Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
The life and death of Phu Quoc Island
The life and death of Phu Quoc Island
A gorgeous woman digging for a dinner of periwinkles on an otherwise touristy beach on Phu Quoc Island
Clouds swallowed the rice paddies outside Ho Chi Minh City minutes after takeoff; 45 minutes later, they parted over a scratch of red clay road and a verdant canopy—neither a sooty stand of street trees, nor a dusty rubber plantation, but a jungle so green it hurts the eyes.
Set just south of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand, Phu Quoc Island still vibrates with the croaks of tiny frogs at night. Strange beasts flee motorbike tires as they cut over soft sand back roads like a knife dragged over pound cake.
Despite an ever-increasing glut of hotels and tourists, the island’s petite denizens still jerk into paralyzing giggles when presented with a foreigner who commands a handful of Vietnamese words.
I hate so much to be telling this all to you because the less you know about it, the better.
It is hard to resist the conclusion that Phu Quoc would best be left alone.
But Quyen, a pregnant pepper farmer standing in the middle of nowhere, told me otherwise.
As hired hands plucked yellow and red pods from atop square ladders, she explained how she’d managed to learn English and build up her farm by working for a few years in a tourist restaurant.
Tourism, she thought, was a good thing. But I wonder for how long that would last.
Given its history, it’s amazing that the people of Phu Quoc permit anyone on the island at all.
The French used the place as a brutal prison for anti-colonialist agitators. The US-backed Southern regime kept it going as an over-crowded, poorly maintained hive of beatings and insurrection.
Their American advisors supposedly protested and then went water skiing in their off-time.
In 1968, the camp was shelled 37 times.
On May 1, 1975, a squadron of Khmer Rouge fighters blundered on to the island and used it as a waypoint to capture and murder 500 Vietnamese civilians living on an archipelago to the south.
Today, the pledge to seize Phu Quoc remains something like the promise of a chicken in every pot.
Members of Cambodia’s coalition opposition have pledged to take back the island–legally, this time—in the unlikely event that they win the general election in July.
Hun Sen responded to their pledge in a stormy five-hour address before the National Assembly in which he called his opponents “dogs.” Hun Sen pledged to stick to the French line that gave the island to Vietnam in 1939, while offering to sue anyone who claimed he had done otherwise.
“Not a single drop of seawater has been lost to Vietnam,” he thundered.
A Cambodian invasion seems about as likely a prospect as sustainable development, but the fight to let Phu Quoc be Phu Quoc extends to all fronts.
Australians, Germans and Swiss restaurateurs now ply their own mediocre cuisine astride the growing wall of resorts, guesthouses and hotels that hug the Jacuzzi-warm waters south of Duong Dong—Phu Quoc’s biggest small town.
Even here, a kilo of grenade-sized neon orange mangoes sells for a dollar and the island remains flush with beaches marred only by the odd lean-to.
“There are more monkeys on the island than people,” said Rory Miles—the Australian proprietor of the namesake Bar on the Beach, where I settled into a bungalow for US$35 a night.
Miles and his Korean-Australian wife relocated to Phu Quoc from Sydney a year ago and began building out a wooden deck and boat-shaped bar on the former site of a Mexican-themed hotel called Amigo’s.
“Last week we had 40 people dancing in the rain,” he said as he looked out to the empty beach, rubbing red tired eyes at ten in the morning.
When I asked which highway I should take to the southernmost town of An Thoi, Rory scoffed. The “road” remained a shambles of gravel, mud and passing busses and I’d be better served to head down an unmarked clay road that runs along the stunning western coastline.
The drive rivaled any I’ve ever taken and I suspect someone will see to that soon.
Few seem interested in selling Phu Quoc’s virginity save the touts who supply jaded Saigon businessmen with naked “unpolluted” island girls who swim around their boats all day in exchange for jewelry.
While the $180 million International Airport has attracted no international flights, it has brought in a Burger King and a half-built highway.
Idle steamrollers seem to crowd the lanes between the treeless clay hills, visibly chomped on by triple- toothed backhoe bites.
