Ban Flower Festival of the Thai

Every year, in the second lunar month, the weather starts to be shiny and warm after spring rains; ban flowers bloom white all over South West mountainous region, promising over-productive crops on fields and gardens. Ban flower festival opens when rice grows under spring rains, being lightly green on wet rice fields.

Ban flower festival (also known as Sen ban or Sen muong festival) is hold to pray for rain, happiness for villages of the Thai ethnic group. In the Thai’s concept, ban flower symbolizes not only love but also piousness, thankfulness.

From the early morning of the festival day, the sounds of drums, gongs clang wide open the mountainous region. The kitchens of house on stilts show the red flickering fire: people steam sticky rice, boil chicken, slice bamboo shoot; some families operate pigs for the banquet. There are many big and small jars of pipe wine (rượu cần) carried out for welcome guests. Girls and boys wearing beautiful clothes call each other to come to the forests where there are many ban flowers blooming. They select the most beautiful flower branches to give to their lovers and parents.

While Sen ban festival (organized once every two years) is only taken place in the scope of village, aiming to “pray for God’s support” and to worship for “washing leaves, driving God of insects away”, where there are few games, Sen muong festival (appearing once every three years) is hold in a large scope, attracting many talent people all over the village to join.

Sen muong festival lasts three days. The ceremony part is jubilant, sacred, and sincerely reverent with greeting crowd and sky-land, natural forces worshipping rituals. The festival part covers the majority of total time with hoa mai (hỏa mai) gun shooting, longbow, con (còn) throwing, and cock fighting… contests. Especially, in the jubilant sounds of drums and gongs, the circle of people spreading dancing almost happens continuously, seem not to stop.

For girls and boys in the village, the last festival night is most joyful. In the charming scenery of mountainous region, the charm-exchange (giao duyên) singing contest and the sounds of pan-pipe (khèn), flute last until midnight. From the festival, many love stories are formed and many couples get married. Due to this, the last night is also the most memorable one.

Luc Yen Gem Market

Gems as the products are displayed in groups on the table. Gems maybe have been operated or being original. However, no matter what kinds of gem, they all look brilliant.

Luc Yen gem market is opened at a beautiful corner of a lake in Yen The town. The market works in just several hours in every morning. Depending on reasons and weather, the market can be taken place sooner or later, but at about 6.30 am there are sellers in the market.  They slowly arrange their stalls that are not complicated but very simple. The market contains about thirty to forty stalls; all sellers are female who almost has attached to the market since its establishment.

Luc Yen is the only destination in all over the country where there is gem picture making career. Visit the place, people can have a chance to discover the gem picture making career as well as to contemplate the specious pictures which cost hundreds of millions VND.

Gems as the products are displayed in groups on the table. Gems maybe have been operated or being original. However, no matter what kinds of gem, they all look brilliant. According to the sellers, gems are gathered from the persons who have already gone to the mountains; if have time, craftsmen will operate the gems to make pendants of rings, necklaces, earrings, etc… Gems are also used as materials for making gem picture, which are sold in the unit of kilogram or gram.

Each of blue, red, purple, yellow, white, black gems having different sizes and shapes is supervised and considered by the customers who are conversant with gem. The prices are announced depending on the type of gem which can be ten thousands, hundreds of thousand or a million, tens of millions dong. However, the succession of transaction is decided by the bargaining process.    

Besides gem traders and makers seeking for materials, there are many people who have heard about the gem market then come to this to see and to buy some products as the souvenirs.  After two to three hours, the market is closed. According to the sellers, in different days, there can be transaction costing tens, hundreds of millions dong or just several millions.  

The owner of a gem stall in Luc Yen market said that every early morning, hundreds of local residents went to the forest, walking along the stream, picking up each gem. After a long time, the gem became rare so people had to go further to the caves to gather it. Nowadays, people find it hard to seek for gem in the cave; many of them must use machines to dig deeply on the mountains then wash the soil for gem.

