Reunification Day / Liberation Day

Today is Reunification Day /  Liberation Day in Vietnam. This is a public holiday in Vietnam which we get each year that marks the event when the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) on April 30, 1975 thus signalling the end of the Vietnam War. (Remember the picture of the tanks going through the gates in one of my previous blogs).

What does this mean for me? It means I get a day off work!!!! Also for a bonus, tomorrow is International labour day so I get another day off. What will I be doing? Going to the pub of course. One day to go to the pub and one day to recover.

Above is a picture of a statue in Ho Chi Minh City which captures the events on the day of 30-4-1975

The weather this April

Just a quick post to complain about how hot its been this year.This is my third April in Vietnam and by far the hottest. There are basically two season here, hot and wet or hot. But in many ways this is not true. In December / January the temperature in Ho Chi Minh City drops noticeably (23 Celsius is the low) then between January and May it keeps getting hotter and hotter until rainy season starts where it's still very hot but you get rain which cools it down. This lasts between late May and November. 

So at the moment we are in the hottest part of the year. The temperature has been in the late 30s every day and about 30 at night - there has been no rain - it's days like these I wish for those cold, drizzly, dull English weather days. Above is a screen print of the temperature tomorrow. The 'real feel' of the weather with the humidity is about 45 Celsius. It's so unpleasantly hot you just really don't want to go out in it unless you really have to. 

It's even been in the news about how hot its been, I'm just lucky I have a/c in my flat. I don't think I could stay here if I didn't.

Anyway the past week we did have rain once and it rained yesterday so after months with no rain I'm really hoping rainy season is here!

Hoa Vien Beer

One thing I miss about England is proper beer. There isn't any ale in Vietnam but there are some nice German / Czech style beer places. One of my favorites is called Hoa Vien. If your into your beer and are visiting Ho Chi Minh City I personally think its worth a visit.

Its a nice bar away from the backpacker area. It also does some nice snack food. It was also visited by Bill Clinton when he came to Vietnam some years back. There is a nice picture of him on the wall drinking a beer.

They also show the football at the weekend in the evenings on a big TV. The beer is very reasonably priced. If your interested, the web address is below

http://www.hoavien.vn/webapp/home.php

My Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't do much as I'm not really one for celebrating getting older. I went to work but did go out for a nice meal in the evening. I did get a parcel from England a day before my birthday. As you can see it contained lots of goodies (thanks mum).

As you can see the Easter eggs do not travel very well. They had melted and reformed into weird shapes. They tasted ok though.

I also got bought a birthday cake from my girlfriend. It was nice.

Not much else to report. Work is good and keeping me busy.