Places

The interest was sparked by the Google Doodle on the 400-year-old town on the search engine’s homepage. It even pushed results of the 2019 national university exam to second position, according to Google’s data. The Google Doodle featured the image of Hoi An with symbols of the Chua Cau (Pagoda Bridge) and colorful lanterns on its homepage last Tuesday, coinciding with the traditional Lantern Festival, which is held on the 14th day of each lunar month in the small town. A screenshot from Google Doodle featuring Hoi An on its homepage, July 16, 2019. The Google Doodle is a special temporary presentation that commemorates holidays, events, achievements and people. It was the first time that a Vietnamese destination was honored by the tech giant. The ancient town of Hoi An was recognized as a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in 1998 and has become one of the top holiday destinations in Vietnam, attracting nearly five million visitors last year, including 3.7 million … [Read more...] about Google doodle propels Hoi An to top searched keyword

The Na Si market in Hat Lot Town, Son La Province opens from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week. Apart from the usual assortment of vegetables, fruits and meat, the 500 square-meter market also sells various insect species, some hunted in nature, others bred. July seems to be a time when many insects reproduce, allowing vendors to bring locusts, dragonfly larvae, cicadas, bamboo worms, crickets and many other species to the market. Depending on the species, farmers bring in two to 10 kilograms each. Some are sold by weight and others by number. For instance, a cricket costs VND1,000 (5 cents). While in some countries, eating insects a last resort solution to tackle hunger, a number of people in Vietnam and other Asian countries have been savoring them as protein rich food for a long time. The dragonfly larvae appear after the dragonflies lay their eggs on aquatic plants. Farmers/vendors say they taste great when roasted with lime leaves or grilled in banana leaves. The … [Read more...] about Insects swarm a northern highlands market

A corner of Pleiku Town, the center of Gia Lai, which is more than 500 km from Ho Chi Minh City, is covered by fog in an early morning. Photographer Hoang Quoc Vinh said dawn, 5.30 a.m. to 6.30 a.m., is a great time to go photo hunting in the province. "Driving a bicycle or motorbike through green pine forests when the first rays of sunshine penetrate the mist is also an awesome experience," he said.   A motorbike driver on a 800-meter-street in Chu Pah District lined by large green pine trees. Wispy clouds gather over the Bien Ho tea estate to welcome a new dawn. Bien Ho is one of the oldest tea estates in the Central Highlands province. The first plants were grown here by the French in 1921. Today it is owned by the Bien Ho Tea Company that grows 351 hectares of tea and more than 700 hectares of coffee. On harvest days, hundreds of farmers work from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to collect the leaves and take them to the factory for processing. Tea is a major agricultural produce of … [Read more...] about Gia Lai smothered in mist at dawn

The Yen Phu Village has some quirks. It is a village in the heart of the capital city. It is cut off from the mainstream city, yet part of it. And it is also known as the Yen Phu pet fish village, the biggest supplier of marine creatures for all of northern Vietnam. Getting there is not difficult. Turn left from Thanh Nien Road on the banks of the West Lake into Yen Phu Street, and after about 500 meters, another left again at a small gate with an old dome and power cables hanging over it. You are there. The Yen Phu Village gate which leads to dozens of fish raising and trading households. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Huong. Most of pet fish shops stand on small paths and they are a curious sight with hundreds of thousands of colorful fish of different species and sizes swimming in glass tanks stacked up in villagers’ houses cum stores. If you are into it, you can spend hours watching them swim lazily or chase each other at great speed, or stare right back to you … [Read more...] about Underwater life goes above ground in a quiet Hanoi village

Besides Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore are the only Southeast Asian representatives to enter the top five, with the former securing the third place and the latter in fourth. The JATA survey, released early this month, polled more than 300 travel companies around the world to find travel trends among Japanese holiday-goers this summer. The U.S.’s Hawaii topped the list. The rest of the top 10 were Hong Kong, South Korea, Guam Island in the U.S., the Philippines and mainland China. Japan is third largest source of market for Vietnamese tourism, after China and South Korea. Last year, Vietnam received more than 820,000 Japanese tourists, up 3.6 percent from a year ago. The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has reported that the number of Japanese overseas travelers in the January-April period this year jumped by 10 percent from a year ago to 6.53 million. The boom in Japanese tourist arrivals in Vietnam in recent years has prompted Vietnamese carriers to open direct … [Read more...] about Vietnam a highly favored summer spot for Japanese vacationers