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. The museum is conveniently located in the heart of the city, right next to the old quarter, making it a popular destination for history buffs.
The museum was used by the French during the French colonial period to detain Vietnamese revolutionaries. It later was used by the Vietnamese government to hold the American pilots during the Vietnam American war.
Hoa Lo Prison was one of the “Hell on Earth” prisons in Vietnam, along with other two prisons, Con Dao Prison and Phu Quoc Prison in South Vietnam. These places were known for their severe torture methods and harsh treatment of prisoners of war and revolutionaries.
Despite brutal conditions, cramped cells, and severe torture, the detainees spread revolutionary ideals, organized escape plans, and educated one another. Many prisoners managed to escape from Hoa Lo, by squeezing through sewer grates.
In this article, you will show you the location, entry ticket, opening hours, how long to spend at the museum, and things to do at Hoa Lo Prison Museum.
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Where is Hoa Lo prison museum?
Hoa Loa Prison Relic is located in the French Quarter, around 10-20 minutes walking from Hanoi Old Quarter, depending where you stay in the Old Quarter. It’s around 850m from the St. Joseph Cathedral and 1km from the Hoan Kiem Lake.
The museum is bounded within the four streets, which include Hoa Lo, Tho Nhuom, Quan Su, and Hai Ba Trung street. The entrance and ticket counter is located on Hoa Lo street, and the exit is located on Tho Nhuom street.
How to get to Hoa Lo Prison Relic?
Most visitors stay in the Old Quarter, so you can easily walk from the Old Quarter to Hoa Lo prison relic. Walking is a great way to explore different parts of both the Old Quarter and French Quarter where the museum is located.
If you don’t feel like walking or you want to avoid the heat in summer, you can get to the museum by using a local taxi, riding share services such as Grab or GreenSM taxi and bike. The taxi ride from Hanoi Old Quarter to Hoa Loa Museum is around 5-10 minutes.
If you’re a solo traveler, it’s cheaper to use GreenSM or Grab Bikes than using the taxi options. A ride is around 20k-30k from the Old Quarter to the museum by bike.
Grab is a popular ride sharing service in South East Asia, similar to Uber in the western countries. You can use Grab to order food and groceries. GreenSM is a popular eco-friendly EV ride-hailing service run by a Vietnamese company, Vingroup. It’s usually cheaper than Grab in the peak hours.
If you’re on a budget or just want to experience the local way of travel, you can consider taking a public bus which costs around 5k VND for a ride. Bus number 32, 02, 38, 09, and 34 has stops near Hoa Loa Prison Museum.
The bus driver usually doesn’t speak English, so it’s handy to use Google Maps GPS to navigate your stops or show the driver where you want to go by translation app.
Entrance Ticket and opening hours
The Hoa Lo Prison Museum is open every day from 8am to 5pm. It’s open all year round including weekdays, weekends, and public holidays.
The entry ticket is 50k VND (around 2USD) per person. You can buy tickets online or onsite at the ticket counter right at the entrance to the museum.
I don’t think it’s necessary to buy a ticket online as there’s always an available ticket onsite. You can just arrive at the museum and buy it directly at the ticket booth.
If you want more information about the prison, you can consider buying the brochure for an extra 20k VND. I think it’s well worth it if you really want to dig deep into the history of the prison.
The entry ticket is free for those with severe disabilities, children under 16 years olds, or under 1.3m. You need to show the staff the ID to prove the age for children.
There are 50% discounted ticket options but mostly for Vietnamese people such as old people, students with student cards, and people from remote villages.
After purchasing the entrance ticket, you’ll go past the check point area, then reach the section where the staff will offer an audio tour in popular languages such as English, Vietnamese, French, Korean, Japanese, and Chinse….
If you want to rent the audio guide, you need to pay an extra 50k VND. I skipped this part because I felt that it’s easier to read the information provided in each point inside the museum than listening to the audio.
What to see at Hoa Lo Prison Relic Museum?
The Museum has clear signs along the way to show you where to start and direction to go to the next point. Some rooms have air conditioning, and fans are set in many places to keep you cool.
There are benches to sit along the way as well as a screen to watch the video documentary. You can find toilets, vending machines, and souvenir shops at multiple locations inside the museum.
Room 1: Phu Khanh Village
Hoa Lo Prison was built on the land of Phu Khanh Village, Hanoi. The village is the merger of two villages: Nam Phu and Nguyen Khanh.
The village is known for their traditional ceramic crafts making home appliances such as teapots, kettles, and portable stoves. The village is not only famous in the Thang Long citadel area but also in other areas.
The village was also called Hoa Lo (Hoa means fire, Lo means the oven). After the prison was built, people often referred to it as the Hoa Lo Prison. The name of Hoa Lo Street next to the prison is associated more with the prison than with the original craft.
In 1896, The French colonialists chose Phu Khanh Village to build a prison, the Court, and the Secret Agent Office, to rule and suppress the patriotic and revolutionary movements of the Vietnamese people.
They moved all villages, temples, pagodas, and communal houses to other areas. Some of the pagodas were destroyed.
