Water Puppets

Well, we were bored. So why not go to a water puppet show?

The first time I saw this was 2.5 years ago in Hanoi. This was exactly the same show in every detail. The stage, for no apparent reason, is a tub of very dirty-looking water. The puppets are beautiful lacquered machines--they don't exactly compete with today's 3-D entertainment, but they must have been cutting-edge tech in their time. The show is introduced by a simple boy puppet chatting with the musicians in Vietnamese--not very reassuring to the foreigner. But the following scenes are generally written to show off a puppet that can swim or dance or squirt water.

Belly Blues

Sometimes you just have to spend $35 on dinner. We came to the Intercontinental Hotel for some painful money extraction. The question "was it worth it?" keeps popping up. A quick look at the spread makes it seem like it is.

My first plate held more food than I've seen in months--mashed potatoes, always a nostalgic treat; some salmon, rare in Vietnam; a really tasty pork rib; a tekamaki for sushi lightweights; what unfortunately turned out to be lamb, never easy on my stomach.

There's so much amazing crab in Vietnam. Don't know how long the ecology will last, but it is nice to not be in the same room as fake crab-sticks. Unfortunately the guts were really sour and spoiled the lump meat, but that's a pretty meaty claw.

Little spiny lobsters. A couple of these really makes the price worth-while.

The desserts really stole the show.

This was amazing, like something out of Willy Wonka. Very hard not to just stick my face into a never-ending chocolate fountain.

The selection was mind-boggling. Every morsel was a piece of art yet tasted spectacular. I tried to have one of everything. I rolled out of there like a stuffed goose and spent the next day bent over in agony, crouched forehead-against-floor. Worth it? Hard to tell.