Thang Long Water Puppet Show

The Thang Long Water Puppet Show is a Vietnamese cultural experience that is on most visitor's itinerary to Hanoi. The puppet theatre is located at Dinh Tien Hoang Street, on the north end of the Lake of the Returned Sword, Ho Hoan Kiem.

The art of water puppetry came as the result of having too much free time. Developed by the rice farmers when the rice fields are flooded, water puppetry was a folk art that would have died with time twenty years ago, if not for a recent cultural revival that brought it back to life. The result not only resuscitated the art, it also provided an avenue to earn much needed hard cash for Vietnam's fledgling tourism industry.

Having experience the folk art of different Asian countries, I do enjoy the water puppet performance, although what we saw at Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre has been spiced up for tourists, with the accompaniment of a traditional orchestra and narration in English. As I watched it, I cannot help wishing for the opportunity to watch a similar show perhaps somewhere in the Vietnamese countryside, away from all the city embellishments, to see it in all its simplicity, in its true nature.

Getting there

Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre is located on 57 Dinh Tien Hoang Street, on the northern bank of Ho Hoan Kiem, a short distance from the Hanoi Fountain. Its front faces Ly Thai To Street.

Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre (30 August 2006)


Water puppets (30 August 2006)

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

 Share your travels and/or ask a travel-related question

Join the Penang Travel Tips Facebook Group to share photos, tips and anything related to your travels, or ask travel-related questions.

Map of Roads in Penang

Looking for information on Penang? Use this Map of Roads in Penang to zoom in on information about Penang, brought to you road by road.

Discover with Timothy

Let me take you to explore and discover Penang through my series of walking tours on YouTube. You may use these videos as your virtual tour guide. At the beginning of each video, I provide the starting point coordinates which you may key into your GPS, Google Maps or Waze, to be navigated to where I start the walk, and use the video as your virtual tour guide.

Disclaimer

Please use the information on this page as guidance only. The author endeavours to update the information on this page from time to time, but regrets any inaccuracies if there be any.

Songs about Penang

About this website

Hello and thanks for reading this page. My name is Timothy and my hobby is in describing places so that I can share the information with the general public. My website has become the go to site for a lot of people including students, teachers, journalists, etc. whenever they seek information on places, particularly those in Malaysia and Singapore. I have been doing this since 5 January 2003, for over twenty years already. You can read about me at Discover Timothy. By now I have compiled information on thousands of places, mostly in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, and I continue to add more almost every day. My goal is to describe every street in every town in Malaysia and Singapore.