The island’s supposedly enchanted waterfall has been tapped dry by a cacophonous gas-powered pump and thoroughly littered with garbage.
Identical party boats serving mediocre lunches crowd the once-pristine archipelago in the south, depositing pasty snorkelers and the occasional bits of trash into increasingly murky waters.
Indeed, the only thing protecting Phu Quoc from itself appears to be a dysfunctional bureaucracy that seems to constantly trip over itself in its efforts to utterly rape the place.
Scores of investors have walked away from a multi-billion dollar casino complex scheme that was first unveiled in 2007.
The latest group of investors to pledge their billions to ruining the island stepped forward last November.
Environmental Energy Solutions Technology Inc. of the Philippines and its sad local partner have continued to push (like their dozen disappointed predecessors) for a provision that would allow every pepper farmer on the island onto the casino floor to gamble away his future.
～News courtesy of SGGP～
A gorgeous woman digging for a dinner of periwinkles on an otherwise touristy beach on Phu Quoc Island
Clouds swallowed the rice paddies outside Ho Chi Minh City minutes after takeoff; 45 minutes later, they parted over a scratch of red clay road and a verdant canopy—neither a sooty stand of street trees, nor a dusty rubber plantation, but a jungle so green it hurts the eyes.
Set just south of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand, Phu Quoc Island still vibrates with the croaks of tiny frogs at night. Strange beasts flee motorbike tires as they cut over soft sand back roads like a knife dragged over pound cake.
Despite an ever-increasing glut of hotels and tourists, the island’s petite denizens still jerk into paralyzing giggles when presented with a foreigner who commands a handful of Vietnamese words.
I hate so much to be telling this all to you because the less you know about it, the better.
It is hard to resist the conclusion that Phu Quoc would best be left alone.
But Quyen, a pregnant pepper farmer standing in the middle of nowhere, told me otherwise.
As hired hands plucked yellow and red pods from atop square ladders, she explained how she’d managed to learn English and build up her farm by working for a few years in a tourist restaurant.
Tourism, she thought, was a good thing. But I wonder for how long that would last.
Given its history, it’s amazing that the people of Phu Quoc permit anyone on the island at all.
The French used the place as a brutal prison for anti-colonialist agitators. The US-backed Southern regime kept it going as an over-crowded, poorly maintained hive of beatings and insurrection.
Their American advisors supposedly protested and then went water skiing in their off-time.
In 1968, the camp was shelled 37 times.
On May 1, 1975, a squadron of Khmer Rouge fighters blundered on to the island and used it as a waypoint to capture and murder 500 Vietnamese civilians living on an archipelago to the south.
Today, the pledge to seize Phu Quoc remains something like the promise of a chicken in every pot.
Members of Cambodia’s coalition opposition have pledged to take back the island–legally, this time—in the unlikely event that they win the general election in July.
Hun Sen responded to their pledge in a stormy five-hour address before the National Assembly in which he called his opponents “dogs.” Hun Sen pledged to stick to the French line that gave the island to Vietnam in 1939, while offering to sue anyone who claimed he had done otherwise.
“Not a single drop of seawater has been lost to Vietnam,” he thundered.
A Cambodian invasion seems about as likely a prospect as sustainable development, but the fight to let Phu Quoc be Phu Quoc extends to all fronts.
Australians, Germans and Swiss restaurateurs now ply their own mediocre cuisine astride the growing wall of resorts, guesthouses and hotels that hug the Jacuzzi-warm waters south of Duong Dong—Phu Quoc’s biggest small town.
Even here, a kilo of grenade-sized neon orange mangoes sells for a dollar and the island remains flush with beaches marred only by the odd lean-to.
“There are more monkeys on the island than people,” said Rory Miles—the Australian proprietor of the namesake Bar on the Beach, where I settled into a bungalow for US$35 a night.
Miles and his Korean-Australian wife relocated to Phu Quoc from Sydney a year ago and began building out a wooden deck and boat-shaped bar on the former site of a Mexican-themed hotel called Amigo’s.
“Last week we had 40 people dancing in the rain,” he said as he looked out to the empty beach, rubbing red tired eyes at ten in the morning.
