War’s reality closes in when you take plunge into underground passageways - Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — The sound of gunshots pierce the thick jungle air. I’m on my hands and knees, crawling through the subterranean darkness, sweating in places I didn’t know I had sweat glands.
“Keep on coming! Keep on coming!” urges a wiry Vietnamese man in fatigues, waving me forward.
Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam
A Cu Chi tunnel worker demonstrates how villagers and Viet Cong would enter the hidden tunnels during the war. The openings were incredibly small and hidden by leaves. When tourists visit the tunnels today, they go through segments that have been widened to accommodate Westerners’ bodies.
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With time to watch the ebb and flow of a river’s life, Graham Reilly floats from Vietnam to Cambodia.
I stare from the riverbank at this astonishingly vast and lively world of water. Here, in the charming provincial city of Can Tho in the heart of southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, it is as if the land is merely an afterthought. Everything is about the river and the way of life it sustains.
Cai Rang floating market, Mekong delta, Vietnam
It is a world of colour and movement, of a comforting spray of cool water on your face as you are rowed back to your hotel at night in a slim stick of a boat, of the sleepy glint of dusk as you trail your finger across the river’s surface, of the cough and splutter of a small passenger ferry as it crosses the river to Vinh Long, of the throaty gurgle of a rice boat as it slowly motors to Ho Chi Minh City or Cambodia.
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The Long Bien Bridge Memory Festival opened in Hanoi on October 10 to mark the 55th anniversary of the Capital’s Liberation Day and the 10th year Hanoi has been recognised as a City for Peace by UNESCO.
Representatives from ministries, the municipal administration, ambassadors, international guests and about 50,000 local people attended the opening ceremony that included a wide range of activities at the bridgeheads and along the historical bridge.
Bac Ha fair opens every Sunday in Bac Ha district, the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai. The fair is known for its cultural identity of ethnic minority people.
The fair attracts not only domestic tourists but also many foreigners who come to look for colourful brocade, skirts of Mong ethnic minority people and specialities of the mountain region.
Chau Doc in the Mekong Delta is a charming destination with a fascinating mix of Khmer, Vietnamese, Chinese and Cham communities.
An Giang province is often one of the worst affected regions when floods hit the Mekong Delta, which is why unlike other provinces in the Mekong Delta, rice-exporting is not the most important trade here. The main driving force in the province’s economy is catfish farming, a fish which contributes to around a fifth of Vietnam’s total seafood output.
Mekong River Market, Vietnam
The highest concentration of “floating houses” with fish cages can be observed on the western banks of the Chau Doc River near where it meets the mighty Mekong. Nguyen Van De, a local resident from the floating village, takes us on his boat for a quick tour around Chau Doc River. On the tranquil river, we cruise past neat rows of houses, which all have fishing cages underneath them.
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Mike and Angie told their travel around Asia. This is the entry about their trekking tour in Mai Chau, Hoa Binh, Viet Nam.
It was 5:30 am when the public load speaker outside our village home stay burst into life with the voice of a local party official. “Time to rise - its another fine day. Please make sure the roads are clean and now is a good time to be putting fertilizer on the fields”. Well, that was the translation we were given by Hieu, our Vietnamese tour guide.
Bareback water buffalo riding in Mai Chau, Hoa Binh, Vietnam
We were staying with Mrs Chung in a village just outside of Mai Chau, 150 km west of Hanoi in what is clearly a tourist showcase area.
Riding across Vietnamese border on the first of January, the author was eager to discovery interesting things here.
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
We began the new year under clear skies in a new country. We rolled across the Vietnamese border on the first of January and biked under blue sky, for the first time in several weeks, through the border and down a long hill.
I was eager to see if the change from China to Vietnam would be subtle or drastic. The car horns definitely changed. The architecture reflected more European influence. We biked through the small border town of Ding Dong, and down a huge hill. So long was the hill, I began to suspect the entire country was downhill. The children yelled “Hello!” with American accents. People along the side of the road waved and smiled. They seemed less surprised to see foreigners. And many more spoke English.
The sun sunk in the sky and the light softened. We still sped downhill, but needed to stop soon. We pulled into a…
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We pulled into Hanoi at 4.30am! With our eyes just open we made it back to Elizabeth Hotel to catch up on some emails before setting off to Halong Bay. Back on the bus again for three hours we stopped and grabbed some fantastic egg, bacon and cheese bagettes (or it could have been we were starving) before getting back in the bus. We had another wait at Halong City before boarding our boat in bright blue sky and brilliant sunshine! We set off on our cruise along Halong Bay with a seafood lunch onboard. Our first stop was at the … caves we wandered through back on the boat only to nearly leave one of our passengers behind. We set off again through floating villages and through the spectacular formations of the bay. Next stop, kayaking! After our previous experience we now considered ourselves experts or close too especially given the absolute stillness of the water compared to that of Laos.
A project to build a library to store and preserve one thousand years of Thang Long culture has been built by Ha Noi Publishing House, said its director, Nguyen Khac Oanh.
The library will store rare books, manuscripts and documents about Thang Long- Ha Noi, as well as act as a depository for long-term research on Hanoi’s history.
The Ha Noi Publishing House carried out a campaign to collect rare books and research about Thang Long culture. In addition, they also carried out a successful search in foreign countries.
By the end of 2008, over 9,000 documents and l pictures about Thang Long- Ha Noi which are kept in Holland and UK, have been translated into Vietnamese.
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I have seen and read many articles on ‘Galapagos on the cheap‘ or how to visit the islands on a tight budget.
Many of these articles and blogs have valuable tips and suggestions on how to save some dollars. However, most of them omit (accidentally or on purpose) some issues and factors involved.
Regardless of how you [...]
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