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Our final overnight train brought us up to the capital city of Hanoi. This one took us 16 hours, so needless to say we were very happy to arrive in Hanoi. We took a taxi to a hotel in the old quarter and settled in. We are definitely back in the city again and the motorbikes are in full effect! We took a walk around the old neighborhoods and the city's Hoan Kiem lake, and got acquainted with our surroundings. The old quarter is quite busy and vendor's goods spill out onto the narrow streets. The streets are organized by the different goods that are sold there. For instance there is one street for spices, one for towels, one for metal goods and so on...
The night before we left for Halong Bay we checked out the water puppet theater. This is a Northern Vietnam original art form in which the puppeteers are waist deep in water and control the puppets from behiend a bamboo curtain. Water puppeteering was developed by farmers in the rice fields. The performances are of everyday Vietnamese themes - fishing, harvest, swimming, ancestors etc... The accompanying traditional folk music is as big a part
of the performance. It was a really cool experience and a unique form of entertainment.
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John Castanon
non-member comment
You guys
What a beautiful little girl. Would be nice to see how she does every 5 yrs or so. Water puppets, the coolest!! Never heard of that before!