Cat Time

It's The Year of the Cat, rabbit elsewhere but cats rule in Vietnam! Nguyen Hue in District 1 is turned into Flower Street for a week and there are always representations of appropriate animals. Here are a few of them:

Yes, it is a dog.

So why do we have the Year of the Cat while the rest of the world hop along happily in the Year of the Rabbit. One theory goes thus: "The Chinese word for rabbit is 'mao', which sounds like 'meo' in Vietnamese, where it means cat. As the sound of the word changed, so did its meaning,". You can read the full article here .

I'll finish with one set of animals which seem to bridge the gap between cats and rabbits quite well.

Happy Meo Year

Tet Celebrations, Saigon's Year of the Tiger

When I'm in Ho Chi Minh City during Tet I always make a point of going up to Nguyen Hue to take pictures on the first day of Lunar New Year. This year was the busiest yet as the traffic bears testament to.

The rest of town was incredibly quiet. Here are some pictures of what everyone wanted to take pictures of:

Tigers of course.

Large and impressive tigers at the entrance to the floral display.

Well hell-lo! A debonair tiger with a touch of the Lesley Phillips about it.

A more traditional Vietnamese tiger.

And a Disneyesque tiger to complete the set.

At Tet everyone's a photographer.

There are flowers, tigers of course, calligraphers and family members to be captured.

And when all that pales there's always practicing walking in your new shoes.

Or talking your tiger for a walk through the streets of Saigon.

Chúc mừng năm mới.

Tet flower market, Saigon

As Tet approaches it seems like everyone goes flower crazy. The biggest market I've seen so far is in the park between Pham Ngu Lau and the New World Hotel. The plants are incredible and I was sorely tempted to buy some but we're going away over Tet and it's never pleasant to come home to dead plants so I limited myself to taking pictures of them.



Yellow and red are the predominant colours being sold but there's lots of variety of plant related objects, like fruit rats.



These stand about a metre and a half high and are made from a yellow waxy fruit which I don't recognise. They're sold in pairs and are, for want of a better description, striking. You might be able to see that they're entwined with fairy lights too. Nice.

Kumquat trees are very popular, I don't know if this shape is traditional of if it's borrowed from Christmas trees. They'll look spectacular when the fruit ripens.



Orchids are popular too, here's a perfect white blossom:



Of course, at times something a little more decorative is required, so why not buy an orchid planted into a straw dog's head on a plate?



Just to be on the safe side...


... the police maintain a presence. You never know when flower buying could turn nasty and I'm sure stall holders can sleep more peacefully knowing that they're there



That's it, I expect the next posting will be on our jaunt to Singapore and Cambodia, Happy New Year.

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.