Sunday, December 27 – Wow. The people of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) really like New Year. We arrived at our hotel only to find it’s situated directly across the street from a huge park; a park filled with sound stages and kiosks all aimed at ringing in the new Year over the course of about a week.
All this is good news for us – mostly. We were in HCMC just in time to witness how Saigonites celebrate. We were able to immerse ourselves in the culture and the food. What could be better?
On this first evening, we tucked into a huge helping of Banh Xeo – a crepe stuffed with shrimp and other goodness – and Junkii braved the street vendor carts to try to order us some deep fried dumplings (no small feat given the language barrier).
The only real problem with the festivities was the volume. The organizers had set up the (very loud) sound stages within about 20 feet of one another – so cacophony is a good word to use here. It was pretty much impossible to hear one act when the nearby stage was in use. The performers must have been pissed.
The fact that the celebrations were right across from our hotel wasn’t a big issue – the festivities generally wrapped up around 10pm. But on our last night in Saigon, we had to get to bed early because we had a 6am flight. Earplugs were needed, but that’s a small price to pay for getting to play with the city residents.
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