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Lanterns and moonlight
Aug. 23rd, 2002 04:33 amLast night was the full moon, and the people in Hoi An celebrated. The streets of the Old Town were closed off to traffic, so there were no bicycles or motorbikes, only throngs of people.
There was a power outage of sorts, but I think that the city deliberately turned shut off the lights, because several restaurants had noisy diesel generators primed and ready. But even after the power came back, they kept things toned down, and most illumination came from coloured lanterns hanging in front of houses and shops. During the short while where there was no light at all, the full moon lit the town up beautifully, but it got cloudy later on and there were only the lanterns.
We witnessed some kind of game that looked like a cross between bingo and an auction: a man was singing, accompanied by musicians, and part of the song was calling out numbers (that much M-P could understand). When he called out a number, some people in the crowd had paddles with numbers on them, so when he called out their number they'd hold their paddle up. Then a guy dressed in a Chinese outfit with a painted conical hat (there were at least 5 or 6 of them) would give the person a little orange flag.
This was partially explained to me by a nice Vietnamese man who was standing beside me, but there was too much noise and he didn't understand my question about what the flags were for.
We wandered around for a while, admiring the lanterns and occasionally hearing the beat of temple drums. In front of one of the Chinese Assembly Halls (or was it a pagoda?) there was some sort of coconut pinata game going on, but there were too many people crowded around for us to see clearly.
This morning we were off bright and early for Hue, having packed our bags yesterday afternoon. It is with great shame that I admit that we had to buy another bag to carry our things in because of all the clothes we bought. But we knew that if we'd bought less, we would have regretted it later.
The road from Hoi An to Hue is a beautiful one, and I mean the scenery, not the highway. The highway hugs the coast and for a good part of the way winds up and down the mountains, and is definitely *not* wide enough for all the huge blunt-nosed trucks and buses that use it. The view is spectacular, though, turquoise ocean fringed with pale beaches, green mountains and blue sky.
We arrived in Hue in the early afternoon, and probably aren't going to do much today. M-P isn't feeling too well, and I'm fine with just lying around and being lazy. Tomorrow, we're taking a boat tour down the Perfume River to visit the tombs of the Nguyen Emperors.
There was a power outage of sorts, but I think that the city deliberately turned shut off the lights, because several restaurants had noisy diesel generators primed and ready. But even after the power came back, they kept things toned down, and most illumination came from coloured lanterns hanging in front of houses and shops. During the short while where there was no light at all, the full moon lit the town up beautifully, but it got cloudy later on and there were only the lanterns.
We witnessed some kind of game that looked like a cross between bingo and an auction: a man was singing, accompanied by musicians, and part of the song was calling out numbers (that much M-P could understand). When he called out a number, some people in the crowd had paddles with numbers on them, so when he called out their number they'd hold their paddle up. Then a guy dressed in a Chinese outfit with a painted conical hat (there were at least 5 or 6 of them) would give the person a little orange flag.
This was partially explained to me by a nice Vietnamese man who was standing beside me, but there was too much noise and he didn't understand my question about what the flags were for.
We wandered around for a while, admiring the lanterns and occasionally hearing the beat of temple drums. In front of one of the Chinese Assembly Halls (or was it a pagoda?) there was some sort of coconut pinata game going on, but there were too many people crowded around for us to see clearly.
This morning we were off bright and early for Hue, having packed our bags yesterday afternoon. It is with great shame that I admit that we had to buy another bag to carry our things in because of all the clothes we bought. But we knew that if we'd bought less, we would have regretted it later.
The road from Hoi An to Hue is a beautiful one, and I mean the scenery, not the highway. The highway hugs the coast and for a good part of the way winds up and down the mountains, and is definitely *not* wide enough for all the huge blunt-nosed trucks and buses that use it. The view is spectacular, though, turquoise ocean fringed with pale beaches, green mountains and blue sky.
We arrived in Hue in the early afternoon, and probably aren't going to do much today. M-P isn't feeling too well, and I'm fine with just lying around and being lazy. Tomorrow, we're taking a boat tour down the Perfume River to visit the tombs of the Nguyen Emperors.
