Vietnam water puppetry

Water puppetry is Vietnam age-old traditional culture with its own identities. The stage is the water surface, the closed-door house or puppets’ house or thuỷ đình (pagoda on water) is built in the middle of the pond or lake that looks like a communal house in Vietnam countryside.

Tourists are watching water puppetry

The items to be played depict people’s dailylife activities or customs and habits. To have a finished puppet, it needs time and patience for chiseling, fitting, painting, decorating and dressing. The well-prepared puppets, the easier for controlling and the more interesting the performance is. Normally, puppets are made of sycamore wood because it’s light and tough finished puppets are vitalized by artists in harmony with characters in the play. Water puppets are traditional wooden carving, they are both realistic, poetic and romantic in roles of fishermen, fairies or musicians... Each puppet consists of two parts: the body and the base. The body is the floating part and the base is the underwater part for controlling most important is the control-board attached in the base and success lies in the movements, the action of puppets. Well-experienced artists have created for life, for younger generations variety of puppets and the control-boards. Puppets are controlled and directed by artists in the puppets’ house by pulling, pushing strings.

In water puppetry, music plays the vital part. With outdoor stage on water and no-word play except few poems or saying, music is inseparable, it’s to make merry the performance, to personify the characters, and to direct the acting.

Water-puppetry is a cultural tradition of the red river delta farming people. It helps the locals to preserve their villages’ identities, the nature of the farmers who are very hard-working and high-spirit in fighting against the enemy.     

                                                                      HÙNG VIỆT

Huế and the garden-houses

Apart from palaces, tombs, pagodas, temples... Huế is also famous for its garden-houses, seen as an identity of Huế. There are now about 1,000 garden-houses, the smallest is some hundreds square meters and the largest can reach thousands, almost in Gia Hội, Vĩ Dạ, Kim Long wards.

Garden house An Hiên

An Hiên garden-housePhoto: MD

Located in Xuân Hoà village, Hương Long commune, Huế city, An Hiên garden-house is 4,608m² large. The gate was built in old Gothic style, the top-roofs were decorated with tigers with flower-patterns on sides. Outside the gate, under the roof is a panel inscribed with Chinese characters: An Hiên.

An Hiên garden is rich in flower species Nhài (Jasmine), mặt trời (sunflowers), lý, thạch lựu... and roses of all colours. There are also orchids, especially there are bushes of wild myrtle flowers. There’s a trà mi tree or camellia donated by Japan’s flower-association the garden is shaded and heavy in fruits year-round.

Lạc Tịch garden

Lạc Tịch garden house was built on an area of 2,070m² in Dương Xuân village (formerly) and now it’s in 65 Phan Đình Phùng street, Huế city.

There are 4 houses inter-connected and named: Nhân Hậu, Hy Trần Trai, Vấn Trai, Di Tâm Thích Thể Đường. The names are closely related to the house-owner. All 4 houses are age-old and leave the visitors with noble impressions.

Tịnh Gia  garden

Tịnh Gia garden house or Tịnh Gia Viên lies at 20/3 Lê Thánh Tôn, Huế city. Beautified by a big imitation mountain, the house was carefully built and cared-for. There’s a garden of hundreds of ornamental plants and each one is an artistic work, especially there’s a 150 year-old apricot tree, 200 year-old cycad tree or vạn tuế.

Tịnh Gia Viên is a red address for food connoisseurs cooked by Madame Tôn Nữ Thị Hà. Tịnh Gia Viên is a culture of both ornamental plants and food – better known than others in Huế.

Ý Thảo garden house

The garden house was built in the 1950s of the last century at number 3 Thạch Hữu road, Huế city. Plants and trees are really a collection, cared-for and handed down by house-owners. Most preciously are two collections of Huế arts: a collection of more  than 200 units of Huế porcelains under Lê Trịnh, Nguyễn dynasties (over 300 years ago) and a collection of grass-pictures (portraits classic theatre players, 4-girl set cầm (musical instrument), kỳ (chess-playing), thi (poem), họa (painting) or a set of 8 fairymen. Since festival 2000, Ý Thảo garden house is a rendezvous for families, visitors to have parties a vegetarian food.

Garden-houses are not only Huế tangible heritage, but also an intangible heritage in a high-end life of former Huế aristocrats that could be found nowhere, but Huế only garden-houses becomes an inseparable part of all itineraries for visitors to Huế city.

