Tapp's Travels

January 1.  The morning after the night before!  While we had watched the fireworks from the 9th floor, the locals were crowded 100 deep (at least) all round the lake in front of our Silk Path Boutique Hotel.  They were jammed in.  The extensive flower beds all round the lake were trampled to within a millimetre of their lives.

But, and this is unbelievable, literally millions of plants had been delivered to the lake-side this morning – truck loads of hydrangeas, sunflowers geraniums and foxgloves …

… and countless gardeners (all ladies in conical hats and orange shirts) were putting them in the ground as fast as they could.

By 11am virtually all of the flower beds all around the lake had been replanted!

And we read in today’s paper about the chaos in London where the authorities had sealed up all the parks and gardens in London, deliberately, to make it impossible to watch the firework displays for hundreds of thousands of locals.  Primrose Hill was just one such park closed.  In excess of 30,000 Londoners had watched the display from there last year!  What a contrast!  But then again, I suspect the Vietnamese crowds are much more friendly places than their London equivalents!  And I bet there would be no gardeners in the UK available before April or May to remedy any horticultural damage!  There would be no money for the replacement plants, anyway!

We went for a slow stroll round the lake …

… and I do mean slow.  It’s less than a mile and a half round and it took us well over two hours to circum-navigate.  People watching.  The local custom on New Year’s Day seems to be for young ladies (and some not-so-young ladies) to get dressed up in traditional flowing gowns and parade around the lake while being photographed by their entourage (and by us!).

… and some in not so long gowns!

Some of the boys even got in amongst the action …

The youngsters were also up for a photo or two as well.

We were adopted by a lad called Richard – at least that’s what I thought he said his name was!

Near the north end of our lake there is a temple – Den Ngoc Son – approached by walking over the famous Huc Bridge …

(Not my picture.)

There is a huge national flag flying on the temple island.

Our hotel is truly the narrowest in which we’ve ever stayed!  Fabulous!  The street frontage is just one room wide … but, like the Tardis, the place gets bigger inside!

The restaurant is basically the corridor from the front to the back!

We had looked at the Metropole Hotel when we were booking.  Much larger and about 5000x the price.  Hence our choice.  But we CAN afford a cup of tea there.  So a mission was planned.  Basically out of our front door.  Turn right.  Walk to the first roundabout by the Opera house and turn left and the hotel is on the left.  We can’t possibly get lost!  Can we?

Past some balloon sellers …

… some nifty street-level wiring …

… the Opera House and a motorcycle park (aka the pavement) …

… and we were there!

In fact, we had already walked past two sides of the hotel and found the back door!  Tea was served in the luxurious garden bar.  Very stylish!

After soaking up the atmosphere (and five cups of tea) for an hour, we left by the main lobby and the front door passing all their Christmas decorations.

That evening we had dinner in the hotel’s roof-top bar, but it was a bit breezy and cool – a portent of things to come maybe?  But that’s another story!