{"id":6806,"date":"2026-01-02T14:33:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6806"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:33:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:33:45","slug":"2-the-first-morning-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6806","title":{"rendered":"2. THE FIRST MORNING OF THE YEAR!"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 1.\u00a0 The morning after the night before!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They were jammed in.\u00a0 The extensive flower beds all round the lake were trampled to within a millimetre of their lives.<\/p>\n

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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 …<\/p>\n

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… and countless gardeners (all ladies in conical hats and orange shirts) were putting them in the ground as fast as they could.<\/p>\n

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By 11am virtually all of the flower beds all around the lake had been replanted!<\/p>\n

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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.\u00a0 Primrose Hill was just one such park closed.\u00a0 In excess of 30,000 Londoners had watched the display from there last year!\u00a0 What a contrast!\u00a0 But then again, I suspect the Vietnamese crowds are much more friendly places than their London equivalents!\u00a0 And I bet there would be no gardeners in the UK available before April or May to remedy any horticultural damage!\u00a0 There would be no money for the replacement plants, anyway!<\/p>\n

We went for a slow stroll round the lake …<\/p>\n

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… and I do mean slow.\u00a0 It’s less than a mile and a half round and it took us well over two hours to circum-navigate.\u00a0 People watching.\u00a0 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!).<\/p>\n

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… and some in not so long gowns!<\/p>\n

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Some of the boys even got in amongst the action …<\/p>\n

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The youngsters were also up for a photo or two as well.<\/p>\n

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We were adopted by a lad called Richard – at least that’s what I thought he said his name was!<\/p>\n

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Near the north end of our lake there is a temple – Den Ngoc Son – approached by walking over the famous Huc Bridge …<\/p>\n

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(Not my picture.)<\/p>\n

There is a huge national flag flying on the temple island.<\/p>\n

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Our hotel is truly the narrowest in which we’ve ever stayed!\u00a0 Fabulous!\u00a0 The street frontage is just one room wide … but, like the Tardis, the place gets bigger inside!<\/p>\n

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The restaurant is basically the corridor from the front to the back!<\/p>\n

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We had looked at the Metropole Hotel when we were booking.\u00a0 Much larger and about 5000x the price.\u00a0 Hence our choice.\u00a0 But we CAN afford a cup of tea there.\u00a0 So a mission was planned.\u00a0 Basically out of our front door.\u00a0 Turn right.\u00a0 Walk to the first roundabout by the Opera house and turn left and the hotel is on the left.\u00a0 We can’t possibly get lost!\u00a0 Can we?<\/p>\n

Past some balloon sellers …<\/p>\n

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… some nifty street-level wiring …<\/p>\n

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… the Opera House and a motorcycle park (aka the pavement) …<\/p>\n

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… and we were there!<\/p>\n

In fact, we had already walked past two sides of the hotel and found the back door!\u00a0 Tea was served in the luxurious garden bar.\u00a0 Very stylish!<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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?\u00a0 But that’s another story!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 1.\u00a0 The morning after the night before!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They were… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vietnam-and-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6806"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6849,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6806\/revisions\/6849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}