Vietnam with the Dowlers: TET - Lunar New Year in Vietnam

So TET truly got started when the Caravelle Hotel had it's annual staff party for the New Year on the 16th of January. Preparations start well before the date with gifts being gathered and wrapped and decorations and the theme being organised. This year was a sailing theme. All staff get to go in a draw for some amazing prizes including the main prize of a motorbike.

Below with the captain of the HR deck of the Caravelle Hotel, Mr Dat. I have most of my dealings with him as he takes care of the HR dept and training. He is just lovely as are all of the staff at the Caravelle.

There are performances once again by the staff and there are a couple of pictures below of their part of the show.

This includes a fashion parade with outfits made of flowers and leaves...the part that Phil liked the most, as did the judges, they won a prize of course.

At the end of the night the boys, with a little too much alcohol under their belts finished the night off with some singing.

Everyone has to have some flowers or fruit trees for their house for TET so opposite our house in the park there were flowers and fruit trees for sale everywhere!

A couple of the flower sellers in the park.

Everyone sets up camp to look after their stock of trees for sale.

Pic with my new camera!

Trees that look like dragons?

Happy Plants that are trained to grow around in a cylinder.

Bonsai trees and sunflowers below.

I thought this shot below was particularly Vietnamese with the hat.

The main area of town was once again decorated even more than Christmas if that was possible. There is a flower display that takes up around 5 blocks covering 4 lanes of traffic area that is closed off for the display. Everyone goes into town to get their pictures taken, we did that as well of course! On the night we went there were literally thousands of people...it was so busy.