Day 16 (Part 2) - Back In Hanoi For Water Puppets & Bia Hoi

Before we left for our tour of Halong Bay, on the morning we were waiting for our ride to show up, we asked one of the ladies at the desk of the Hanoi Elegance 2 if she could get us tickets to a performance at the Water Puppet Theatre for the day we returned. She said she would look into it and asked what performance times we wanted (she said we needed to have more than one choice in case it was sold out, there are several shows a night) then we were on our way to Halong Bay.

I had pretty much forgotten about that by the time we got back. When we walked in the front door to the hotel we were welcomed back warmly by the staff, asked how we like Halong and the same desk person we asked about the tickets told us she got them for the 6:30 show.

I'm telling you, if you ever get a chance to go to Hanoi I can't stress enough that you should stay at Hanoi Elegance 2. I really don't think I've ever had a better hotel experience.

So off to the Municipal Water Puppet Theatre we went.

It is really hard to explain the water puppet show except to state the obvious that it is puppets in water. Instead of above or below running the puppets, the puppeteers control them from behind a screen with the puppets on the end of long poles. It really is quite fascinating to see.

The show had no translation so it was only in Vietnamese. But with a program that described what each scene was about, mostly Vietnamese folklore and mythology, it was pretty riveting without knowing what anyone was saying. I didn't even come close to loving it as much as my wife did. We bought a DVD and a soundtrack CD.

We didn't get any pictures during the performance because, well, we hate people that do that. But we got a shot of the stage before the show started.



They also sell replicas of the water puppets at shops around the theatre so you can see what they look like.




No, the cat was not part of the show. Just a shop kitty posing perfectly for a picture.

After the show we had dinner once again at the Indian restaurant Tandoor which, if you are a vegetarian looking for a safe choice in Hanoi or just having a hankering for Indian food while traveling in Vietnam, for my money was a great place for some good grub.

After dinner I had one more thing I wanted to check out in Hanoi, this being our last night in town. I had read about a local brew called known as bia hoi that I wanted to try. Bia hoi supposedly translates as fresh beer and is a Pilsener brewed without preservatives and meant to be drank the same day it is made. I had to try some.

There are several places in the Old Quarter where they serve it. We went and found one intersection that had bia hoi bars on three of the corners. And by bar I mean a collection of little plastic tables and chairs on a sidewalk with a couple of kegs.

So we grabbed seats and I got a glass of bia hoi. As we sat there watching the street scene and the woman and her sons work the bar (they seemed to serve mixed drinks as well) we couldn't help but notice how this little operation wouldn't be legal at home in just about any way. Pretty much everything about it would be some sort of code violation; the woman dunked the glasses in a bucket next to her stool to clean them, her teenage sons were the servers and we were sitting on a public sidewalk.



I had a couple of them at a cost of 2000d, or about 13 cents a glass! The beer was pretty good and I could probably even drink Coors Light at 13 cents a glass. Well, that's not true. I doubt I could choke down Coors Light even if it was free.

There's a good chance I would have spent the whole night there in my younger, unmarried days.




Next - Last day in Vietnam and the long trek home

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