Three years ago, after my great trip to India, I fell in love with the Indian Subcontinent and decided that the next country I wanted to visit would be Nepal. Finally, I made the trip and following is my story about another adventure in my life. 24 April 2009 - In Bangkok, I had a room at 1am and slept a few hours before going back to the airport for my connecting flight to Kathmandu. At 5am, I woke up and felt terrible stomachache. I guess I caught cold as I had cold shower and kept the fan going on all [View Full Entry]

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"Vietnam is the land of heat and noodles". That is what an American friend wrote to me in an email when he said he missed Vietnam. While in English, there may be only some words "noodle", "vermicelli" or "noodle soup", in Vietnamese, we have various names "Phở, Bún, Miến, Bánh đa, Bánh canh, Mỳ" to describe our noodles. The Vietnamese noodles have different colors (white, red, yellow), shape and thickness, depending on the types and regions. Each of the said noodles has one more word next to it, like beef, chicken or other material, or name of a location to emphasize [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 12 April 2009 - The Japan Sakura Festival 2009 was held at Quần Ngựa stadium to celebrate the 999th year anniversary of Hanoi city and to introduce Japanese culture to Vietnam. This was the 3rd festival in the last 3 years. The festival lasted 3 days (10-12 April), however we only could see real Sakura on the last day of the festival. 400 branches of Sakura and 400 carp flags were brought from Japan. It was estimated that about 200,000 people in Hanoi visited the place for watching Sakura as well as other cultural activities. The cherry blossoms (Sakura) this [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 4 April 2009 - It was our national holiday. I booked a one day trip (VND 320,000, about US$18) with Vietravel Company to visit Bái Đính pagoda and Tràng An nature reserve in Ninh Bình province (110km from Hanoi). Both places are new tourist destinations, so some road sections and work items are still under construction. I was at Bái Đính pagoda (which is the biggest pagoda in Vietnam) last year, so this time I took only some photos at the site. My major interest on this trip was Tràng An nature reserve as I'd not been there yet. After [View Full Entry]

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Other sections of the mosaic wall have been completed, so on Saturday 28 March I went to the site to take some more photos. Fortunately, I saw the ongoing works and some workers were inlaying ceramic pieces into the concrete wall. The pictures on some completed sections are of flowers, trees, typical houses in Hanoi's Old Quarter, waves, fishes swimming in the sea and artists playing traditional instruments. The most important section of the wall has a mosaic depicting a pair of dragons with figures "1010 - 2010" at Chương Dương intersection. 1010 was the year when Hanoi be [View Full Entry]

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Last week, a Travel Blog member said to me “Your blog is a bright statement of Vietnam”. I replied to him “There are the good and the bad everywhere in the world. I always show my respect for the people and countries I visit. Life is too short, so I try to think about the positive side”. And he agreed with me. My story will start with the meetings with 2 English men in Hanoi. The first English man visited Vietnam on 11 business trips during 3 years and he fell in love with Vietnam. I also attended the dinner farewell [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 15 March 2009 - I traveled with my parents and their friends to Khoang Xanh and Thác Đa, which are located 50km from Hanoi's center. Both places are famous for the waterfalls and hot spring/mud bath services, however we are now in the dry season, so there are not much water at the waterfalls. We left Hanoi at 6:30am and arrived back on the same day at 6:30pm. I climbed up the rocks at Khoang Xanh, but there were not much to see so I decided to go down. The lake and another little waterfall are the places where I [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday 4 March 2009 - We passed by Sài Đồng village while traveling on the National Highway No. 5 towards Bắc Ninh province. We saw a crowd by the lake and heard music, so I guessed there was a festival. I asked the driver to stop the car and we walked towards the crowd in order to take photos. We went along the road with trees lining both sides and festival flags of 5 colors (cờ ngũ sắc), went through a market and joined the crowd sitting on the bank. A boat appeared and came towards us. There were singers on [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday 4 March 2009 - Myself and a tourist rented a car and traveled 67km to a ceramic village in Bắc Ninh province. In northern Vietnam, there are some famous ceramic villages like Bát Tràng, Chu Đậu, Thổ Hà, Phù Lãng etc. Before the trip, I got great advice from Executive Manager of the Hanoi Ceramic Mosaic Mural Project about which village I should go, so I decided to choose Phù Lãng ceramic village for a new blog. We left Hanoi at 10am and arrived at Thủ Công village by Cầu river a couple of hours later. I really like the [View Full Entry]

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Đồng Kỵ furniture village is located in Từ Sơn district, Bắc Ninh province, over 20km from Hanoi. There are many furniture shops on both sides of the street, plus the mills to stock the timbers. Some furniture are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. We can find wooden chairs, tables, beds, wardrobes, Buddha statues as well as pearl inlay pictures at the shops. These products are for both local sale and overseas export. The photos in this blog were taken on Wednesday 4 March 2009 on my trip to 2 villages in Bắc Ninh province. [View Full Entry]

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