* 'For VND10,000 notes, customers have to pay VND100,000 (US$6.25) for VND90,000 ($5.6) worth of notes. The smaller the value of the note, the higher the exchange price. "I have to pay VND160,000 ($10) to get 20 notes of VND5,000." said Tran Viet Hung of ABC Tourism.' What, what!?!?!?!?!

My tuppence worth of advice...

1) If you're in the business of giving mừng tuổi or li xi and need lots of small notes -- put whatever you just got in an envelope labelled do not open till next Tet. Then distribute freely in a year's time. Repeat annually ad infinitum.

2) If a shopkeeper offers you sweets instead of VND1,000 or VND500 change refuse and demand to be treated like an adult. Accept cigarettes, shots of ruou, peanuts,or else VND2,000. Definitely demand something on principle -- for skinflints everywhere you must fight back.

Another option I'm mulling over would be to accept the sweets then return one day, slap 2oo sweets on the counter and demand VND100,000 worth of goods.

CitiMart have made a few squid in the last 10 years on that oh-so-sneaky manoeuvre and I tell ya, I've had enough!

* Happiness is a warm gun: A young guy is stopped at Noi Bai for smuggling in a gun with bullets packed elsewhere in his suitcase.

His excuse? "My mother packed my bag."
* Freezing to death: It's so cold in some parts of the north that cows are dropping dead. What would Gary Larson think?