My last stop in Vietnam
Trip Start
May 06, 2007
1
155
166
Trip End
Jul 24, 2008
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Friday, June 13, 2008
I did manage to make it out for a bit of sightseeing though. I went to a water puppet show which was really interesting. Water puppets are a form of theater unique to Vietnam. They've been around since the tenth century when villagers would entertain each other during the rainy season when the rice fields would overflow and flood the villages. It became like a sport where villages would try to one up each other, vying to have the best water puppetry. The art of working the water puppets became so secretive that they wouldn't allow women to learn for fear that they would marry outside the village and teach their skills to their new village. The show was really nice. It was accompanied by live music. The puppeteers stood behind the set in water that was almost waist deep moving the puppets with large rods so that they appear to be gliding on the water.
I also took another cooking class. This one was entirely vegetarian and I was the only student. While the market tour portion of the class was the weakest market tour I've been on thus far, the class itself was great. Obviously I got a lot of individual attention, with the chef even trying to teach me the correct chopping technique. One of the dishes used mock chicken and it was really interesting to see it in its package, molded into the shape of half a chicken.
On my last day in Hanoi I visited the Prison Museum which is located in what used to be the Hoa Lo Prison, aka the Hanoi Hilton. It was originally used by the French to imprison Vietnamese political prisoners. Later during the Vietnam War it was used to imprison US POWs. This was where John McCain spent over 5 years as a POW. The museum itself was rather interesting in how it interpreted the treatment of the different prisoners. The areas of the museum showing how the French treated the Vietnamese focused on torture and maltreatment, showing horrific pictures of the state of the prisoners there. When I climbed the stairs to the upper level detailing the North Vietnamese imprisonment of US POWs I almost thought I was looking at pictures of a summer camp. They showed the American prisoners decorating for Christmas and playing basketball in the yard. Every picture involved lots of smiling faces. I'm sure there was no propaganda involved here and that this was a completely factual depiction.
