Water puppets!

I've seen performances with finger puppets, sock puppets, marionettes and other sorts of puppets. Until I knew some Vietnamese people I'd never heard of water puppets and I really had no idea what they are. I imagined they would be something similar to the already named varieties dangling over a water stage or with a water stage in the foreground.

When there was an opportunity to go see a water puppet performance I was very excited to go. I expected to be bored, eh just another puppet show, and was very glad to find I enjoyed the whole performance.

There were four short stories played out with different sets of puppets. Each performance lasting 5 to 8 minutes. As you can see in the story posted here it is quite dynamic with a lot of splashing about, hiding and reappearing of puppets and puppets crossing the stage from one side to the other.

I enjoyed the performance quite a lot and being a very concrete thinker also left wondering how the puppets are controlled. They cross from one side of the stage to the other both in front of and behind the other puppets. How's that happen without controls getting crossed? They move long distances side to side pretty rapidly. Water's a high resistance medium. It seems to me it should be very hard to swing a several foot long stick underwater that rapidly. Plus just swinging a stick would mean the end, the puppet, moves in an arc. You'll see the puppets can move in a straight line parallel to the stage front. So in addition to enjoying the performances I also left wondering how exactly the puppets are controlled.

I hope you enjoy the performance I've posted here.

A standard building - narrow and deep

This picture on the right shows clearly the "standard building" form. A standard building is about 5 meters wide at the front. It may be any depth and have any number of floors. The front though is 5 meters. This form is applied everywhere. Even a building on a clear lot or out on a country road will be a long rectangle 5m wide at the front.

I'm told this relates to two things, street addressing and taxes. Wider than 5 meters means the building has more than one address and more than one address means more taxes.

There's probably other reasons as well or maybe entirely different reasons. When I mentioned the taxes reason, given by one of my tour guides, to my finance she disputed it. She didn't have another explanation but didn't believe taxes are a cause for this design.

The drinks, so many to try

One of the enjoyable things being in Vietnam is the very tasty variety of drink options available. There just doesn't seem to be such a variety of choice in the USA. If there this variety it isn't in my area.

You'll see about a month's worth of samples in this collage. If I looked harder I could probably find additional options but they would be things that aren't commonly found in Ho Chi Minh City. I'm going north to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay this week and maybe I'll find some new items there. If I do I'll post an update.

Quite a few of the drinks, like the Aloe and the Bird's Nest, are viscous. And viscous or not many have little gelatin like bits suspended in them. That's an unusual drinking sensation compared to America. There viscous drinks are mostly limited to milk shakes, frappes and smoothies. Drinks with chunks, especially suspended chunks, are not to be found. The closest I can think of is bubble tea with the tapioca balls at the bottom of the glass.

With all the varieties I've tasted so far I can honestly say the only thing I wouldn't, haven't, gone back for more of is the Ginseng drink. Everything else I enjoyed a little or a lot. The Ginseng I didn't like a bit. Not gag me bad but definitely not choosing to drink any more.

...and an update. Nearly forgot these drink tablets! Artichoke flavored effervescent tablets. Drop them in cold water and enjoy your artichoke flavored drink in a few minutes. They appear to be made in Germany, either Munster or Frankfort. Can't read either language on the label, Vietnamese and German, well enough to say for sure. The store package is two tubes of tablets with 20 tablets per tube. I think I've had about 5 tablets so far. I like the taste so I'm sure I'll use all the tablets. Who'd a thought artichoke would be a good drink? Another thing from Vietnam that I'll miss.

Fashionable, NOT !!!

No one's ever accused me of being a "sharp dressed man". And I readily admit my limited sense of what's fashionable. I didn't realize until I was already out and about how poorly I chose on this day.

Huong and I asked a passerby to photograph us while strolling around to look at Tet decorations and sales items. Unlike most who are handed a camera and asked to take a shot you can see this woman framed us very well. And made a record of my fashion choice for the day that is now available for all the world to see.

Maybe better next time?

