Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới- Happy New Year! As we have just entered the new lunar year of the snake. Here in Vietnam, the Tết holiday lasts for one week and Lily and I are being imaginative to find things to do. I met her at the airport on Friday afternoon, where she had arrived from Haiphong at the end of her week's tour of Vietnam. We headed into town to see the flower garden that has been set up on Nguyen Hue street. Sweet instrumental music and the sound of birdsong were being played from speakers, and I contemplated how lovely and appropriate it is to celebrate the new year as the coming of the spring, rather than the continuation of miserable cold, dark weather, as I am used to. The gardens were creative and incorporated some traditional Vietnamese themes such as conical hats and silk lanterns, as well as more abstract features such as a watering-can waterfall. Boys and girls were dressed in their nicest clothes to make for good photographs on the special occasion.                 

In the evening we had hoped to see the new year in by watching the fireworks from one of the city's sky-bars, but sadly it was impossible to get a taxi and so we were stranded at home. Instead, we observed Thuy paying her respects by presenting a modest table of food and offerings in front of the house around midnight. On the stroke of the hour we walked around a few streets to see what everyone else was up to, our neighbours let off some firecrackers and we watched glimpses of fireworks through the treetops out towards the city.     

Yesterday was the first day of the lunar new year and the beginning of the five-day Tết holiday. We wondered what we could do when all the shops are closed and Vietnamese people are spending time with their families. The obvious answer was to join the ex-pat community of the Hash House Harriers, the 'drinking club with a running problem', who join each Sunday for a jog round the country side and plenty of beer. Lily was pleased to find that on the occasion of Tết there would be no exercise involved at this week's Hash, as the day would unfold in the city's bars, rather than out in the countryside. We had a fun day, which peaked at us reaching an Irish bar in district 2 with a pool outside, and culminated at an Australian bar watching the rugby. But as it was rugby union we decided to call it a night before the end of the first half.  

Today we have been on a Sinh Cafe tour to see the large Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh province, described by Graham Greene as "Walt Disney's Fantasia in technicolour", and then the grisly but compelling Cu Chi tunnels. I took this tour by myself in September and wrote about it here. Nothing had changed since the last time, and it was strange to revisit these places that took me back to my early days in Vietnam and the feelings I had at that time.   

I have Lily's company to enjoy for another week before she flies home. We have made some nice plans, and still have a few days to fill, but I hope I can keep her entertained with all that Saigon has to offer.