Vietnam Vacation: People on the Move, Where Baby Puppets Come From, and other adventures

Exactly 2 months after we arrived in Shanghai, we set off on our first vacation. Destination: Vietnam. It was a last minute trip resulting from both need for a break and opportunity (US out for Memorial Day)! Vietnam was chosen based on a past trip Lila made and that several of our friends love it here.

We arrived Friday afternoon in Hanoi -- population of 4.5M people and at least 3M mopeds! After 2 days here, the best description we have is that Hanoi is a city on the move. There is constant motion, and feels far more active than Shanghai.

Upon arrival, Lila “forced child culture” on Karl by insisting they go to the famous water puppet show. It’s a charming tourist trap and well worth the $3.50 for the hour performance. With live traditional music, very artistic puppeteers controlled the puppets with bamboo cane from under the water & behind the stage. Sound confusing?! It was! The highlight was the phoenix bird puppets who joined together momentarily before we realized they were actually reproducing. Out popped an egg puppet followed by a baby puppet. Not sure this qualified as G rated. We left the theatre to seek out dinner but were quickly confused by the poor maps. Fortunately a drunk bicycle taxi driver “helped” us. He led us on a 30 minute adventure in the front seat of the bicycle rickshaw. It was an exciting way to get indoctrinated into Hanoi’s traffic chaos (imagine bees – on bikes, in cars, in rickshaws, on mopeds- swarming a beehive). Dinner was at the very lovely Wild Lotus where we had an 8-dish set menu and bottle of wine for a mere $50 total in a very beautiful setting.

Saturday we spent 8 hours walking around Hanoi’s Old Quarter. Some highlights:
* The architecture is gorgeous. A lot of brightly colored, narrow and tall, French style building fronts. For ~80 years, Vietnam was a French colony and still has strong French influences.
* There really aren’t that many foreigners, and very few Americans. We’ve seen/heard a lot of French, Canadians, Australians, and Japanese. Interesting to note that the US dollar is accepted everywhere, in addition to local currency. We wonder how the foreign visitors are doing converting US dollars to their local currency in the price negotiations.
* There were 24 official stops according to the Frommers guide, but we mostly enjoyed the bargain basement shopping. Vietnam’s art, lacquer, and clothing options were all outstanding!
* A lot of farmer merchants actually wear the pointed cylindrical, woven hats and carry a pole on their shoulder balancing 2 extremely heavy baskets.
* Crossing the street is like a game of Frogger (lila translation of Karl’s video game reference: makes Purdue jaywalking seem like child’s play). There are no lights, lots of 2 & 4 wheeled vehicles, and no breaks. Karl was initially timid, while Lila embraced the challenge. It all changed when lila declared, “Follow-me! Follow-me!” Then BAM! A moped lightly ran into her. No injuries, just ego. Karl didn’t need Lila any longer to cross the street.
* There are “Reproduction Art Shops” everywhere – which do a great reproduction of oil paintings by famous artists. Example: a real painting by a high end Vietnamese artist is US $2,000 but a knock-off version is $20. They seem to have mastered the western artists much better than up& coming Vietnamese. Van Gogh for 20$ anyone?
* Streets are named after their original goods sold. Bamboo Street, for example, sells bamboo used for construction, decoration, and smoking pipes. Our route took us through door knob/lock street, shoe street, etc.
* There were people everywhere. No one seemed to be inside, except at internet cafes. It appears the favorite pastime is sitting at an outdoor restaurant eating with your friends.
* Local food is cheap! Lunch consisted of 2 noodle bowls with delicious toppings and 2 beers for a whopping $5.
* The President of Rwanda happens to be in Vietnam and staying at the same hotel. Lila feels like she's back on a geo trip with Craig - pointing out security and staffers. She met President Kagame in Rwanda last year, but didn't have guts to seek him out in Vietnam!
* We finished the day with dinner at the Green Tangerine, in honor of Melissa’s birthday. It’s a great French restaurant where Karl enjoyed green tea encrusted duck breast with lychee and Lila had a fabulous 3 rice seafood paella.