Wagah Border Ceremony

The daily ceremony at the India Pakistan border is well worth a visit. Magnificently theatrical and incredibly good natured it's got to be a high point of a visit to Punjab. Both sides of the border are thronged with visitors all keen to demonstrate their patriotism or just have a damn fine cheering and hollering session.

Visitors are marshalled by fantastically dressed soldiers who must spend hours practicing their stern looks. (If you carry a foreign passport you get put into a separate holding area, I'm not sure why but I wasn't going to argue).

Patriotism gets an early airing at the start of the ceremony when women and girls run waving flags while the crowd cheer and whoop. It's followed by high energy dancing by the same people and even more cheering and whooping.

Then it's show time, high kicking, fast marching, competitive shouting and fancy footwork. Brilliantly choreographed on both sides. The Pakistan side is just as boisterous and jolly and the precision bristling and grimacing from both sides is a pure joy to see.

It's infectious, I cheered,clapped, whooped and hollered along with the best of them and did it all with a massive grin on my face. Wagah border crossing, all borders should be like this!

Tet Celebrations

Just recovering from the excesses of the Christmas decorations the city fathers have gone all out to provide more lights for Tet. It doesn't have the same kitsch factor that Christmas has but it's worth the extra long power cuts we get on Tuesday to power the lights.Le Loi and Dong Khoi are both fully illuminated but Nguyen Hue is still under construction, it looks like it's going to be a pretty spectacular floral arrangement the entire length of the street. I'll try to get back during the day but we're off to Singapore then Cambodia on Sunday so I might miss it. Meanwhile, here are some pretty pictures of pretty lights.



Le Loi is in the same colour scheme as Christmas but with the seasonal addition of yellow blossoms and full moon balloons. This is the car lane, it's odd to see cars that aren't partially marrooned amongst motorbikes.



A closeup of the aforementioned moon balloons.



The bike lane and the pavement beside it were awash with people on bikes out doing their pre Tet business. We parked up in a school that was being used as an overflow bike park and walked but even that was a bit hairy at times.

Dong Khoi, once called Rue Catanat, is all red lanterns and dangly lights.





What's new year without a sale?

The Caravelle has my favourite lights, the Vietnamese Flag rendered in strings of fairy lights.



Its gearing up to get even more crazy at Tet approaches. In a way it's a pity we'll miss it but for the actual Lunar New Year celebrations most things close down and people spend the time with their families. Anyway, have holidays must travel.