Tet in Saigon

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Last night was Tet (Lunar New Year) and we were invited to a party in our hotel lobby. At 10pm we made our way down (about a million flights of stairs) to the lobby for a huge dinner.

Dinner was really nice...we shared it with an American (and his Thai fiance...about 40 years his junior...he was 73), a German commercial pilot and his girlfriend and a lot of other hotel guests who sat at different tables. Unfortunately the hotel staff didn't eat with us, which was quite a shame. I think they were still in staff looking after guests mode. It would have been nicer if they had joined in on the fun too. At midnight we all went up to the roof top and watched the fireworks. The had some cool ones...but nothing compared to the shows they put on at home. They let them all off in one area...so it got really smokey, but still the atmosphere was good.

After the fireworks we went back downstairs to the lobby and played games that the staff had organised. The games didn't go quite as planned...but still it was good for a laugh. We ended up with some wonderful prizes, I got some beautiful jocks (just what I've always wanted) and Scott got a new bra!? The girl who organised it had quite a strange sense of humor. After the games we sat with a Brit, the German pilot and his girlfriend and chatted until 2:30am. The British guy spends quite a lot of time in Vietnam so he was really interesting to talk to. He tends to visit places which aren't on the tourist map so has a very different perception of the country.

Today we woke up at about 11am...the view from our window was quite..strange. Streets that are normally full of traffic and shopkeepers looking to lure people in for a look were...empty! We decided that we weren't really going to miss much today, so we read our books until about 4pm when we decided it was lunch time. By the time we headed out a few more shops were opening and the streets had begun to fill up with traffic, still nothing in comparison to what we saw when we first arrived in Saigon.

Tomorrow we are heading off to the Cu Chi Tunnels, used by the Viet Cong during the war

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