                                                                   THÀNH TRUNG

Hòn Khoai island – the pearl of the cape

The island lies in Eastern Sea in the Southwest in Tân An commune, Ngọc Hiển district, Cà Mau province, 18km from inland. It’s an island of 5 islets: hòn Khoai, hòn Tượng, hòn Sao, hòn Đồi Mồi and hòn Đá Lẻ, lying closely to make a natural wonder. The island still remains untapped and tranquil. It’s deemed as the pearl of the cape and it’s an ideal eco-tourism area for tourists domestically and internationally.

The island looks like a potato from a far but it’s legendarily said that on the island there are different potato species and they grow well in rainy season and the mainlanders come to harvest as donations by the nature. Along the spiral slopes, wading streams and crossing forests. We can see green grassland in layers, the old trees symbolize hundreds-year-old region historically.

Visitors to Hòn Khoai island are able to see the radar-station and the light-house in the light-house system of Cần Giờ, Phú Quốc and Côn Đảo sea. Hòn Khoai light-house was first built by the French in Việt Nam water-territory in the early 20 century and it was recognized as a national relic in 1994. Not only as a landscape of Cà Mau, Hòn Khoai is a historic place to remember the resounding victory of teacher Phan Ngọc Hiển who fought courageously with the locals against the French aggressors in 1940.

Hòn Khoai is also rich in legends about national founders, the venue of beautiful landscape, especially a very clear stream with diverse fauna and flora, attractive to visitors. In old forests and in the mountain there are also squirrels, pythons and 20 bird species.

It’ very interesting for the tourists to have a meal in the forest where one can hear the murmuring of streams the singing of birds, where they can try local products: sea-shells, shrimps... and romantically sing the traditional songs like vọng cổ or tân cổ or the folksongs of the fisherpeople. Besides rich fauna and flora or precious wood: trắc, sến, sao, dâu... there are fruit-trees: mango, banana, jack-fruit... or the climbing plants on old trees.

Sea-weeds on the seacoast mountains are very good herbal medicine. Hòn Khoai is said to be a store of medicinal herbs: huyết rồng, kỳ hương, phục linh, thiên niên kiện, rán bay, thần thông, cát lồi, nấm linh chi...

Hòn Khoai is said to be the donation, the god-send by nature to the people of Minh Hải in particular and all Vietnamese in general, the green-clean-and-beautiful environment. With a calm sea-port, a convenient airport, beautiful nature, Hòn Khoai is a destination, good for health-care service, for writers and musicians and poets, a nice sightseeing for the tourists.

There are 2 – 3 helicopters daily to bring tourists to Hòn Khoai, to see the natural beauty, to try sea-products. Hòn Khoai is pivotal for tourism development in Minh Hải.

                                                                          THU THẢO

Floating market Phụng Hiệp

From wharf Ninh Kiều (Cần Thơ) down stream the Hậu rive about 30km to the South, there’s a floating market. There are thousands of boats and quays in all sizes of the Western region meet here to sell, to buy or to exchange their agricultural products. The market is about 1km long on the river and full of fruits, a cultural touch in the Mekong Delta.

The market in busy all day long and mostly in the morning. From the previous evening, boats from all corners, packed with fruits, vegetables: mangoes, longans, durian, banana, orange, coconut-fruits... were heading to the market before sunrise. With unroofed boats, it’s easy to show products, but for roofed ones, the seller needs to hold high a stick stuck with fruits for sales. Market goers move on in a smaller boats, everything looks busy, merry, funny and interesting but very attractive to visitors.

Normally, farm products and fruits on bigger boats are sold to large boats in the middle of the river, then brought to factories, processed for import-export or carried on to Hồ Chí Minh city, Vũng Tàu, even to Hà Nội and further...

It’s a float-market, but services are good ranging from eating, drinking. There are breads, drinks, cakes, cigarettes, even rice-soup or rice-noodles served on the spot.

Besides farm-products, there are also birds, snakes, turtles on sales. These are sold at the foot of Phụng Hiệp bridge. Snake market Phụng Hiệp is famous, even to foreigners. It’s very interesting place to see in Cần Thơ, it’s a cultural identity in the Southern part.     

                                                                  THU TRANG

Medicinal bath in Sapa

Tả Phìn in Sapa is widely know not only for its natural beauty, attractive grottos and caves, colourful brocades, traditional culture but a special products: medicinal bath by Dao ethnic minority, a good remedy handed down for generations.

