A theatre shaped like a giant bamboo fish trap at Bãi Tiên — puppetry at international level
Bamboo fish-trap architecture found nowhere else in Vietnam — worth photographing from outside alone
The hour-long Life Puppets show, traditional puppetry meeting contemporary staging
No dialogue — every age and every nationality follows it
Book online a few days ahead so you can take the middle (Dragon) tier; arrive 45 to 60 minutes early to photograph the bamboo shell as the lights come on — that shot is as good as the show.
Đó Theatre is the most startling piece of architecture built in Nha Trang in years: an enormous woven bamboo shell modelled on the đó, the fish trap of Vietnamese fishermen, standing on its own at Bãi Tiên north of the city. Even without a ticket, photographing that bamboo trap at sunset is reason enough to come.
Inside is the hour-long show Rối Mơ (Life Puppets) — an encounter that had never been staged before between water puppetry, string puppets and shadow puppets, contemporary dance and a Southeast Asian traditional orchestra. There is no dialogue, so foreign visitors and children follow every beat; it is currently rated the piece of theatre most worth the money in the city.
Come to Nha Trang without eating gỏi cá mai and the trip is not complete
One family, one recipe, nearly 50 years. Fish landed that morning, rolled in rice paper and dipped in a secret fish sauce — the same taste since 1977.
