Hanoi: Puppets and Two Dead Men
Friday, April 6th, 200723 March 2007
After a twelve hour night train fom Hue to Hanoi we checked into our hotel in Hanoi’s Old Quarter and caught up with some much needed sleep. We spent our first day doing what we usually do when we arrve in a new city – walking aroud and getting our bearings.
Street Food – Hanoi Style
At the end of a long day walking around the various roads and lanes which each seem to sell a different type of product, ie. the washing powder street, the sunglasses street etc etc, stopping for beer and smoothie breaks and generally watching the world go by, we ended up at Hoan Kiem Lake which is where the nightly water puppets shows are held.
Chris by the lake
Moto Mayhem
Family of five on Moto
We were not really that bothered about seeing the water puppets, but as it is an ancient Vietnamese Art which dates bck to the 10th Century and seeing as we were in the area we joined the queue. We eventually made it to the front to find the tickets were sold out but a tout came to our rescue and sold us two tickets at face value …where was the catch? Well it became evident when we took our seats; me in row B and Chris is row E, that they were the last tickets of the day.
The water puppetry is performed in a pool of water with the water surface being the stage. The puppeteers, who train for approximately 3 years, stand behind a screen and control the puppets using long bamboo rods and string mechanism hidden beneath the water surface. The puppets are carved out of wood and often weigh up to 15 kg. A traditional Vietnamese orchestra provides background music accompaniment. Singers of Cheo (a form of opera) sing songs which tell the story being acted out by the puppets.
The puppeteers
The show was entertaining, even if we could not understand the commentary, moving fast enough to hold our limited attention spans. Each scene was a short skit which covered farming, fishing, swimming and a number of other activities. I think we both ended up surprised by how much we enjoyed the hour show and felt we had well and truly ‘got our moneys worth’.
Also on our agenda whilst staying in Hanoi was a visit to see Ho Chi Minh at the Mausoleum. We dressed appropriately the next morning (no shorts and no sandals) and headed out on the walk across the city to the Mausoleum only to find we had well and truly mis-timed our visit and the place was shut for the day (strangeley the place shuts at 11am on the days when it is actually open). Disapointed our trek had been in vain and we didn’t get to see the preserved body of the former Communist dictator we commandeered a cyclo to take us back to our hotel.
On our way back we were slowly chugging along (speed is not something that can be expected when some poor Vietnamese guy who could only be weighing in at 10 stones max is having to power himself and us two heavy weights along) when we noticed a small crowd of people staring at something on the road. As we passed by we found out they were staring at the body of a young man (maybe in his thirties) lying in the road. Our cyclo driver said he was sleeping but having seen the man’s grey face and no signs of breathing we questioned this only for the driver to reply ‘Mafia’ ….’Opium’. Disturbed by the sight we continued back to our hotel having been disapointed not to see the dead man we had set out to see and disturbed to see another.
Chris and Charl