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Tomorrow is Tet the start of the new lunar year, Chinese new yr. This is a massive celebration in Vietnam and China. Pretty much everything shuts down, everyone gets 4 days public holiday and it's party central! Or so we were led to believe... We spent Tet in Mui Ne aka tourist central. The posters said that there would be "pyrotechnics on the beach, beach bonfire, fire dancing and dancing girls from HCMC", we couldn't have been more underwhelmed! The bonfire fizzled and died soon after it littered us with ash, the fire dancer (a 15 year old boy) stopped after three swings of his chains, the dancing girls wiggled skinny bums and the fireworks never even happened! Happy new year Vietnam! We did however enjoy a gorgeous seafood dinner on the beach, where we saw the traditional Chinese dragon parade as it danced through the restaurant to the shrine. it looked like a school production, small boys dancing like they were possessed, clattering drums and cymbals, dressed in tea towels with a blue peter style dragon costume- they were giving it 100% tho! Maybe something was lost in the translation, as the old man who lived in the restaurant (and came out in his PJ's to watch) seemed to very much enjoy it.
The following day we took the rather more comfortable tourist bus back to Saigon, and spent a sweaty afternoon on the Internet sorting out our banking getting attacked by a very hungry mosquito! We then took our flight back to hanoi. Tet tradition is to give money away- so sticking to tradition on the plane we got a little envelope- thanks jet star only 30p but nice all the same!!
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