New Year’s eve in Saigon

Here’s our last day in 2014. After dinner, we spent the last few hours on trying to reach the Bitexco Financial Tower (the highest tower in Saigon), where the New Year’s fireworks were going to be released.

Although we had already experienced the traffic here and got used to it, it was nothing compared to the traffic jam on that night. Thousands of motorbikes on the road and on the sidewalks were blocking the people that wanted to reach the tower on foot, forming a massive sea of crowd.

About 10 minutes before midnight, our stroll through the congested street came to a halt because there was no space for us to move. Unfortunately, we only got a partial view of the fireworks show as our view was blocked by massive trees. Whoever that was lucky could see the fireworks between the buildings or the reflection on other buildings near the tower. Nevertheless, people remained very excited to celebrate this happy moment and the atmosphere was breathtaking.

As usual, you shouldn’t worry about food, there were plenty of street food (many of them salty and sweet) on the sidewalks, apart from drink stalls. Fast food restaurants could only be reached after the end of the fireworks, when all the people began to disperse. However, they did not remain opened for long after midnight.

Below you will find a link to a video that has been recorded on that night when we were trying to reach the tower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiGuPViA0YU&feature=youtu.be

P.S.: If you dislike crowded places and would like to celebrate in a different manner, there are a wide range of alternatives for New Year celebration in Saigon. The western bars are among the most popular choices, but we strongly recommend you to reserve a table some days in advance or it might be fully booked. This option is usually preferred by tourists, and for this reason the prices are higher than the local standard. Some nice places where you can go are Chill Sky Bar, OMG Sky Bar and Hard Rock Cafè.