There is something innately creepy about puppets

After some protracted blogging, it was time to go to the water puppet show. This required a 10 minute taxi ride, which cost us a princely 10,000 dong each (ie 30 pence). What a rip off! 

The auditorium was fairly posh, with marble pillars, and royal purple seats which were very comfy. The leg room wasn't up to much though, I had my knees against the seat in from, never mind 6 foot 5 Dave, who I can only assume is a part time contortionist. 

Don't try and jump on the stage for a photo, it's made of water

The show was accompanied by an array of traditional Vietnamese instruments; a flute type thing, drum, cymbals, and something called a one string fiddle, which is like a board with a stick stuck in and one string (yup, you guessed it), and is operated by some combination of wiggling and twisting the stick. A woman did some yodelling in Vietnamese over the top. All very atmospheric. The only problem was that the music was rhythmic and slow, and the room was dark, and all this taken together with my minimal sleep over the last few days had me falling asleep. I managed to hang tough, but some others weren't so hardcore. 2 kids in front, and one grown man behind succumbed.

Otherwise it was probably a bit better than I expected. In Indonesia I had experience with this sort of cultural performance with their 'Rama and Sita' ballet, and wasn't particularly impressed: when the whole thing is in another language it leaves you pretty lost, and there is only so much marvelling at skill and dexterity you can do over the course of an hour or 2. Luckily this was light on the dialogue, and from my judgement fairly bereft of meaning, in any language.

First there was some sort of intro I'm Vietnamese by what I think was supposed to be a little girl puppet. I don't know if she was supposed to be terrifying, but she will certainly be haunting my nightmares. Aside from a rictus grin, one of her fingers eternally points directly to the fear centre of your brain when that hand is raised (her arms moved independently of one another, but with no joint except the shoulder, which is way creepier than regular arms). Judging by my instinctive reaction to this abomination I have concluded that little girl puppets are a natural predator of humankind. I also think this was some sort of ploy to make all the other puppets seem non-threatening, as she didn't make a repeat appearance, for which everyone was very grateful.

Do not turn your back on her if you like your face on your face

The rest of the play was much more inventive than I was expecting. The dragons shot fireworks from their mouths, and somehow these didn't go out underwater, 2 dog puppets knocked a ball puppet back and forth, and there was a comedic interlude involving a cat stealing a duck from some people and being chased, followed by some fish toying with some fishermen.

They must be related to that unicorn

I thought phoenixes wouldn't like water

Keeping his ducks in a line

Surprisingly, it seemed quite difficult to catch a fish by leaping at it with a basket. If only there was some sort of rod he could use...

Afterwards, most of us went to a restaurant Ngyuen recommended. I got a local specialty, Hanoi fish, which turned out to be very similar to the make your own rolls we had yesterday. I used chopsticks to move the things onto the rice paper (which was what I rolled everything up in), and everyone marvelled at my chopstick skills. That's what you get when you've been to Japan! The whole meal, including 2 500ml bottles of beer, and s chocolate crepe for dessert cost 196,000 dong (about £6). I could get used to these prices.

Could've used a bigger table really

Also, I didn't mention it before, but I am now a millionaire.

Probably not the best kind of millionaire

I would like to put more into this post, but tomorrow we go to halong bay, and I don't think the boat we are staying on will have wifi, so I figured I'd best get this one out sharpish.