Indochine – Feb 8
by Bob_Thompson on Feb.09, 2010, under Indochine, Indochine - Feb 10, 2010
We went to the Temple of Literature this morning. It’s a place we like in Hanoi. It’s a garden like setting with large “Doctor’s Stelae”. It’s a memorial to Vietnam’s first University..which was established within the temple. The people who graduated (apparently not easy) with Doctor’s degrees were each memorialized with a “stele” a carved stone sitting on the back of a turtle. The University functioned for 700 years from 1000 to 1700. It is no more but the turtles still survive. 2300 Doctor laureates graduated so there are quite a few stone turtles.
Chantal, Gwyn and I are the only ones here so far. Robin should arrive later tonite.
At noon Gwyn headed to the Canadian Embassy for a meeting. Chantal and I went to the Marina Restaurant with Mr. Joe. our local guide. The Marina had some interesting food. Amongst the usual there was some fried alligator and also little tiny river crabs each abut the size of a fingernail. I tried the former, but took a pass on the latter. The alligator got mixed in with the chicken on my plate and frankly I couldn’t tell the difference.
In the afternoon we all took naps since we hadn’t quite recovered from the plane ride.
We took in the puppet show in the evening. It’s the same as ever. How they do it is beyond me. It looks hard manipulating puppets on 20 foot poles underwater.
Dinner was at the Green Tangerine and the Lucky 69 cafe. Both were very good. The Green Tangerine is probably one of the better restaurants in Vietnam. It seems expensive in comparison to other options but it still is a bargain compared to home.
Oh, I almost forgot. I didn’t miss the Superbowl. It was on live at 6am on Monday morning.
Chantal and Gwyn at the Temple of Literature:
The turtles at the Temple of Literature:
This guy was selling artwork just outside:
The water puppets. This looks anything but easy. There were 17 little stories in the whole show which took about 50 minutes.
