Most Vietnamese festivals are fixed by the lunar calendar: the majority take place in spring, and the days of the full moon (day one) and the new moon (day fourteen or fifteen) are particularly auspicious.
All Vietnamese calendars show both the lunar and solar (Gregorian) months and dates (Please check with our staffs for the exact date. Visitors may experience difficulties during this period as shops, restaurants and public services close and prices tend to go up in the few shops that remain open.)
Tet Nguyen Dan , or simply Tet (Festival), is Vietnam's most important annual event; it lasts for seven days and falls sometime between the last week of January and the third week of February, on the night of the new moon. This is a time when families get together to celebrate renewal and hope for the new year, when ancestral spirits are welcomed back to the household, and when everyone in Vietnam becomes a year older.
Festivals of interest to tourists include the Water Puppet Festival held at Thay Pagoda, west of Hanoi; Buddhist festival at the Perfume Pagoda , west of Hanoi and Trung Thu Festival, also known as Children's Day, when dragon dances take place and children are given lanterns in the shape of stars, carp or dragons.
Public Holidays in Vietnam
January 1: New Year's Day (one-day holiday)
April (on the 10 of 3rd Lunar month): Ancestor Worshipping Anniversary (one-day holiday)
April 30: Saigon Liberation Day (one-day holiday)
May 1: International Labor Day (one-day holiday)
September 2: National Day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (one-day holiday)
Vietnam Traditional Lunar New Year Festival - Tet Nguyen Dan (four-day holiday). The holiday begins on the last day of the last lunar month and lasts through the first three days of the first lunar month.