Hanoi, Vietnam: Liam and Gracie Blog about Puppets and Trains

Hanoi, Vietnam

Vietnamese Water Puppetry. Who would have guessed? All the mechanisms to control these large and elaborate puppets are disguised by the brown water.

A long good-bye.

26 June was our last day with Karen and Lauryn. We have been traveling together since Siem Reap. It was great to be able to meet Anita's sister and our niece here on the far side of the world. The kids competed incessantly for Lauryn's attention (see Lauryn's blog entry where she hints at this), and it was hard to say good-bye. Safe travels, Karen & Lauryn! We hope you had a good time hanging with us in S.E. Asia.

27 June in Saigon, HCMC, Vietnam

Liam's Blog. We get up and go to breakfast where we talk about the Vietnamese war. Here in Vietnam they call it the American war. I think this is one of America’s most stupid moves because Hochimin the leader of north Vietnamese side asked America for help. But Hochimin was fighting for freedom against France because France had colonized there. America was afraid that Hochimin was a communist and that if Vietnam became communist all of Asia and then the whole world would become communist. And also because America and France were allies in World War II. So they declined the offer and joined South Vietnam but in the end America had to withdraw from the war and Hochimin took victory. After that we went to the Reunification Palace -- that was like the White House of the south Vietnamese side. We learned about how the war ended after the Americans left. We also went swimming that afternoon. P.S. this is the longest day only because I wrote about the Vietnamese war.

Selfie in front of the iconic tank that broke into the
royal palace during the surrender of Saigon.

Gracie's Blog. Last night we went to a water puppet show. There were a bunch of little stories in a 1 hour show. Me and Dad and the rest of the family were puzzled how they made the puppets show up in the water. There were three people on each side of the stage. They were not in the water. They were playing all the instruments and making all the cool noises. And the stage was like a pool of water with a house behind it that was like a Chinese/Vietnamese house. The water was the same color as the Mekong River that we sailed on to get to Vietnam.

Two of my favorite little stories in there were called the Fairy Dance and Boat Racing. For the Fairy Dance, there were these two puppets that were the king and queen fairies. Their wings were attached to their upper arms and waist and they danced and twirled in the water. Their wings were shiny and it looked beautiful when they danced and twirled in the water. There were a bunch of other fairies that were their daughters dancing and twirling with them. My favorite part about the Boat Racing was that all the little people that were paddling were in two rows and one person was in the back. They were all attached to each other. There were three boats -- red, green and yellow. And the way that the people made them move – well, I don’t know how they did it, but it was very interesting and funny. J

28 June, Train North

Liam's Blog. Up really early and pack for 30 hr. train ride we get to station leave and wait it really sucks because there is no Wi-Fi or plugs for charging. L L L L L L    L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L Really annoying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! P.S Do not laugh. Or I get mad tee he

Gracie’s Blog. Today we needed to go to a train from South Vietnam to North Vietnam . So this morning we woke up at 5:00. Oh no, we were late. But luckily, it didn’t leave. Mom was really worried. We were too, but we kept it inside. We packed up really, really, really fast. Then after we were done packing, we went down to the lobby and the people who worked at the hotel made us breakfast because we couldn’t have breakfast at the hotel or the train. So then after we grabbed our breakfast we waited for a taxi and then one came for us. We put our bags into the taxi and went into the car and drove to the train station. When we got the train station, we got out, paid the taxi person and then went inside and got on our train, and then I went to sleep right away when we got to our bed.

The train that we were on had beds that were 3 levels, a bottom bed, a middle bed and a top bed. Mom and me and Liam were in the same compartment. Dad and Carrie were in the last compartment in the train car. Then, after my nap, me, Carrie and Liam and Mom went to look around to see if there’s a dining car. But bad news. There’s not one. L That’s why I had so much time to write this awesome blog. J J

Double bunked, space pod A/C super bussing. Plus V-pop!

