Son La, is located to the northwestern region of Vietnam. Eighty percent of the province’s natural area is covered with mountains. The province is populated by various ethnic groups, including the Ma, H’mong, Dao, Muong, Kinh, Khmer, Tay, Thai, and more.
Son La has a temperate climate throughout the year. Tham Tet Tong is a complex of marvelous grottoes located only 1.5 km from Son La. Excursions to Tay Bac Mountains and bathing at Ban Mong Hot Springs are available. Visits to the ethnic minorities hamlets are also popular. The Son La Provincial Museum was originally a penitentiary built by the French in 1908. Son La Provincial Museum welcomes tens of thousands of visitors every year.
In the past, water puppetry was the spirit of Vietnamese agricultural culture, popular in every corner of the countryside with locally traditional performance style. Nowadays, Vietnamese water puppetry which has still remained & developed in many localities is fond of by audience at home and abroad thanks to puppeteers' skillful hands that manipulate puppets up & down as if dancing on the magic water stage as fanciful, glisten fairy world created by the reflection & flexibility of the water.
Water puppetry is an art unique to Vietnam. It started centuries ago, and was originally performed in actual ponds. Unlike its cultural equivalents in India and Indonesia -- all-night marathons that recount the great Hindu epics -- water puppetry has no narrative thread.