Because Chinese New Year is a four-day weekend in Malaysia, we took the opportunity to fly to Da Nang in Vietnam, where they were celebrating Tết Nguyên Đán. This is the lunar new year celebration and the biggest festival of the year for the Vietnamese. Every street was festooned with flags and every doorway flanked by huge pots of yellow chrysanthemums. In the evening of the first day of the new year, we walked along the river where hundreds of people had gathered in family groups. They were taking photographs in front of banks of yellow flowers and the goat statues that lined the walkways. They had obviously dressed up for the occasion and many children were wearing traditional outfits, like the cute little boy in the pic below. There were street vendors selling food, ice creams and balloons (see pic above). It was a vibrant scene that we were pleased to be part of. Some of the children called out “Hello! Where’re you from?” so clearly we didn’t fit in at all!
Travels from New Zealand 