...and more stuff moves through the streets

Back to the topic of carrying loads around Saigon. This time its carrying big or unwieldy loads on motorbikes and bicycles. When my fiancée visited me in the US over Thanksgiving she gave me the book "Bikes of Burden" packed with photos of overloaded motorbikes. It inspired me to try and get some similar photos and videos for myself. This video is a montage of several overloaded motorbikes and bicycles. Kind of a "flavor" of the typical sights seen while riding around the city.

Many motorbikes at the end of the video are carrying various sorts of plants. Those shots were taken in the days before Tet holiday. It seemed everyone was getting some type of tree, shrub or flower to celebrate Tet. There's also a clip of a family of four on a motorbike. Not a commercial load but still an overloaded bike. And I'm sure there's more motorbikes in the background of the other clips overloaded with people.

Also note the way people dress. Many are fully covered with long sleeves, hoods, gloves and long pants. The daily temperature is about 90°F±! The Vietnamese are protecting themselves from the sun but why they don't get heat stroke in the bargain I can't understand.

Perhaps these clips are not as awe inspiring as the bicycle rider/delivery guy. However this activity goes on morning to night. Like busy ants working tirelessly to support the colony. At some point I might not take notice but for now it continually intrigues me to see all these oversize loads carried on small vehicles crisscrossing the city throughout the day. The motorbikes are typically 105cc I'm told. And of course it's just legs when its a bicycle!

Update: Apparently the typical delivery motorbike is only about 70cc and a decade or two old. The 105cc bikes belong to people better off than the delivery drivers.

More Tet

One of the things that happens during Tet is lots of people head back home to visit family and friends for about a week. For most home isn't Ho Chi Minh City. So the city gets a bit empty and quiet compared to the rest of the time. Nearly all shops and restaurants are closed. Crossing the street is no where near the thrill it is on a regular day. You can even be out on the street for 30 seconds or a minute without seeing a taxi.

It's an enjoyable calm that settles over the city.

The people left in HCM  spend their time visiting, eating and gifting each other with lucky money. The visiting and eating remind me a lot of the Thanksgiving to New Year's holiday season back in the US. Lots of visiting and way too much eating. Here's a little evidence of the visiting and eating.

On two successive days Huong had visitors in her apartment and served everyone dinner. Since there were more people than could fit at the table we all sat on the floor. Lucky for me I'm still flexible enough to be able to sit on the floor with legs crossed in front of me. It was a bit of a stretch but the company and the food made it all worthwhile. It was clear to me everyone was enjoying themselves.


The lucky money gifting is a bit like Christmas because of the gift giving. Different though because the gift is always the same. A red envelope with some small amount of money in it. The emphasis in giving the gift is to wish the person well for the new year and not the amount of money in the envelope. From what I saw the lucky money is usually given only to children and the family patriarch or matriarch. Though there is also some lucky money exchanged between friends.

Ice Skating in Ho Chi Minh

Turns out not really. The link I found said it closed. My fiancee called and found that it is open. So we headed out with her two girls to give it a try.

The linked article says the rink is kept at "180C". Since that's well over boiling I figured it's a error and really the place is kept at 18°C. That's a much more comfortable 64°F. The thought of spending some time indoors at that temperature after nearly a month mostly above 90°F really was appealing to me.

We got there and it didn't seem to me to be air conditioned at all, bummer. The last few days have been really comfortable though, mid 80's, so I wasn't roasting on the rink.

Turns out it isn't an ice rink at all. That's a disappointment. I was looking forward to skating on some real ice. This is some kind of synthetic material almost like a nylon cutting board.

We rented skates for the four of us and had a good time. Huong and her girls tried to glide around. They all started by holding onto the barrier along the side. Eventually they all let go and were going around on their own, more like walking than gliding though.


For myself I was able to skate with some difficulty. The surface friction seemed to change a bit from place to place on the "ice" and the different parts of the skates' blades grabbed the surface differently. So I was able to skate but it was a kind of herky jerky motion.

That's okay though. We all had fun. Though I've never before perspired so much when skating!