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right, i've been in vietnam for about two weeks now, and haven't written about any of it because i've been having such an amazing time!!! we started off in the southern city of ho chi minh, which was really westernised as they're trying to make it into a financial capital like singapore or kuala lumpar or that's what they say anyway! we managed to find our way out of the highly polished touristy end and into chinatown, which was a lot more realistic - lots of stalls selling very smelly, totally unidentifialbe foods (apparently) and tangles of streets full of old women wearing conical straw hats and carrying a couple of stoves on attached to a piece of wood by some string - difficult to explain - i'll have to try again with putting the photos on here!
After ho chi minh we spent a few days lazing around on the beach in nha trang, part way up the coast which was full of western backpackers going up or down the coast, so that was good for a few tips about what to do! From there we made our way up the coast to the little town of Hoi an which was beautiful, built almost entirely in the french colonial style and painted faded yellow. we arrived at 7 in the morning so went for a stroll in search of breakfast and realised after a few streets that there were speakers on every street corner playing classical piano, sounded like chopin to me, or similar! most peculiar but really nice as it fitted in well with the sleepy - town image! we spent a few days there wandering around the tailors, some of whom are very helpful and get the clothes spot on straight away, and some of whom try to fob you off with clothes that are rubbish because they can't be bothered to alter them - but we weren't having any of that!
from hoi an we moved on to hanoi, (very confusing all these names being the same but the other way round) which is the capital, and the most northern city. it's slightly more relaxed than ho chi minh but that's mainly because ho chi minh operates like it's the end of the world all the time, so it's nice to take it slightly slower and explore the streets full of market stalls and souvenir shows selling water puppets, which leads me to.....the amazing water puppet show we went to last night! the stage is a big pond and from behind a curtain 7 puppetters operate various puppets on sticks below the water. the puppets themselves range from people to fairies to dragons to their version of unicorns which look like chinese dragons, to peacocks to fish and fishermen, etc etc. the show consists of about 12 little sketches where boat races take place, farmers on buffalos play the flute whilst farming rice in boggy fields, dragons play ball, and fairies dance. it was brilliant, so today we're going to find some dragon puppets from the markets as you can buy them for about 5 dollars, although hopefully we'll be able to get them cheaper as all the shops expect you to bargain with them which is strange!
anway, must dash, off on 4 day trek into mountains today to visit the hmong people and various 'enthic minority villages' which sounds very exciting, so till next time, goodbye!!
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