If people find out original sapphire, ruby gems (which are big, transparent, right color, not cracked), they can sell them with the price of several hundred millions dong. However, they usually get the color gems including ruby, sapphire which have lower quality, being crushed and small, used for making picture. To get the suitable color gems (especially black gems for drawing hair, blue ones for illustrating the color of water), they must wander on the mountains in a month.

For directly seeing the gem exploiting fields, it takes about 30 minutes riding motorbike. Different from gold field, the gem fields locates scattered over the mountains and forests. The local residents freely exploit the gem, that’s why there is a gem market which is also the supplying source for the gem picture making career. The visitors also can pick up the gem themselves. 

Ninh Kieu Pier- A Symbol of Can Tho City

In Vietnam travel, anyone who has been to Can Tho City has never forgotten to visit the Ninh Kieu Pier of the city. Night or day, Ninh Kieu Pier has its own poetic and romantic features made up of rivers and canals. The Pier, therefore, has become a heaven of backpackers.

• Can Tho City lies along one of the biggest rivers in Mekong Delta – Hau river. To have the whole view of this river, travellers should spend some time at Ninh Kieu dock. Ninh Kieu dock, with Ho Chi Minh statue standing still, is the symbol of Can Tho city.

Ninh Kieu Pier seen from above

Ninh Kieu Pier can’t compare with the backpacker area in Ho Chi Minh City for the dynamism and variety of tourist services. However, its natural scenery far outshines that of HCMC’s Pham Ngu Lao Street. This is also an embankment and park, thus, it is always in bustle even day or night.

 In the morning, visitors in Vietnam travel can roam around here to sightsee and to enjoy the fresh air of Mekong Delta. Many people come here every day to do morning exercise or play sports. This is where you can start your trip to the floating market by renting a boat which can be found everywhere along the dock.

Ninh Kieu Pier at night

 In the evening, the food stalls are always ready with many Vietnamese foods, which you cannot miss. The tables are put along the dock so you can enjoy the food while watching the river at night. Every night, Can Tho bridge with sparkling lights, which is the most noticeable thing in dark, can be seen clearly from here. 

Also, you can find Can Tho antique market here. Nowadays, this market is where people sell souvenirs for tourists in Vietnam travel. No matter what time you visit Ninh Kieu dock, there is always things for you to do!

Can Tho City’s Long Tuyen Ancient Village

Long Tuyen is an ancient village in the south of Can Tho City. A larger number of tourists in Vietnam travel are attracted to this place not only because of its natural beauty of scenery, but also the cultural relics remained after hundreds of years.

This is an old village in the south of Can Tho City, including Binh Thuy, An Thoi, Long Tuyen and Long Hoa. The village is a destination that attracts many tourists in Vietnam travel not only because of its beautifully natural scenery, but also the cultural relics that remains after hundreds of years.

The architecture and culture in Long Tuyen is very unique because it is the combination of various cultures from Western to Eastern, including Chinese, French, American, Cham and Japanese. This place also possesses six of 18 national relics in Can Tho, including famous locations such as Binh Thuy Temple, Nam Nha Pagoda or Binh Thuy Old House. Moreover, the Ky Yen Festival takes place here. 

It can be said that Long Tuyen village is a rare destination that contains various typical characteristics of the culture in this region, and for sure it is a pity if you don’t add this destination to your travel.

My Khanh Tourist Village- A Special Village in Can Tho

Paying a visit to My Khanh Tourist Village, visitors in Vietnam travel often feel relaxed and comfortable. It brings the features of a garden-style eco-tourist site in Can Tho. Visiting the village, visitors not only can experience the old days of Southerners’ life, but also enjoy fruits, hot tea and listen to music.

My Khanh tourist village is located at 335 Lo Vong Cung Street, Phong Dien District, about five kilometers from Can Tho City by road or river.

My Khanh village, which was established in 1996, features a garden-style eco-tourist site. The village is a special one in Can Tho which brings about comfort and relaxation for any visitor.