Photo: Quỳnh Trang

Red Dao people (because they always dress in red) live high on the mountain and they are very good at medicine. Their life is closely related to forests and their traditional medicament is made up of medicinal herbs for healthcare and it’s preserved as a secret and handed down with a family, only for women. They are very careful in deciding the time to start for the trip picking medicinal herbs. If met by somebody on the way, they will never let be know of their trip, it’s a taboo. Picked herbs are cleanly washed and put into pots to be boiled, added a little alcohol, then in turn family members take bath, of course, the bath water is changed after each turn, firstly parents, then children. Guests are prioritized.

In Sapa, medicinal bath is popular nowadays and there are 8 places to serve the kind and the red Dao also have 3 bath-tubs for “homestay” visitors and it costs only 50.000VNĐ for each bath.

Bath water is made up of ten herbal plants, there are even roots to be used in dry or fresh. The herbs are boiled in 3-4 hours and always remain at 30 – 37⁰C, very scented. Strong people can bathe from 25 - 30 minutes, weaker ones just in 15 – 20 minutes, if not to be “drunk”. The scent is naturally kept for a few days. Bath-tubs are made of precious wood like Pơmu. After a bath, we will feel relaxed, comfortable, all weariness seems to be gone.

In Sapa, professors and doctors from Pharmacy University Hà Nội were invited for research and advise. It’s said that the bath makes one’s blood circulation better, fiver skin, helpful to cure rheumatism, pairs in the bones, fever, influenza or skin diseases. These experts are doing research to help locals to make the medicines more convenient like powder or condensed. Medicinal bath has no side effects especially for women, it helps them restore quickly after childbirth.

                                                                  QUỲNH TRANG

Medicinal bath has become a product that contributes to boost tourism, to preserve cultural identities and to attract more and more visitors.

The waterfall Bản Ba in Tuyên Quang

The fall lies in between the mountain Phiêng Khàng ( Bản Ba viallge, Trung Hà commune, Chiêm Hóa district, Tuyên Quang province) and it’s a nationally classified landscape. Visitors are not only able to discover the bio-diversity of the untouched forest but to enjoy swimming in the beautiful fall Bản Ba.

Photo: Thanh Lam

The fall is soured from limestone mountain range in Đức Xuân commune, Bắc Quang district, Hà Giang province on a nearly 1,000m high above the sea level. The fall itself is 3km long and has 3 levels, the 1^st one is Tát Củm, the second one is Tát Cao and the third is Tát Gió. In between these 3 levels are smaller falls of 5m - 7m high. The fall area is bio-diversity and vary is species. Nature-lovers take much interest in wildlife here.

On all sides of the waterfall are immensity of forests with very old trees even hundred –years old with climbing plants and rainforests. All help to make Bản Ba really a natural beauty. At the foot of the waterfall are fertile rice-fields and pretty houses of Tày minority people hidden in the oil-palms. Seen from afar, the fall looks like a sheet of white silk on the boundless greenery. Visitors to Bản Ba can take a swim in a 3m - 5m deep abyss with very clear and clean water, or listening to birds singing and the legendary stories about the fall and the region by the locals.

Story has it that, once upon a time, there’s a couple of a boy and a girl from distant place lived here and they founded the village Lạc Bạn. Time passed and the village became prosperous and crowded.

There’s a custom that every year the villagers took part in a contest of releasing bamboo raft from high mountain to the bottom to show the boys’ bravery. Villages’ representatives gave signal by beating the wooden drum. After 3 rounds of beating, in pairs, they released the raft, many people got killed in the abyss and the living cried days and nights for sorrows, their fears ran into the river that make the fall today. The water runs from Lạc Bạn (the head source) to Bản Ban and fall on 3 levels, the water-sound is heard something like the weeping of the villagers.

Visitors to Bản Ba have chances to understand the local habits and customs, the traditional culture of Tày, Nùng, Dao ethnic minorities to take part in sli dance accompanied by tính musical instrument, the songs of boys and girls and the folk games of the villagers.   

                                                                    THANH HẰNG

Măng Đen landscape

Once to Măng Đen (Kon Tum province), many times more one wishes to come again due to its natural beauty of overlapping hills and mountains, immense pine-forest on 1,200m – 1,300m above the sea-level. The Đắk Sơ Nghé river through the district center Kon Plông and streams make the area an ideal tourism destination.

