Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre

No trip to Hanoi would be complete without seeing a show at the famous Water Puppet Theatre. This company has performed all over the world. Hue took us to the theatre and then had to leave us to meet with us a few hours later, so we had time after the show to wander around for a couple of hours after the show.

We wondered how people learn how to ride the motorbikes--at what age, where they practice, etc. Well, here's the answer.

You're not really supposed to take photos during the performance, but we took our chances. The sign of a quality water puppet theatre are live musicians (some of the lesser ones use recorded music).

Norah was an angel during the show, staying very attentive and watching the show.

A word of advice. Be very careful and subtle when taking pictures of police and soldiers. I read this in something after we got back home. Luckily, this picture didn't land Dani in jail or anything drastic.

There was a temple near the theatre, but admission wasn't free. I was starting to get a little worn-out from the language barrier and foreign currency, so we skipped this one.

A huge video screen counting down to the 1000-year anniversary of the founding of Thang Long (the original name of Hanoi).

This girl was a little chatterbox and went on and on about how kind we were to be doing what we were doing for Norah, how children with her kinds of conditions need help and all kinds of other things. Admittedly, she was probably just wanting to sell us more stuff (which she definitely did).

Word of advice #2: if people come up with these contraptions wanting to put them on you and have you take pictures of yourself, DON'T DO IT! After we did this, they then wanted money for taking the picture. They followed us for about half a block badgering us. (The pictures were funny though.)