Visiting My Khanh Tourist Village, visitors in Vietnam travel can experience the old days of southerners’ life by taking on the costume of a rich landlord who lived in a big house or of a normal traditional farmer to feel the difference. As a rich landlord, you can enjoy fruit, hot tea and listen to music from a hand-operated gramophone made more than 300 years ago. As a farmer, you are given opportunity to work and prepare meals as southern farmers did in the past.

Another feature that makes My Khanh tourist village special is the 100-year-old southern house that was moved piece by piece from Can Tho's Binh Thuy Ward and reassembled.

At the village, you are served with Mekong Delta specialties such as baby rabbits, snakes, tortoises, bats, cuckoos and crocodiles, etc. The meals include regional fruits such as rambutans, durians, langsats, mangosteens, oranges, tangerines and pomeloes.

My Khanh tourist village also provides accommodation features of Central Highlands-style stilt houses with total 300 well-furnished rooms in all. Besides, there are other entertainment services including a swimming pool, fishing and boating on the river.

Romance Hanoi's Autumn

The scene of Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi in daytime The capital’s beauty lies in its quiet streets full of yellow leaves, leaves on trees having turned yellow or red and picturesque sunsets at the city’s many lakes.   The signs of Hanoi in autumn are hoa sua (milky flower) in blossom on Nguyen Du Street, the scent of hoang lan flower overwhelming Phan Dinh Phung Street and its vicinity. These integral parts of Hanoi have inspired a large number of poets and musicians, including Phu Quang with Vietnam travel news. Hanoians say a stroll on Thanh Nien Street between West Lake and Truc Bach Lake will help visitors fully understand what autumn in Hanoi is like and why it brings lovers closer. Autumn in Hanoi is very beautiful but many argue it is an even more romantic setting in October. Capital folk say the autumn there has to be felt to be properly appreciated. This is why numerous poems and ballads have been produced but are considered unfinished stories, leaving the chance for others to continue the next chapters. Hoan Kiem (Sword Lake) during autumn sunset

Finding More Vietnam Landscapes

Teenage boys pulled up on Honda scooters, kicking off their shoes and rolling up their jeans to play soccer on the white sand; young mothers led small charges by the hand into the gently lapping aquamarine water; an elderly woman, her teeth lacquered black in the style of her ancestors, watched a group of children fly colorful, animal-shaped kites on the pier, built in 1873.

If not for the Communist slogans being piped out of the town’s loudspeakers, it would have been hard to believe this was Vietnam. Where, after all, were the motorbikes, the honking horns, the shiny high-rises, and the constant activity that has come to characterize this rapidly developing country?

Until recently, the isolated 16-island archipelago of Con Dao (its largest island, Con Son, is commonly called Con Dao Island), 110 miles off the mainland’s southeastern coast, was a place most Vietnamese wanted to forget with Vietnam travel news. For 113 years, this island was home to one of the country’s harshest prison systems, established by French colonists in 1862 and later ruled by South Vietnamese and American forces until Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in 1975, at which point the prisons were closed.

These days, officials on government-sponsored group tours make pilgrimages to the crumbling stone prisons, which have been turned into museums that depict the suffering endured by their comrades.

Other buildings constructed by the French have been converted into cafes and private homes in the main town, which consists of little more than a daily market, a few seafood restaurants and a couple of souvenir shops selling shells, carved wooden canes, and Ho Chi Minh paraphernalia. The few signs along the quiet streets lined with flame-trees and bougainvillea tout pearls of wisdom such as “With the party comes peace, comfort, and happiness.”

But despite, or perhaps because of, its ugly history, Con Dao is one of Southeast Asia’s most untouched and breathtaking getaways. Its past, coupled with its remoteness, have spared it from the million-plus hordes that descend on coastal boomtowns like Nha Trang and Danang every year. (According to government figures, in 2008 Con Dao received 20,000 visitors, only 2,600 of whom were foreign.)

