inconsistent news from southeast asia

Alright, so the last one was vietnam, too. Today is Nov. 11 and i'm going to skip over some of the last days because I have to and because we spent quite a few doing very little..

Don't worry, noel. we're eating lots of tasty, cheap pho.

Nov. 7 we went to see Lenin park. There was a small admission fee, it was deserted and all the rides were turned off. There was also a gutted bathroom building that has been taken over by junkies and is strewn with syringes (yes, i got pictures, but catherine doubts their worthiness). Lenin would be proud.

Nov. 8 saw us visiting the women's museum and the prison museum. I hate to say it, but the women's museum didn't manage to be all that interesting. Lots on women in the wars here and some displays of the traditional dress of some of the many ethnic minorities in the area.

The prison museum was far more interesting. It is housed in what used to be the Hoa Lo prison, used for punishing rebels during french rule here and later for holding american pilots shot down over Vietnam.

In the evening on the 7th, we went to see water puppetry at the theatre here. No, i'd never heard of it either, but apparently it's an ancient art form thought up by bored farmers in rice fields. It was pretty entertaining, but i thought the music was more impressive than the puppets themselves. They're operated from behind the backdrop and underneath the water, so their motions are fairly crude and frankly, sort of funny.

The 10th, we went to see the Temple of Literature and it was, again, fairly similar to many things we've seen before. I don't know much about the history, either, (and the signs were less than informative) so perhaps that's why i didn't find it too absorbing. Nice grounds for a university, though.