The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) on January 26 held an award ceremony of logo-symbol designing contest for the National Tourism Promotion Programme over the 2011-2015 period. The first prize went to the designing team of the Cowan Vietnam Company with a new logo -slogan “Vietnam – a Different Orient”. According to the Organising [...]
A group of 52 artists from HCMC is presenting an overview of current lacquer paintings at their exhibition at the HCMC Fine Arts College. Son Mai Sai Gon 2011 (Sai Gon Lacquer) features more than 50 works in different styles, using the traditional material of lacquer. Being a native of the northern province of Ha [...]
The Spring Flower Festival 2011 opened in Tao Dan Park, Ho Chi Minh City on January 28 to celebrate the founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (February 3) and the success of the 11th National Party Congress. The festival also aims to mark the 100th anniversary of the day that President Ho Chi [...]
The biggest city in Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh City, formally Saigon. It provided the base for visits to the Cu Chi tunnels, Mekong Delta and the War Remnants Museum before moving on to Cambodia. Some people say that Saigon is busier than Hanoi, but as far as I can tell, Hanoi is much more [...]
Like a one-cheek sneak I slipped through the terrible oneway doors and into the no-mans land of the international departure lounge. Almost as surreal as the time travelers’ portal in some scifi movie it transports one into the temporary purgatory wherein all manner of lost souls mingle and wander (along with their bruised metaphors), forced [...]
This blog is written by Miss e from Philadelphia USA, one of the very talented volunteers that has traveled to Vietnam to help Lifestart Foundation this year. Miss e’s blog is about her experience as a volunteer with Lifestart Foundation in Hoi An. We loved having Miss e as part of our team in Vietnam [...]
Travelling with four boys was an interesting experience, and it confirmed for me just how different the two sexes are. The conversations that boys have are totally different to the sort of things girls talk about. For example, the currency in Vietnam is called ‘Dong.’ As you can imagine, the boys had a field day [...]
Checking out of Hien Mai hotel this morning was a hassle. For some reason they made our bill 100,000 dong more than it was supposed to be. Reasoning being that the exchange rate went up… It doesn’t make sense that the hotel room, breakfast, and water bottle prices will increase because the exchange rate changed! [...]
The easyrider I set up for today was MUCH cheaper and bargainable, spoke way less english, drives a moped (much slower than the motorbikes we were on yesterday), but he got me around. With our bus leaving Dalat for Saigon at 1:30, I only had the first half of the day to finish touring Dalat. [...]
Sat Jan 22, 2011 very early On a tour bus in Hue right now for a DMZ tour. Margot and I arrived in Hue last night after a 3 hr bus ride. It was nice to see some of the country side. It’s very wet, misty, rainy – like there has been a permanent gray [...]
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