Splashing fish and smiling faces

Hanoi's delightful Water Puppets (at the Water Puppet Theatre) stand as proof of the simple and timeless appeal of folk arts. (Spend some time watching the videos linked below. They tell you more than what you read)..

Delightful snippets from rural life are enacted through crude, colourful but efficient puppets operated from behind a screen.The whole show is played out in a pool of scum green (what looks like) water set amidst a kitschy ornate set. So there is plenty of splashing, slap stick humour (we gathered), action and drama, all accompanied by an equally charming orchestra of folk instruments.


Fish splosh around while fishermen try to trap them in their baskets, fire breathing dragons skittle on water spewing tons of smoke and firecrackers, departed sons of the village return to an emotional welcome ...its all happening here.

And for a whole hour you jive to the simple pastoral tunes of rural Vietnam,evoking visions of swaying green rice fields and straw hats, live their common tales and all the while wish from the bottom of your heart that someday a huge wave of Vietnam's economic 'success story' doesnt wash away all that innocence...






One whole dimension of travel - food - normally shows up as a big gaping hole for vegetarians like us. Food, an organic part of the local culture and milieu is sadly lost on us, but we hope that our eager curiosity about everything else somehow makes up for it. So the Vietnamese pho and bun ca was just something we read about but never tasted. And the Vietnamese love for dog meat will always come in the way of my total embracing of the Vietnamese and their way of life. Having said that, Hanoi to our surprise, was a huge delight when it came to vegetarian food. Hanoi's Old Quarter is abound with a surprising number of cafes that proudly highlight a vegetarian menu or some all-vegetarian cafes.



Of all the eateries we ate in KOTO got to be my favourite. Run by an Australian NGO (Know One Teach One) it trains street kids or kids from underpriveleged backgrounds and runs the eatery with the help of their vocational skills. From the kitchen to waiting tables its all done by these children. Conceptually powerful. And the final outcome we were happy to note was utterly fantastic. Delicious food , pleasant smiling faces and that warm fuzzy feeling.