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Christmas Eve in Saigon
Thousands of families on scooters zip past the Opera House where they are preparing for an outdoor concert and ballet.We booked into a fancy hotel, the Rex, on the 23rd Dec (which had silk kimono dressing gowns for us in the antique Vietnamese wardrobe!) for a couple of nights to make up for the lack of the presence (and presents!) of family and friends. We thought it was going to be a bit grim being in a country that didn't celebrate Christmas but this city is very festive with fairy lights every where, full scale orchestras playing in the street, and lots of little kids dressed in Santa suits, complete with fur hats, even though it's 90 degrees! They celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve and millions of people were out in the Centre of Saigon (our hotel is also in the centre) most of the night. Everyone throws confetti on each other and being Westerners we were particularly targeted!
We had Christmas dinner (Turkey and cranberry sauce etc) at the hotel complete with traditional Vietnamese music and dance. We had to share a table with another (unreconstructed) British couple from Yorkshire. We weren't sure what we had let ourselves in for when they sat down and immediately started to argue. She was really weird, and said she didn't want
the set menu (which they had already booked) and wanted the music group to 'turn down the music as it is giving me a headache'!! He told her not to 'put on a face' and she said she would do what 'she frigging wanted'!! We were so shocked we just smiled sweetly at them! The dinner which was relatively expensive was absolutely awful, the music soon stopped and nearly everyone left what was a very large dining hall. So there we were in an empty cavernous room chewing dried up turkey and potatoes (there was nothing else with it) with the couple from hell and a waiter who must have been at least 80 years old and had 4 inches of hair growing from a mole on his chin!!
Anyway that apart we had a great time thanks to the buzz that is Saigon.
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