Hanoi
Trip Start
Dec 29, 2007
1
77
82
Trip End
Dec 12, 2008
Hanoi, Vietnam
Monday, December 1, 2008
The night bus was really comfortable but after all the coffee I couldn't sleep. I got chatting to a friendly Vietnamese Easy Rider, Nam, who was on his way up to Hanoi to collect his next tour group. He couldn't sleep either so we spent most of the night silently 'chatting' by passing messages on our phones.
Once we were in Hanoi Nam introduced us to some of his friends. I preferred to spend time with new Vietnamese friends rather than just going to see the tourist sites
From the bus
. On our first night we were taken to a party held for a one-month-old baby's birth. We were told beforehand to bring an envelope with some money in to give to the baby's parents, and lots of people had brought gifts of toys and clothes. We had a huge, delicious meal and I surprised myself once again by enjoying all the seafood. After the party I stopped off with Nam for an ice-cream by the side of a busy road in central Hanoi, and enjoyed some late-night people-watching.We also went to see a water puppet show. The theater's stage is a pool and the water puppets are operated by puppeteers sitting in the water behind a curtain. I had no idea what to expect but it was such good fun. It didn't matter at all that we couldn't understand any of the words, because the 'stories' were short and simple. I loved the humour as well as the beauty of it all; the water puppet company has travelled internationally and I really hope they come to London so that I can drag all my friends and family off to see them. That said, I don't know if some of the magic would be lost outside of Hanoi.
