Vietnam - The Rough Guide to Southeast Asia on a Budget - page 834

Travellers' cafés and tour agents tend to
open early to late every day. Museums are
open daily from 7 or 8am to 5pm; some
Hanoi museums tend to close on
Monday or Friday. Temples and pagodas
tend to be open from 5 or 6am until 8 or
9pm. Restaurants tend to open around
8am and stay open right through until
10pm. Bars are generally open until
11pm, with later opening hours common
in the bigger cities and tourist hotspots.

Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival (March). A great time
for caffeine addicts to head for the highlands.
Tet Doan Ngo (late May to early June). Summer solstice,
marked by offerings to spirits and dragon boat races.
Hue Festival (June 2014, 2016, 2018). This biennial
festival is the biggest cultural event in Vietnam, held in
Hue every two years.
Trung Nguyen (Wandering Souls Day) Huge food
offerings are made to spirits on the fifteenth day of the
seventh lunar month.
Children's or Mid-Autumn Festival (Sept-Oct).
Dragon dances take place in Hoi An and children are given
lanterns in the shape of stars, carp or dragons.

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS
January 1 New Year's Day
Late January/mid-February (dates vary each year).
Tet, Vietnamese New Year (three days, though businesses
and restaurants tend to close down for a full week)
February 3 Founding of the Vietnamese Communist Party.
March/April (tenth day of the third lunar month)
Commemoration of the Hung Kings (celebration of
modern Vietnam)
April 30 Liberation of Saigon, 1975
May 1 International Labour Day
May 19 Ho Chi Minh's birthday
June Buddha's birthday (Phat Dan); eighth day of the
fourth lunar month
September 2 National Day

11

Hanoi
Vietnam's elegant capital, Hanoi , lies in the
heart of the northern delta. Given the
political and historical importance of this
thousand-year-old city and its burgeoning
population of more than six million, parts
of it are surprisingly low-key. Its narrow
streets and colonial buildings of the Old
Quarter are steeped in history, while the
parks and pagodas around its many lakes
are still an oasis of calm. In the evenings,
locals gather at the bia hoi , while countless
street stalls churn out delicious dishes from
dawn to night. he pace of life is becoming
ever more frenetic, but, for the moment at
least, Hanoi remains a beguiling mix of
tradition and modernity.

FESTIVALS
Most Vietnamese festivals are fixed by
the lunar calendar. On the eve of the full
moon, every month, Hoi An celebrates a
Full-Moon Festival . Electricity is switched
off, silk lanterns light up tra c-free
streets, and traditional games, dance and
music are performed in the streets.
Tet Nguyen Dan Or simply Tet (“festival”). Seven days
between the last week of January and the third week of
February, when families get together to celebrate the New
Year. Ancestral spirits are welcomed back to the household,
offerings are made to Ong Tau, the Taoist god of the hearth,
and everyone in Vietnam becomes a year older. The eve of
Tet explodes into a cacophony of drums and percussion,
and the subsequent week is marked by feasting on special
foods. Tet can be a great time to visit Vietnam's villages, as
towns tend to be dead; bear in mind that just before, after
and during Tet local transport is reduced to a skeletal
service and tickets get booked up weeks in advance.
Water Puppet Festival At Thay Pagoda, west of Hanoi,
as part of Tet.
Buddhist full-moon festival (March-April). Two-
week festival at the Perfume Pagoda, west of Hanoi (see
box, p.848).

WHAT TO SEE AND DO
At the heart of Hanoi lies Hoan Kiem
Lake , around which you'll find the banks,
post o ce, hotels, restaurants, shopping
streets and markets. he lake lies between
the compact but endlessly diverting
Old Quarter in the north, and the
tree-lined boulevards of the French
Quarter to the south. West of this central
district, across the rail tracks, some of
Hanoi's most impressive monuments
occupy the wide, open spaces of the
former Imperial City , grouped around
Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum on Ba Dinh
Square and extending south to the
ancient, walled gardens of the Temple of
Literature. he large West Lake sits north
of the city, harbouring a number of
appealing temples and pagodas.