Photo: Như Quỳnh

Măng Đen, in local language means “flat land” where the climate is fresh and cool all-year-round as it’s in Đà Lạt, a really untouched land as it’s. More than 4,000ha of pine forests lie in between the virginal woods of over 100,000ha, and rivers and streams all help to turn Măng Đen into an ideal eco-tourism. These sports are not so far from the district center and very convenient for visitors. Most particularly is Đăm lake, about 500m from Măng Đen airport, in dry season, cornflowers are in full bloom, pine forests surround the lake and fallen leaves cover the earth 10 – 15cm thick, as smooth as velvet. Lung lake is over 1ha large with old and very big trees around, orchid species could be found here.

There’s a village located on an islet in the lake and it’s inhabited by ethnic minority groups: Mơ Năm, Ca Rong, H’re... in stilt-houses leaning against terrace fields or tea-farm. A little further is the village communal house or nhà rông where from echoes of gongs, the emotions of the locals are sometimes clearly heard.

From Măng Đen, on the national road 24 to the coastal area there are 70km bordering Quảng Ngãi, homeland of Ấn mountain and Trà river and the immense rice-field.

Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) and local authorities have planned Măng Đen tourism complex, calling for investment to turn it into an eco-tourism in the future, worthy to be a starting-point of the central highlands’ green road.   

                                                                          HẢI ANH

Fairy-cave in Tuyên Quang

The cave (in Thống Nhất village, Yên Phú commune, Hàm Yên district) 55km from Tuyên Quang town in the North, was nationally-classified in 2005, it’s a really discovery at the foot of Chân Quỳ mountain, its being called Động Tiên is due to its wonderful landscape.

Photo: VC

Legend has it that, long, long ago, when the moon was still close to the earth and the moonlight was fine everywhere but one day a piece of the moon was broken and flown away, a young, strong man brought stone from a river to patch the moon. On his way, due to heavy weight, he had to stop for rest and took away a piece of stone and the place he stopped is Tọa mountain (sitting mountain). When he continued his way, their bamboo pole broke, he fell and another piece of stone flung away and at once, it turned into a mountain called “Chân Quỳ” or kneeing stone. Then he went to a stream to have a bath. Suddenly, he saw a fairy riding a white horse, he waved her for help and she was glad to help him, partially he was handsome. They carried stone to the moon, but the horse couldn’t fly because of heavy stone its four legs sunk into the stream, so the horse and the couple turned into a mountain called Bạch Mã (white horse).

The cave has 3 doors in the height of 300m from the foot of mountain. The air inside is cool and fresh and the whole scene of beautiful landscape can be seen from the cave-door.

The cave is large enough to contain thousand people, there are holes that look like windows. On sunny days, sunshine reflect like lighting lamps in the cave. There are stalactites and stalagmites, there’s one that looks like a great eagle holding a young girl in its legs, there’s one that looks like god of mercy on a lotus with other stone statues, elephants, tigers below. A natural music can be heard by wind striking against stone wall, stalactites and stalagmites are changeable depending on sunshine. At sun-rise, they look pink, at noon they look sparkling but at sunset, they look quite red. There are some that can make merry sounds when you strike on.

           

Behind Chân Quỳ mountain, there’s another cave called Quốc Phòng or defense. It’s here that in the early 1950s, the army sheltered arms and ammunition ready for Điện Biên Phủ battle. More than 400 boxes of bullets and 100 guns were kept here.

           

On 15^th July of 1953, a road from the cave was opened and built to the Northwest front, for the battalion N⁰ 351, who made a great contribution to the glorious victory Điện Biên Phủ. Fairy cave with its fire environment, beautiful landscape and closely-related to resounding victory become an attractive destination.

           

Visitors to fairy cave can sightsee and understand more about the nation’s history. Not so, it is good for those who study national cultural identities and also the region’s economic development.

                                                                          KIM LIÊN

Discover the old charm Majestic Hotel

The Serenade restaurant serves European dishes. Dinners can enjoy meals while listening to piano music or viewing Sài Gòn panorama. At Breeze Sky Bar, you can taste some kinds of drinks, cocktails, creams or fast food or food a-la-carte of Vietnam.

Khách sạn Majestic - TP. Hồ Chí Minh

Prima Ballroom is the hotel’s most up-to-date place for meetings, exhibitions at your services. It’s a 45m² room equipped fully while Merry Pool Bar swimming pool ready to serve drinks, cocktails, fruit juice, draught beer and fast food. Catinat Lounge is good for  rendezvous and its tranquility is ideal for relaxation or reading, friend’s talk... There are also body-build club, spa, massage, sauna, beauty salon...

