Hard days night

It had taken just 30 minutes for Cong, deputy head of the laboratory and diagnostic imaging department at the Binh Thanh District medical center, to finish preparing swabbing kits, protective clothing and necessary documents. It was still dark as the 36-year-old Cong, along with four colleagues, began conducting random Covid-19 tests in areas around the Mien Dong (Eastern Region) Bus Station in Saigon for the 12th day. From 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., they worked with local medics to take 100 samples of people from Hanoi and the provinces of Gia Lai, Kon Tum and Dak Lak in the Central Highlands. Then the group quickly returned to their office to start other work. Medics take random swab samples at the Mien Dong Bus Station every morning, February 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Thu Anh. One of them took the samples to the Thu Duc Hospital for carrying out RT-PCR tests. Some received people coming from Covid-19 hotspots to check their medical declarations and take their swab samples. Others traveled to two quarantine facilities in Wards 21 and 28 to take swab samples of those under centralized quarantine. After a long day, at around 6 p.m., they started traveling with medics in the district to take random swab samples at local restaurants. It was midnight when the medics returned to their office yet again. The team members have been traveling from place to place and working around the clock for a month, Cong said they initially collected test samples at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport; and after an infection chain was found, they moved on to locked down neighborhoods and worked with the residents there. In collecting samples at bus stations, they had to work from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., said Ho Minh Hoang, head of the medical center in Binh Thanh District’s Ward 26. This means the team members had to be up at 3 a.m. to prepare, which was exhausting. Hoang and Cong later suggested that the HCMC Center for Disease Control (CDC) and bus stations allow …

[Read more...] about Saigon medics break their back to track Covid-19

If the long jumper can add a small distance to his personal best, he will become the first Vietnamese athlete to jump 8m and prove he belongs on the world stage. Long jumper Nguyen Tien Trong sets up a new record of 7.98m at the National Athletics Championships in 2019 in HCM City. Photo courtesy of Nguyễn Tiến Trọng “It is two centimetres. “Just only two centimetres. “I will make two centimetres this jump.” Nguyễn Tiến Trọng thinks about this tiny distance every day in training. If the long jumper can add the small distance to his personal best, he will become the first Vietnamese athlete to jump 8m and prove he belongs on the world stage. National record holder Born in 1997 in Cẩm Giàng District, Hải Dương Province, Trọng was taller and bigger than any of his friends at school. He was chosen to take part in the provincial track-and-field competitions where he caught the eyes of the Military team’s scouts. He became an athlete when he was 13. “I am the only one in the family as well as the district pursuing sport. So I think it is a fate that I am ‘engaged’ with athletics,” Trọng told Việt Nam News. “My height was an advantage when I participated in different school events. I was offered to join basketball and martial arts clubs but athletics is my true love. “I was only six when I watched the Việt Nam 22nd SEA Games on TV. I had no idea what ‘glory’ meant at that time but was strongly impressed with the way the track-and-field winners were honoured. They received big claps and huge encouragement after winning. It obsessed me. It was the reason why I agreed to join the Military team when invited immediately,” he recalled. “Coaches had to persuade my parents a lot to let me go, saying that I had potential if I was trained professionally. They seemed okay with some doubts but now they have become my biggest supporters,” he said. After nearly nine years of training, Trọng has proved his talent. …

[Read more...] about Long jumper Trong aims to complete eight-metre promise

For many farmers in Hoi An in the central province of Quang Nam, buffaloes are also the highlights of eco-tours hosted by the Jack Tran Tours company. So in the Year of the Buffalo, they have more tales about the animals to tell than ever. Tran Van Khoa (third from the left, in green T-shirt) shows his visitors how to ride a buffalo. Photo courtesy of Jack Tran Tours Tran Van Khoa, sales manager and owner of the company, told Viet Nam News that the idea for the tour came to him on a field trip he took a group of foreigners to visit Tra Que vegetable village on the outskirts of ancient Hoi An Town 10 years ago. “The foreign tourists seemed to be interested in buffaloes eating grass,” he said. “They asked the owners to take photos with the cattle. They often tipped the farmers one or two US dollars for each photographing session. I thought the buffalo might be a special tourism product that will bring more income to farmers.” Over the time, the company has gathered nearly 20 farmer families who own some 100 buffaloes for wet rice tours, which offer tourists the chance to work in the field with buffaloes. Before the pandemic, each year the company received 2,000-3,000 guests, bringing each family VND10-15 million ($434-651) a year. Such a tour lasts for five hours when tourists try various farming tasks. Two junior tourists enjoy riding a buffalo in Tra Que Village. Photo courtesy of Jack Tran Tours “At first local farmers were not willing to join the service,” Khoa recalled. “They thought foreigners would never like dirty work in the field. I spent lots of time to persuade them.” Now the tour attracts mostly group tours and families at a ticket cost of VND1.3 million each including lunch at homestays. Local farmer Le Nhien, in his mid-50s, who has raised buffaloes since his childhood, is among the farmers who have worked the longest with the company. “We often choose strong male buffaloes for the job,” he said. “They are …

[Read more...] about Buffalo tours in Hoi An prove a hit