The 3 larger pictures above are the lunchtime spread and the other smaller pictures were taken at the party.

Upon arriving back in Ho Chi Minh City we arrived to a spectacular sight. It was the day of Charlie's 1 month party and in Vietnam one month parties are very serious occasions. Unbeknown to me it is tradition to lay on a spread at lunchtime, which you can see above. Mum, Dad and I were all greatly relieved when we found out that we didn't have to eat this food and that it was all going to be given away to people. I still don't know who it was given away to.

The evening of the party had arrived and we set of to a famous seafood restaurant in downtown Ho Chi Minh City to celebrate with Hien's family and a few close friends. Making the invitation list was a long drawn out task when we realised how many people we had to invite. Hien's family consisted of about 40 people and then there many others we wanted to invite as well. In the end we invited about 115 people to the party, but thought only about 80 would arrive.

An hour after people were asked to arrive the room was still looking decidedly vacant of guests and if I were in any county other than Vietnam I would have been panicking. In Vietnam it is customary to be very late for everything and it is not the done thing to arrive less than 1 hour late for a party and 1.5 to 2 hours late is generally considered very acceptable. An hour and a half after the scheduled start time Hien turned up with Charlie and it was around this time that the majority of the guests turned up as well.

Many of the guests brought presents for Charlie and as is customary in Vietnam many guests brought money. The party was a great success with over 100 guests in attendance and we would like to thank everyone for coming and especially for bringing gifts and money. Charlie now has enough presents to last until he is about 35 years old and he has the finances to put himself through university.