Happy New Year China Man

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OK.. so I thought I should have a little bit of input to this travel blog. There has been so many things happening every different hour of the day that, and we really are kicking ourselves for not keeping the blog up to date. We’re always saying we’ll start doing a small entry a couple of times a week but it just doesn’t happen.

Things have been absolutely hectic here in Hanoi for us over the last couple of weeks.. in a good way of course. Chinese new year (Tet) came and went with force. We were expecting to join in the festivities, or at least go to Hoan Kiem Lake to see the midnight fireworks, instead we were round the clock at the hotel while the Vietnamese staff headed back to their respective homes in the country for a few days to celebrate the new year. Much the same as I headed back to Coota from Sydney every Christmas, only I usually drove a car for a few hours with a couple people, not a step-through with the whole family on board.

Leading up to Tet, the streets outside were the busiest we have seen them yet, walking pace on your moto was pretty much standard, then as the holiday started the streets were deserted - no moto’s, no xe om’s, no cyclo’s, no street fruit sellers, no Pho. The streets and buildings looked and felt totally different without people and parked moto’s lining them, 28 Days Later style. Sarah suggested we take some pics while it was like that, and I just couldn’t be bothered getting the camera.. wishing I did now.. next year.


We were working some serious hours. We had no night receptionist so we were both up until about 1-2am, then I would go to bed to get some rest to get up and cook breakfast for the full hotel at 7am, while Sarah would struggle through until about 7-8am then come to get some sleep as I was getting up.. on the nights when we both managed to get to bed around midnight, there always seemed to be a check-in at 4 or 5 just to break the sleep up a little. . I like my sleep.. we were seriously delirious.. in a good way.

Although we’re putting in so much time it hasn’t really fazed us too much, we’re getting immediate results from everything we do which is a huge payoff. We’re getting some great reviews on all the Hotel sites, every new review is a bit of celebration point for Kien, Sarah and I.

We always had one of the cleaners on hand through Tet, so they still cooked our Vietnamese meals, only the dishes change a little for the new year. One in particular was a parcel of sticky rice about the size of a brick, with bacon in the middle and wrapped in some kind of leaves. It’s cooked for up to 48hrs, and doesn’t taste too bad.

When we would ask what they were we were just told “Happy New Year”. Actually if anything was being done slightly different, odd, or just plain wrong - “Happy New Year” was the response we got when we tried to ask just what was going on. We accepted this in most cases. Apart from one in particular.

On new years eve, which was the 14th of Feb, between about 10pm and 1am our security guy, Thinh, kept disappearing on his moto and returning with rosier cheeks and in higher spirits each time.. one thing most Vietnamese cannot hide is drinking, they’re cheeks go red immediately. We thought this was pretty funny and harmless, and although he has no grasp on the English language he found my jokes extremely hilarious, so we just let him do his thing.

When we were getting ready to call it a night around 1.30am, Thinh had organized some wine glasses on one of the café tables.. I asked him what they were up to and he promised “no party” just “something happy new year”. OK. We go to bed. 10 minutes later some of the guests return and Thinh persuades them to take a seat and have a beer with him and Khanh, our night receptionist.

We dozed in and out of sleep with the noise of Thinh’s “no party” and was awoken to Thinh throwing up in the guest bathroom which is next to our room. I went out about 10 minutes later to find Thinh smoking cigs (we are a non-smoking hotel) over a full ashtray with a guy from one of Kien’s other hotels, and Khanh asleep on the other chair and about 10 large beer bottles on the table that Thinh had decided to help himself to and give to the guests. He looked up and said “Oh. Solly Loot”.

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