A lack of development and, until recently, of access (the number of 45-minute flights from Ho Chi Minh Cityhas gradually increased from a handful per week four years ago to three times a day now) has also helped to keep the islands’ beaches empty and immaculate. The azure waters are brimming with Vietnam’s best coral reefs, and the forests bustle with macaque monkeys and black squirrels, one of several species indigenous to Con Dao.

Indeed, efforts to preserve Con Dao’s natural beauty are unrivaled in the rest of Vietnam. Of the archipelago’s total area, 83 percent is protected by the Con Dao National Park, including over 50 square miles that make up the country’s first marine reserve.

With help from organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations Development Program, the park has just won approval for a $16.5 million development plan through 2020, which will finance natural resource protection, research and eco-tourism.

Though the government hopes to more than double the islands’ population to 13,500 by 2013 through a series of ambitious residential and tourism projects, for now, Con Dao’s slow, friendly rhythms and spectacular beauty remain largely undisturbed.

On a recent visit, except for a film crew shooting a coming season of “Koh-Lanta,” the French adaptation of “Survivor,” foreign tourists were scarce. One of them was Fred Burke, a 51-year-old managing partner of Baker & McKenzie, an international law firm with offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

“This feels like some sort of secret Tahiti,” he said, referring to the lush, rolling hills and sharp cliffs that abut the sea. “Most of the popular seaside destinations in Vietnam are being degraded with trash on the beach, inadequate waste-water treatment, noisy motorbikes and Jet Skis. It’s a complete surprise to find an amazingly beautiful place like Con Dao with almost nobody here.”

Despite its rich beauty, Con Dao is still far from being a luxury destination. Right now there is only a smattering of simple, Vietnamese-run lodgings and restaurants. But the much anticipated arrival late this year of a Six Senses resort, from the Bangkok-based company known for introducing eco-luxury to the region’s most unspoiled up-and-coming locales, suggests that Con Dao might soon become part of the international travel scene.

Though English is not widely spoken and most places cater to Vietnamese tour groups, independent travelers can still partake of the islands’ treasures. The Con Dao National Park arranges guided treks through dense tropical jungle and to remote beaches like Dam Tre Bay, a deep, sheltered cove that is home to golden fields of swaying seaweed and giant clams with electric blue lips. There are also snorkeling trips to Bay Canh islet, where fine sand lures endangered hawksbill and green sea turtles during the May to September nesting season.

But cruising the winding cliffside roads on a rented scooter might be the most memorable way to experience Con Dao, where the only traffic is the occasional black-haired goat or wild pig. Hidden down a sandy track marked “Mieu Cau,” about eight miles northeast of town, is Dam Trau Beach, a crescent-shaped expanse of golden sand and sapphire fringed by feathery casuarinas, the peace disrupted only by the arrival of flights from Ho Chi Minh City.

Head west to encounter rolling dunes and Con Dao’s main port, Ben Dam, where spearmint-green, sun-beaten fishing boats bob in the turquoise water. The island’s prettiest beach, the boulder-peppered Bai Nhat, emerges only with the low tide. If you’re lucky, that will happen in late afternoon when the sun drops behind the 1,000-foot-high Love Peak, so called because it looks like two heads nestled together.

The beauty of the oldest pagoda in Vietnam

The oriental architecture style and the antiques at Dau pagoda will absolutely impress with any tourists in Vietnam travel. Moreover, it is also a great chance for those who want to discover and experience the traditional culture of Vietnam, and a must -visit place for Buddhists.

Dau Pagoda, located in Thuan Thanh district, Bac Ninh province, is considered the oldest Buddhist pagoda in Vietnam according to researchers. It is about 1 hour away from Hanoi Old Quarter.

 In the past, the region where Dau Pagoda was built today was the capital of Giao Chi district, the political, economic and cultural center of Vietnam. About 1,800 years ago,  Khau Da La, an Indian monk came to this area to do the missionary work and founded the first Buddhism center in Vietnam called Luy Lau. There were many pagodas, citadels and market built in the area at that time and Dau Pagoda was among them.

As Dau Pagoda was the biggest pagoda in the Buddhist center region, many monks from either India or China came there to do research and spread Buddhism to the local residents.

