Wednesday - gallery and water puppets

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In the morning I decided I was going to head out and see some sights and have a wander round the city. I headed down for breakfast over to the other building. There was always a choice of two options each day Baguette with jam and butter and may be omelette or noodles!



After breakfast I got myself sorted and was just at reception when I noticed a girl who looked to be on her own and was asking about buses, maps etc and had her trusty copy of the lonely planet in her hand. We both left the building around the same time so I struck up a conversation with her. It turned out we were both single travellers, but she was far more organised than I was and had formulated a plan to walk round and see some of the city tourist attractions. I asked her if was ok to join her as we were on our own and introduced ourselves, her name is Ellie and she is from Eastbourne. She had been travelling with her boyfriend be was heading back to the UK for awhile and she was carrying on travelling alone for a while.



So we chatted and got to know each other and headed for the art gallery which I had seen in the map and was interested in seeing. With Ellie's trusty lonely plant and excellent navigation skills we found the art gallery. There was a small entrance fee and we were allowed to take photos but no flash. The museum is housed in an old colonial style building over 3 floors and has many of the original architectural features including wrought iron railings, ship utter windows and mosaic tiled floors.



It was very interesting and housed many different kinds of paintings, drawings and sculptures, ceramics, metal and wood work carvings and pottery over a number a number of decades. including an exhibition very old religious artifices. We skipped this last exhibition as they were similar to artefacts we had both already seen in museums in other cities and countries.



After the gallery we had some food at a local Vietnamese restaurant. Ellie decided she wanted to carry on walking and I headed back to the hostel. I had mentioned that I was off to see the water puppet snow that evening and she decided she would like to come too, so when I got back to the hostel I sorted out the extra ticket with the reception.



We met later and walked to the theatre which again thanks to the LP and Ellie's skills we found easily. The front ofvthecteatre was all lit up and had large versions of some of the puppets outside. We exchanged the voucher for our tickets and were shown to our seats by people who were dressed in traditional Asia costumes. We had great seats on the second row and ere allowed to take photos but couldn't use the flash.



When the curtain went back we could see I the musicians seated in each side of the water and the set. They had traditional musical instruments. The music started and out puppets which were being controlled by the puppeteers hidden behind the back drop. The musicians played their instruments, sang and provided the voices of the puppets in the story. We of course had no idea what they were saying but we got the gist. The performance was about 40 minutes long and we were very impressed with how the puppets moved and were operated and how colourful and intricate they were. The show is based in a traditional Vietnamese story which has been told for hundreds of years. The show had been performed all around the world at various puppet conventions and exhibitions etc.



After the show we walked back and got some food and then arranged to meet the next day for some more sightseeing



Xxx

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