Hoa Lo prison covers a total land area of 12,908 square meters. It was one of the largest and fortified prisons in Indochina at that time.
Room 2: Cell D, Materials and architecture of the prison
Cell D
This room is Cell D, which is one of the largest cells of Hoa Lo Prison to hold male political prisoners. It had a tiled roof, no ceiling and solid walls painted with black tar to create a cold atmosphere.
The cell was originally built to hold a maximum of just 40, although at one point it housed up to 100 prisoners. It was very hot and stuffy during the summer and felt frozen to the bone in winter.
In this cell, the French colonialists used to detain many revolutionary fighters who later became high-ranking leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party and Vietnamese Government such as Do Muoi, Tran Dang Ninh, Trường Chinh, Lê Duẩn, Nguyễn Văn Cừ.
Despite being subjected to brutal torture, they remained unyielding, secretly organizing struggles within the prison and encouraging each other.
Architecture of Hoa Lo Prison
In room 2, you will see a miniature model of Hoa Lo prison to better understand the structure of the original prison. It covered an area of 12,908 square meters, but two-thirds of the prison had been demolished in 1993 to build the Hanoi Tower and Somerset Grand Hanoi complex.
The prison structures include:
- one building for guarding,
- two buildings for health stations,
- one building for a charity clinic,
- two buildings for detaining suspects (those not yet convicted),
- one for workshops,
- five buildings for detaining convicted prisoners,
- Four solitary confinement cells for death row inmates, dangerous prisoners, and prisoners who violate prison regulations.
Surrounding the prison is a sturdy stone wall, 4 meters high and 0.5 meters thick, topped with broken glass and high-voltage electrical wires to prevent escape. At the base of the wall, inside, is a 2-meter wide sidewalk for guards to patrol the prison grounds.
Four watchtowers stand at the four corners, providing a vantage point for observing the entire area inside the patrol lane and the surrounding perimeter.
The remaining 2,434 square meters were preserved as a historical site and museum to educate visitors about the history and to honor Vietnamese revolutionaries. You can watch the documentary video at this room to learn more about the architecture history of the prison.
The room displays the main gate of the prison. The gate is 2.05m high and 1.14m wide, weighs 1.6 tons, and can be moved on wheels. The locks and material were imported from France.
Within a room, you can see some artifacts such as door latches, bricks, and stones that were used to build the prison. The requirements for construction and materials are very high and extremely strict.
Room 3: Displays artifacts that illustrate the harsh regime of French colonialism
After Cell D room, you’ll see many uniforms that condemned prisoners would have to wear, bearing the initials MC (an abbreviation for Maison Centrale). Those sentenced to death would have their heads shaved and wear this uniform.
There are some items used by prisoners for eating. You can see the wooden container “Lap La”, which had the food for 6 to 10 people sharing. The “Lap La” were always rusty, and the food was of poor quality, yet prisoners had to eat to survive.
This harsh and brutal diet exhausted the prisoners, leading to the deaths of hundreds. To overcome this shortage, the prisoners had to cleverly repurpose items sent in by their families into useful utensils, such as: straight branches of banyan trees or discarded baskets and sieves were made into chopsticks; discarded coconut shells were ground on the cement floor to make bowls and spoons for daily meals.
The room also displays The toilet area was built openly inside the camp, with two metal waste buckets put underneath. Prisoners had to go to the toilet in front of fellow inmates. Prisoners used the toilet to hide secret documents from the guards for training and propagating the revolution’s purpose.
Room 4: Cell E
Cell E was the place to imprison male political prisoners. Prisoners were shackled, eating, drinking on the cement floor and performing personal hygiene right there. Despite its small size, this room sometimes housed up to a thousand people.
The prisoners must do hard labour such as: repairing houses or roads, building dikes, cleaning toilets. If they couldn’t finish the work, they got no food.
The food had bad quality and poor sanitary conditions, many prisoners contracted diseases and were unable to cope with their illnesses. Many of them died before their prison terms expired.
Room 5: Cachot (Dungeon)
Cachot (Dungeon) used to confine prisoners who violated the rules of the prison. Cachot in Hoa Lo was the Hell of hell, the dungeon was dark and narrow.
Prisoners were kept in isolation and were put in shackles and had to eat, sleep and relieve themselves on the spot. All the prisoners confined here often suffer from blurred vision, swollen feet, sores, and exhaustion due to lack of air and starvation.
“In 1932, comrade Truong Chinh (former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam) was imprisoned here after leading political prisoners in organising a meeting in the prison to celebrate the Labor Day May 1”.
Outside area: The tropical Almond tree and the grate of underground drains
Outside in the courtyard, you’ll see the almond tree which was used by Hoa Lo political prisoners from 1930 – 1954. They used almond bark and young leaves to clean the wound and cure dysentery and diarrhea, to clean wounds. Almond branches were used to make penholders, pipes, and flutes.
There are also the two underground tunnels. The underground sewer in the death cell yard was where16 death row prisoners escaped on the night of December 24, 1951. Only five escaped: Vu Duc Chinh, Nguyen Gia Thiet, Vu Dinh Quang, Vu Dinh Khoi, and Nguyen Van Hung. They rejoined the resistance base to continue the struggle.
