Throughout our time in Vietnam, and especially when we arrived in Hanoi, the atmosphere was buzzing for the Tet holiday. Tet is the Vietnamese New Year celebrations and takes place at the same time as the Chinese New Year. Traditionally at this time everyone travels home to their hometown to spend time with their family, which can make travelling around the country difficult. Most planes, trains and automobiles get fully booked up long in advance, so you should plan ahead if travelling at this time. However because everyone travels home, the same is not true of hotels, so don’t worry about booking them just a day or two in advance.
The whole of Vietnam is decorated (some unfortunately sponsored too)
Market stalls sell a plethora of red and gold decorations
We spent Tet in the Capital, Hanoi. Before we went I was trying to find out what it would be like. Most forum responses to people asking about Hanoi during Tet resulted in helpful responses such as ‘don’t go during Tet’ so I’ll try and be more helpful here.
If you are planning to, do go during Tet. It’s a great atmosphere, the markets and streets are busy with people preparing, there are flowers and lights lining the roads and everyone is generally in a good mood.
The Night Market was so busy you could barely move.
The whole alleged downside to being there at Tet is that once the New Years Day strikes, everything grinds to a halt, but this simply wasn’t the case. Places like museums, banks and embassies close but there is still plenty to prevent thirst, starvation and boredom.
We brought in Tet watching the fireworks over the central Hoan Kiem Lake. There were serious crowds though; I wanted to get a decent spot for some photos but we got there much too late for that and settled for a spot right by the lakeside. If you want to do some firework photography, do some research and find some higher ground to shoot from.
After the fireworks everyone was buzzing, wishing each other ‘chuc mung nam moi’ (happy new year). The local tradition is to burn paper effigies of possessions and fake money to send them to your ancestors in the afterlife and bring good luck, so there were small fires burning on every street and people throwing in $100 bills! We stayed out until about 2am drinking Bia Hoi on the streets and went back to our hotel… where the staff were having their own party!
The guys in the hotel gave us drinks and had food laid out for the guests. It was a really nice touch.
Burning Benjamins for your ancestors
The following day we went out expecting a ghost town, but were pleasantly surprised. Although the streets were a lot quieter, there was still plenty of traffic, open shops and restaurants. We planned to go for a walk to the worlds longest mosaic wall, which leads from the old quarter up to the huge West Lake (my theory: because a wall couldn’t be closed for Tet). The wall was really cool, displaying mosaics of history and mythology designed by many people from commissioned artists to 5 year old school children.
The streets were nice and quiet (for once!)
The remnants of the New Year party littered the streets
We cut across the lake to head home and stumbled upon the lake’s temple, where hundreds of local people were filing in and out. We went inside to see; it seemed that it was also tradition to come and pay homage to your ancestors on New Years Day as well. Later we saw out the day on the lake by renting a swan peddle boat and going for a cruise. We even rescued a Tet Goat balloon from the water for a souvenir!
Families pray near the West Lake on the first day of Tet
That brought our Vietnam trip to an end. We had an amazing few weeks there, met some great people, enjoyed many cheap beers and great food. When researching this trip I read a few reports where people said the Vietnamese were not as friendly as other SE Asian people, or gave them more hassle etc. We don’t think that could be further from the truth – they are wonderful people. We look forward to returning one day to see even more of this beautiful nation.