(Spoiler alert, I’m writing this on day 6, after already crafting a whiny day 6 post, so here will just be the fun stuff).

Tết essentials

To properly prepare for Tết, you need at least three things:

Museum

Ha Giang has a neat little museum documenting the many indigenous cultures that make up the region. Most of the exhibits are in Vietnamese and English, but the first series of photos were not so I did a lot of phone translating, sometimes with less than stellar results:

I especially liked the grass ghosts who will worship ancestors or the recently departed.

And though I initially read the heading incorrectly, I am all for the idea of my wedding involving 50kg of wine, masses of rice and cold hard cash.

Suffice to say though, that Ha Giang is not the prettiest city you’ll ever visit, especially when shrouded in cloud (a topic for that day 6 post…)