A Water Puppet Evening!

How many of you have taken the time to enjoy the movie "Traveler's Guide to Love" on Netflix?

We are visiting so many of the spots shown in the Hanoi portion of that movie - and it is so fun that I saw the movie only a week ago.

Schmaltzy in a Hallmark kind of way?  Yes!  But I enjoyed it for my first touristy look at this beautiful country and a week later - I'm standing here.

I'm still pinching myself!

That - and trying to get my body on some sort of non-upside-down rhythm.  

I'm heading to bed in a few minutes so I thought I would shoot this out there while my eyeballs are still cooperating.

The little theater is quite the tourist magnet!

Water puppetry is a tradition that dates back as far as the 11th century when it originated in the villages of the Red River Delta area of northern Vietnam. Today's Vietnamese water puppetry is a unique variation on the ancient Asian puppet tradition.

The puppets are made out of wood and then lacquered. The shows are performed in a waist-deep pool. A large bamboo rod supports the puppet under the water and is used by the puppeteers, who are normally hidden behind a screen, to control them. Thus the puppets appear to be moving over the water. When the rice fields would flood, the villagers would entertain each other using this form of puppet play. [source]

It was so fun to watch, and a great way to introduce ourselves to the amazing history and music in Vietnam.

And yes - there is a little video - turn your sound down just a bit - It's not exactly a lullaby.  LOL!

Click to Play:

I have taken likely 200 photos already.  It will be a while before I've gone through them all and have the ability and time to post them - I know this is a short post, but we've had a really full day - there will be more to come!

Hotel L'Opera, Hanoi!

Something I didn't know is that Vietnam was occupied by the French in the late 1800s - early 1900s.  There is a lot of French arcitecture here that I completely didn't expect!

Our Hotel is beautiful, and comfy and quiet after a day on the crazy streets seeing all of the sights.

Home sweet home for the first 2 nights -

All the comforts of home and better wifi than I have at the inn.  LOL! No joking - it's lightning fast and there is not even a login or password required.

Floral "Bear skin" rug.

Interesting!

My room is on the 6th floor - the swimming pool is on the 3rd.  There are these "rattan" balls suspended in the air all the way down, and they have twinkle lights at night.  Yes, my blinds are tightly closed, I need complete dark to sleep!

Bathroom -

Those floor tiles are iridescent!

Pretty swanky, eh?

There are more posts to come as I have a chance - Today we went to the Temple of Literature (Confucius) and a cultural center/museum to learn more about the history and different groups of people in Vietnam.

Lunch was another 10 course affair at a cooking school and SO GOOD!

There is so much more, but right now I need sleep.

Tomorrow we have a 5 hour bus ride to our next location where we will be for a couple of nights -

I'll touch back when I can!