First day of the dragon year on flower street

Following are photos of Monday morning (first day of the lunar New Year) on Nguyen Hue Street which has been turned into a flower road beautifully decorated with flowers and ornamental trees.

The flower road officially opened to visitors from 7pm Jan 20.

Themed “Viet Nam Que Huong Toi” (Vietnam my home country), the annual flower road displays spectacular arrangement of fresh flowers and ornamental trees to welcome Tet.

The street this year is decorated with plants picked from different areas across Vietnam, including Da Lat roses, Sa Dec daisies and kumquat trees, Ha Noi peach-blossom branches, HCM City ochna-flower trees, among others.

The highlight of the street is a 26m-long and 5m-high dragon made of bamboo, and knitted and braided with dried water hyacinth.

The dragon, which blows colorful flowers, is installed on one end of Nguyen Hue Street to welcome visitors. Five other smaller dragons represent the five basic elements of metal, water, wood, fire and earth.

There are many other decorative items made of flowers representing the culture of the three regions like banh chung (square sticky rice cake), banh tet (cylindrical sticky rice cake), non quai thao (flat palm hat), non la (conical hat).

Sea and islands settings are vividly displayed through white sand, palm trees, coracles and fishing nets, all of which are made of flowers.

This Flower Street, which is closed to traffic, is open to visitors until 10pm January 26.