When I was traveling on Lý Sơn island last July, I met a French tourist. He asked me “Have you ever been to Phú Quý island?”. I had no idea where this island was. After I was back home, I searched information through Google and found that this island is located in Bình Thuận province. I decided that I would visit this island when possible. At last I made it and this was the 16th island of Vietnam that I have been to. The visit to this island depends much on the weather (wind) and water flow. Sometimes people were stuck on the island for weeks because there was no boat going back to the mainland. I must say that this was a hard trip because it takes a long time to travel by ship and ... read more

Twenty years had passed since my first trip to Sài Gòn (aka Hồ Chí Minh city). In March 1993 when I visited the city for the first time, I didn't hear much northern accent, but now I could hear northern, central and southern accents everywhere. The city's population is now 10 million people. Many of them are immigrants from other provinces. Like a Vietnamese saying "Đất lành chim đậu" (a peaceful land where birds fly to), Sài Gòn is the most developed city in Vietnam. It is also a good place to do business and investment. There are more opportunities and various choices for the people to find jobs and develop their careers. During the past 20 years, I have made about 20 trips to Sài Gòn, sometimes on business, but most of the time I ... read more

17 & 18 February 2013 - This is Part 2 of my 6-day solo trip in southern Vietnam by local bus and motorbike. I traveled from Rạch Giá to Cần Thơ by bus and stayed a night in this city. Cần Thơ is the biggest city in the Mekong Delta. I have been to this city three times before, so I didn’t spend much time there. Next morning I took a bus to Trà Vinh province. This is the 61th province in Vietnam that I visited. Trà Vinh is a poor province in the Mekong Delta. 70% of the population are Khmer ethnic minority people. It took me two and a half hours to travel 110km from Cần Thơ to Trà Vinh city. I hired a motorbike taxi driver at the bus station to show me ... read more

11 & 12 February 2013 – I traveled with my parents to Phnom Penh. It is 10 years since my first trip to Cambodia in December 2002, so it has been developed since those days. My parents are at age 70s, so they cannot travel overland to Siem Reap (700km from Sài Gòn to Siem Reap). We decided to make a short trip to Phnom Penh and it’s inexpensive to travel by bus. When we went to Sapaco bus company, the tickets were sold out before the holiday (Tết new year in Vietnam). We had to pay more for bus tickets at Sinh Tourist and we also booked a triple room for a night. We left Sài Gòn for Phnom Penh at 6:40am on the second day of Tết. There were four Sinh Tourist buses going ... read more

7 January 2013 - Time flies so fast. It has been 5 years since I joined Travel Blog, but I feel like it was just yesterday. Over the past 5 years, I have made 8 trips abroad to 8 countries and uncountable trips in Vietnam. I have also published 166 blogs and uploaded 6,300 photos. Today I celebrate my 5 year participation in Travel Blog. I would like to thank Alistair (the founder of Travel Blog) again for his help so many times and for his great works to develop this website. I would also like to take this chance to thank 120 regular readers who have recommended me and followed my travel stories for a long time. How did I find out this website? Back to January 2008. I had been a regular poster on ... read more