This ancient pagoda has undergone many restorations and expansion, with the largest construction undertaken under the Ly and Tran dynasty. Going through the fluctuation of history, although many structures in the region were destroyed, the pagoda still exists and preserves the traditional oriental architecture style especially the wood block aged about 1752 years old and two bronzes' Xa Loi bodies of Vu Khac Minh and Vu Khac Truong monk.

The yard in front of the pagoda hosts a three stories tower name Hoa Phong. The tower originally had six stories but it was partly destroyed. Inside the tower, there are a number of valuable artifacts such as a large bell dating back in Canh Thinh Dynasty (1793), a big bronze gong casted in Ming Mang Dynasty (1817) and several statues of Gods in Buddhist legends.

Since its inception, Dau Pagoda has hosted the annual Dau Pagoda Festival on April 8th in lunar calendar. This is also the biggest Buddhism festival of the northern region of Vietnam.

The oriental architecture style and the antiques at Dau pagoda will absolutely impress any tourists in Vietnam travel. In addition, it is also a great chance for those who want to discover and experience the traditional culture of Vietnam, and a must -visit place for Buddhists.

Tran Quoc Pagoda- a cultural symbol of Vietnamese Buddhism

Tran Quoc Pagoda is considered a cultural symbol of Vietnamese Buddhism partly for it is the oldest pagoda and situated in the center of the capital of Vietnam. Moreover, unlike other ordinary pagodas, the Pagoda was built in a very intricate way. Behind the worshipping shrine is the Buddhist trinity followed by corridors, shrines and the belfry.

This is the first time I have visited Tran Quoc Pagoda (Chùa Trấn Quốc) located beside the dazzling West Lake, on Thanh Nien Road, Hanoi. it is seated on an island linked by a bridge to the causeway between the two most romantic lakes of Hanoi: West Lake and Truc Bach Lake.

According to my guider the construction of the pagoda started in 541 and was completed in 545 under the reign of King Ly Nam De (544-548) under its original name of Khai Quoc (National Founder). It was at first built on the bank of the Red River (then West Lake and the Red River met).

When going inside the pagoda, I saw there were many valuable statues, such as the red lac statue trimmed with gold of Sakyamouni Buddha's Parinirvana, which is a masterpiece of Vietnamese sculptural art, andmany ancient steles, one of which was made in 1639 by Doctoral lau- Nguyen Xuan Chinh, recording the Pagoda's history.

It must be said that the island and pagoda provide a beautiful scenery, especially when viewing at sunset. Standing at one end of  Thanh Nien Road, I could see the towers of the pagoda rising above the lake’s surface. Particurlarly during festivals, full moon days or Tet. Up to now, the pagoda can still preserve its fame although the landscape has been affected by urbanization.

In the pagoda’s garden stands a Bồ Đề (Bodhi) tree, which is attached to a past story. In 1959, on one visit to Vietnam, Indian Prime Minister Razendia Prasat offered the Pagoda a bodhi tree as a gift. The plant was grafted from the holy bodhi tree where Sakyamuni sat in zen (meditation) position and achieved enlightenment in India 25 centuries ago. Today the bodhi tree is easily recognizable from its heart-shaped leaves, taken from a cutting of its original tree. 

Moreover, I still knew that Tran Quoc is also a small museum of priceless antiques dated hundreds years old such as worshiping statues in the front house. The statues are all engraved and polished meticulously by skillful craftsmen, which all bear spectacular features. Of them, the outstanding one is the statue “Thích ca thập niết bàn”, evaluated as the most beautiful statue of Vietnam.

With all the historical and architectural values it possesses, the Pagoda is not only worth visiting as a sacred sanctuary of Buddhism attracting countless Buddhist believers; but also an indispensible destination for cultural explorers to Vietnam. If you have time to visit Hanoi, don't miss come to Tran Quoc Pagoda to explore the culture of Vietnamese Buddhism and to sightseeing view of West Lake.