Saigon - 27 / 31 Jan

The street below our room at midnight.

Once again into the turmoil of a city. Made the mistake of booking into a hotel in  the centre of the backpacker district; fortunately had asked for and got an upper floor room as the street outside stayed hectic till late.

First VC tank to break into Presidential  HQ

We did a city tour as an easy way to see some of the sights; this, as had Hanoi, had quite a political slant with their pride in the Vietnam War, American violations etc. although the guide did repeatedly say it was in the past.
The most fascinating element of our stay was seeing the prepararations for TET, the celebrations marking the start of the lunar new year. Flowering shrubs feature hugely in this, far more so than say our Xmas trees. Many open spaces and parks in the city were turned into markets for trees and shrubs the vendors sleeping alongside their  wares. These were bought and carted off often strapped to the back of the ubiquitous motor bikes.                  

Taking home the Tet tree
 by bike

The fact that they can't always see anything doesn't seem to matter the city traffic is full of people transporting goods on their motorbikes: wardrobes, sheets of glass, crates of pepsi not to mention families of 4, even 5.

Anyway, back to these lovely plants, below is just one example of the efforts that they put into decorative plants for new year.

A. bonsai' flowering shrub set into a rock garden display.