The hotel’s investment infrastructure and renovation of products is always a priority and highly appreciated. On hotel website www.asiaroom.com, international arrivals who once stayed here give good comments about the hotel’s service and vote it to be one of the best 5-star hotels in the world. A renewal of equipment in all bedrooms, restaurants, bars... was completed.

           

Occupancy is over 90% and 95% of the guests in hotels are foreigners. Majestic is one of the first international hotels in Vietnam to be given certificates ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. Recently, the hotel was awarded the title of Asia best hotel by the hotel club organization in Hong Kong. In 2006, the General Director and the hotel were prized both at home and abroad: Golden Globe 2006, Global best management 2006 (in Saigon), Vietnam Topten hotel (2006), Golden Cup ISO 2006 by Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam Labour of Federation, Topten best liked hotel by newspaper Sài Gòn Giải Phóng, prizes for Mr. Tào Văn Nghệ, the hotel director as best businessman (2006 by Hồ Chí Minh City People’s Committee), best manager (2006) by Vietnam labour confederation.

           

Under the hotel leadership, staffs are united to gain ever-increasing profit, to reaffirm the hotel’s prestige. Mr. Tào Văn Nghệ, the director was quoted as saying that the hotel will make a leap forwards in 2007 by finishing the business plans assigned by Saigontourist on 20^th October 2007   (124 billions VNĐ) and the year-turnover is hoped to be 140 billions. The first 9 months, business volume is 114,5 billions, 150,57% increase compared to some period last year (76,1 billions VNĐ).

           

In 2008, the hotel will build a new 29-storey hotel to have 350 rooms more and 7.000m² offices for rent and new facilities for new tourism category (MICE) with total cost of 20 millions USD. Majestic will be a 5-star hotel while retaining its traditional architecture and services. The hotel will aim at high-end customers, mainly business people and the business turnover of 2008 is planned to be 157,5 billions VNĐ.

                                                                     THANH HIỀN

Eco-tourism in Gáo Giồng

Gáo Giồng is ideally located among water, flowers, plants and singing birds. It’s in Gáo Giồng commune, Cao Lãnh district, Đồng Tháp province and it’s long seen as a green lung in Đồng Tháp Mười, an attractive eco-tourism area due to its natural beauty and wildlife.

Photo: Bùi Hỏa Tiễn

Best time in Gáo Giồng is flood-season that we can see water everywhere dotted with yellow flowers điên điển, redwater lilies, violet bằng lăng, pink lotus and the greenery of cajuput mangroves, a harmony of nature and flowers which can be found nowhere.

           

The first leg is Gáo Giồng birds-sanctuary. We will be brought to 18m high observatory and equipped with binoculars to watch the whole region, the flying schools of storks. Hung on the trees are birds’ nests carefully built.

           

The bird-sanctuary is 35ha large with 15 species of birds (cò mỏ vàng, cò ngà, cồng cộc, diệc, vạc...). At sunrise or sunset, the cajuput forests are noisy and with birds, stocks flying away or returning home.

           

In flood season, on already-harvested rice-fields, thousands of stocks can be seen looking for food that make a scenic beauty. Visitors to Gáo Giồng not only to enjoy fresh air, tranquility or listen to sweet songs and melodies by country-girls in their traditional shirts, but to be entertained with specialties as grilled fish rolled in lotus leaves, baked rats, hotpots,... or taste fried lotus seeds and sip lotus tea and understand the local history. About one hundred year ago, the region was only good for such plants: gáo due to its harsh weather and “rừng thiêng nước độc or sacred forest and poisonous water” the plants and trees grew so fast into thick forest.

           

The province Đồng Tháp has spent over 300 millions VNĐ to build infrastructure in Gáo Giồng eco-tourism complex, a 18m high observatory with a lift on which the whole region can be viewed. These are 10 speedboats available for visitors to explore the forests, a guest-house for 100 people to stopover and relax or have food served.

It takes one hour and a half to travel to Gáo Giồng from Cao Lãnh town by water ways. Đồng Tháp has also spent 9 billions VNĐ to build roads from Bình Trị, Đường Thét to Gáo Giồng and it’s expected to be completed by this year-end. Gáo Giồng is a destination for the tour Sài Gòn – Xẻo Quýt – Gáo Giồng – Cao Lãnh by Đồng Tháp tourist.

                                                                         THU THẢO