Tet Nguyen Dan or Tet holiday is the biggest, brightest and most blooming brilliant festival in Vietnam: a time to feast, look ahead to the new year and wear your best clothes, not to mention buy, sell and decorate your home or business with as many pretty flowers and plants as possible. At this time of year the city is positively alive with color. It’s enough to make the soul soar.

If you are lucky enough to be in Vietnam during the Tet Holiday, you would be well advised to spend some time in the heart of a flower market, but if you haven’t fear not for Chao has done it for you.

Here are a few of our best shots on a recent visit to a Hanoi flower market.

Peach blossom- a traditional Tet flower. Photograph: Arina Vu

Peach blossom flowers in close lens. Photograph: Arina Vu

Peach blossoms can be diverse in color, with different shades of pink. Photograph: Kieu Anh

Photograph: Kieu Anh

Photograph: Arina Vuu

Photograph: Kieu Anh

Alongside the peach blossom the most popular decoration you will see across Vietnam is the Kumquat tree, which can be seen everywhere pretty much everywhere.

Kumquats signify luck, prosperity and good health. Photograph: Arina Vu

A variety of vibrant flowers in Quang Ba Flower Market. Photograph: Arina Vu

Photograph: Kieu Anh

Plum Flowers. Photograph: Kieu Anh

Red Azaleas (Do quyen do). Photograph: Kieu Anh

Sunflowers. Photograph: Kieu Anh

Chamelaucium (Hoa Thanh Lieu). Photograph: Kieu Anh

Hydrangeas (Cam tu cau). Photograph: Kieu Anh

Chrysanthemum (Cuc vang) and orange daisies (Cuc cam). Photograph: Kieu Anh

Flowers often are wrapped in bouquets for commercial buyers. Photograph: Arina Vuu

A seller having a quick nap during lunchtime, behind her flowers. Photograph: Arina Vuu

Vintage Tet, replete with aged Honda. Photograph: Arina Vuu

Photograph: Kieu Anh

A biker stops by looking for a peach blossom branch. Photograph: Arina Vuu

Both sides of the street fully decorated with Tet trees and flowers. Photograph: Arina Vuu

Vietnam’s answer to Barack Obama or the smile of a Kumquat garden owner in Tu Lien Market? Photograph: Arina Vuu

Beautiful woman. Beautiful blossom!

Here at Chao, we very much hope you are enjoying the city’s trees and flowers as much as we are. Chuc mung nam moi!

All photography by Arina Vuu and Kieu Anh.