Angus' Blog. You simply can’t get to the tundra if you’re heading in the wrong direction. Sailing down the Mekong is one thing, but every rice paddy, bamboo dock and concrete stilted house took us further from our final destination. We finally turned the trajectory around a couple of days ago when we caught a sleeper bus from Chau Doc to Ho Chi Minh City.  A ride through the Mekong Delta on a bus, instead of a boat, involves 1 bus ferry, 2 levels of pod-like beds, 3 DVD’s of staged Vietnamese pop songs played on a distant screen and an overhead speaker, and a whole lot of honking at the lesser traffic. This was a bus the nature of which I have never seen before. From the outside it looked like an upscale shiny A/C bus you see in many countries. It would not have been out of place in North America. But the changes strike you when you first enter and you’re handed a plastic bag for your shoes. That’s a not-so-subtle way to remind you to remove your shoes. Next you have to chose either the right or left isles that separate three rows of sleeper pod-like seats. These are not well-bred seats. They’re the love child of a hammock and a bunk bed mated with a rocket couch. They angle back, 30 degrees above flat with some ability to sit more or go almost flat. There’s a place for your feet tucked well under the seat of the person in front of you. This works fine if your feet are bound, hooved, pigeon-toed or in childrens’ sizes. Your nearest neighbor is across an isle or below you, which is fine if you have nothing to talk about, or you don’t mind shouting (our children proved this even after being shushed again). It sounds like I’m complaining, but the overall effect is a mix of practical and surreal. 

On a toy chair -- this is what it has come to.

Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as the central part of the city is still called, is mostly east of the Mekong, though, so after the ferries, rocket pods and pop videos, we were only slight north of where we had started, 11° N. Now, though, we’re really tracking in the right direction, almost due north. At 1:30 yesterday afternoon we passed through the Nha Trang station, passing our previously northern most latitude attained as a family in Siem Reap, after a mere 7 hours in hard sleeper berths. On the Reunification Railway, hard sleeper births are deployed 3 high in cabins of 6 ber. If ever there were a reason for encouraging kids to practice on jungle gyms, the Vietnamese hard sleeper berth is it – there are no ladders so people adapt by climbing around the little cabin like they were back on a playground. Apparently the newer cars have thicker padding, but with our luck we got one where the foam was about 2 cm, which gets pretty thin after 3 hours, much less 30.  Upon arrival the bunks are already deployed and only friends of the people on the bottom bunk are sitting on the bottom bunk – not that I’m even sure I could sit up down there. Since we got our tickets late we were in middle and top berths. In these berths one lies propped up – not unlike that spacey bus, actually. That's the way I’m typing now, laptop on my tummy. If you’re a kid, though, it’s like having a whole bench to yourself. Ironically, for grown-ups an escape from being prone are kid-sized plastic chairs that can be deployed to sit in the aisle to stare out the window, moving as needed when a vendor card trundles past.

We tried to prepare for the journey with small bills, fruit, cracker snacks and water. But short of a cooler, a full duffle and mastery of the local language, there is no good way to prepare for 30 hours of hard berth. We’d forgotten utensils, so when I got a dried noodle bowl from a passing vendor I waited an hour before I could scrounge a plastic spoon from another vendor before I could get breakfast. In the event I needn’t have bothered, because the fork for my noodles was concealed inside – local knowledge. Despite a sketchy diet and interminable pastoral scenes scrolling past, the kids are in good spirits. They’ve never had so much sleep.

Paddies. But not just -- mountains, ducks, cemeteries. In short,
Vietnam's backyard.

As we passed Nha Trang we were less than a quarter of a way through our ticket, which is taking us all the way to Hanoi, latitude 21° N. This morning at 9 or 10, somewhere past Vinh, we will pass the latitude of the Golden Triangle, 19° north, the high water mark for my travels in South East Asia so far this summer. Then we’ll really be tundra-bound.