The Underground sewer in camp J yard was where the more than 100 Hoa Lo political prisoners escaped in the night 11th to 16th of March 1945.
Room 6: The detention area for female prisoners
Although the female’s cells weren’t shackled, they were just as stuffy and uncomfortable as the male’s cells. With an area of approximately 270 square meters, comprising four small cells, it housed up to 300 female prisoners, including children. And they were subjected to the same torture as the male prisoners.
Severe regulations in the prison took the life of many faithful female communist soldiers. They always had solidarity, were faithful to each other in their protest against the regulations of the prison. They also organized classrooms to propagate politics, and culture in order to improve their ability to fight and make contributions to the revolution.
Room 7: The Giant Guillotine
The giant guillotine was considered the most brutal torture device in Indochina. This type of machine caused the sacrifice of many patriotic revolutionary fighters, including Nguyen Thai Hoc, the leader of the Yen Bai uprising.
The guillotine consisted of two 4-meter-high wooden columns, with a sharp blade suspended above. Below were two semicircular planks joined together to hold the condemned prisoner’s head. In front was an iron cage used to collect the head, and next to it was a woven rattan container holding the body.
From 1954 to 1986, this barbaric instrument was continuously moved from one prison to another in North Vietnam. Simultaneously, it claimed the lives of countless Vietnamese Nationalist Party fighters.
Room 8: The Death rows
Death rows were completely isolated from the other cells of Hoa Lo Prison. The cell was built solidly with walls 0.4 meters thick, 3 meters high and the area of each room around 5 square meters.
Both interior and exterior walls were painted with black tar to make people feel cold and gloomy. Prisoners here were shackled all day long, not even freed to use their toilet.
Many comrades such as Tran Dang Ninh, Hoang Van Thu, Truong Chinh, Nguyen Duc Canh… were once imprisoned here.
The Memorial Monument
The next stop is the outside area with exhibits about the Vietnam-American war and the memorial to the revolutionary soldiers who sacrificed their lives to protect the independence and freedom of Vietnam.
Room 9: Life of pilots – American prisoners in Hoa Lo prison 1964 and 1973
Between 1964 and 1973, the United States of America carried out a plan to destroy North Viet Nam by the Air Force and Navy. Thousands aircrafts were shot down and The Hoa Lo Prison was used to detain these pilots and aircraft technicians.
The American prisoners called the prison Hanoi Hilton. You will see the pictures and objects in two rooms displaying the life of American pilots in Hoa Lo prison.
Famous figures held there include Senator John McCain and Douglas Peter Peterson. McCain ran for US president in 2008 and Douglas Peter Peterson was the first US Ambassador to Vietnam after diplomatic relations had been re-established in the mid 1990s.
The second floor floor at Hoa Lo prison
Don’t forget to check out the second floor, where room displaying nameplates of total of 1,670 Vietnamese patriotic and revolutionary fighters were arrested, jailed by French colonialists in Hoa Lo Prison (from 1899 to
1954) . There are more artifacts and a documentary video for you to watch and see on this floor.
Sentry Box
On the way out before the exit area, you can climb up the steel staircase to the top of the sentry box to see both inside prison and outside streets from this point.
The sentry boxes were built at four corners of the prison in 1934. Each box stands 6.5m high, with a tiled roof and barred windows along two sides. They were occupied 24 hours a day by armed guards.
On the night of April 11th, 1950, three prisoners: Nguyen Huy Phach, Hoang Xuan Tue and Tran Ba Biet were undergoing medical treatment at the prison infirmary. After noticing an unguarded sentry box, they cut through the iron bars of the observation window and successfully escaped the prison – Hoa Lo prison.
How long does it take to explore Hoa Lo Prison?
I recommend spending at least 2 hours wandering around the museum to learn about its facts. It’s easy to explore the museum by yourself as there are clear signs along the way showing you where to go next and information boards at each point to explain about each object and event.
You can consider renting the audio and headset for extra 50k VND. It’s also a good idea to take a guided tour to have deeper knowledge but it’s very doable at your own pace. I did not see many people on the tours at Hoa Lo prison.
Facilities at Hoa Lo Museum
At the entrance next to the main gate is the ticket booth, so you can buy direct tickets onsite. After the ticket booth is the ticket checking point, then the room where you can rent audio and headset.
Toilets
There are toilets in multiple locations inside the museum. They are clean with toilet paper inside it.
Vending machines & souvenir shops
There are vending machines in many places throughout the prison. You can buy water, ice cream, and snacks. The souvenir shops within the museum sell traditional Vietnamese souvenirs and books related to Vietnamese history and the prison.
Fans and benches
There are fans and benches set up inside some rooms as well as outside the courtyard where you can take a rest after each exploring.
If you need to choose one museum to visit in Hanoi, I will recommend visiting Hoa Loa prison. Then if you have more time, you can look at the Vietnamese Women museum, Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum, and the Vietnam National Museum of History.