When I asked which highway I should take to the southernmost town of An Thoi, Rory scoffed. The “road” remained a shambles of gravel, mud and passing busses and I’d be better served to head down an unmarked clay road that runs along the stunning western coastline.
The drive rivaled any I’ve ever taken and I suspect someone will see to that soon.
Few seem interested in selling Phu Quoc’s virginity save the touts who supply jaded Saigon businessmen with naked “unpolluted” island girls who swim around their boats all day in exchange for jewelry.
While the $180 million International Airport has attracted no international flights, it has brought in a Burger King and a half-built highway.
Idle steamrollers seem to crowd the lanes between the treeless clay hills, visibly chomped on by triple- toothed backhoe bites.
The island’s supposedly enchanted waterfall has been tapped dry by a cacophonous gas-powered pump and thoroughly littered with garbage.
Identical party boats serving mediocre lunches crowd the once-pristine archipelago in the south, depositing pasty snorkelers and the occasional bits of trash into increasingly murky waters.
Indeed, the only thing protecting Phu Quoc from itself appears to be a dysfunctional bureaucracy that seems to constantly trip over itself in its efforts to utterly rape the place.
Scores of investors have walked away from a multi-billion dollar casino complex scheme that was first unveiled in 2007.
The latest group of investors to pledge their billions to ruining the island stepped forward last November.
Environmental Energy Solutions Technology Inc. of the Philippines and its sad local partner have continued to push (like their dozen disappointed predecessors) for a provision that would allow every pepper farmer on the island onto the casino floor to gamble away his future.
～News courtesy of SGGP～
Hanoi, HCM City join hands to promote tourism
Hanoi, HCM City join hands to promote tourism
The tourism associations of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City signed an agreement on a joint 2013 tourism promotion programme on April 20.
Under the agreement, which was reached within the framework of the 2013 Vietnam International Travel Mart (VITM 2013) in Hanoi, reduced air fares between HCM City and Hanoi will be offered by the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and the low-cost carrier Vietjet Air.
The two associations will also mobilise relevant culture and tourism agencies in the southern and northern regions to reduce service prices, and ask travel agents to offer 30 percent discounts on package tours.
The HCM City Tourism Association has reached an agreement with Vietnam Airlines to offer flights from HCM City to Hanoi , Da Nang , Nha Trang and Phu Quoc at fares up to 58 percent lower than the standard ticket price. Meanwhile, Vietjet Air offered 10,000 air tickets 49 percent lower than their usual cost.
According to Vu The Binh, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, cooperation between the two associations will open a new avenue for their tourism sectors, and improve the national tourism industry.
It will also facilitate tourists who travel from the north to the south and vice versa, he added.
According to the VITM 2013 organising board, travel agents attending the mart have sold out of domestic summer tours by offering a 20 percent price reduction.
In the first quarter of 2013, Ho Chi Minh City welcomed more than 1 million foreign tourists, a year-on-year increase of 8 percent, earning 20.6 billion VND, a rise of 20 percent over the same period last year. The capital city has so far welcomed 634,000 foreign tourists this year, up 9.8 percent over the same period last year.
~News courtesy of SGGP~
The tourism associations of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City signed an agreement on a joint 2013 tourism promotion programme on April 20.
Under the agreement, which was reached within the framework of the 2013 Vietnam International Travel Mart (VITM 2013) in Hanoi, reduced air fares between HCM City and Hanoi will be offered by the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and the low-cost carrier Vietjet Air.
The two associations will also mobilise relevant culture and tourism agencies in the southern and northern regions to reduce service prices, and ask travel agents to offer 30 percent discounts on package tours.
The HCM City Tourism Association has reached an agreement with Vietnam Airlines to offer flights from HCM City to Hanoi , Da Nang , Nha Trang and Phu Quoc at fares up to 58 percent lower than the standard ticket price. Meanwhile, Vietjet Air offered 10,000 air tickets 49 percent lower than their usual cost.
According to Vu The Binh, Deputy Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, cooperation between the two associations will open a new avenue for their tourism sectors, and improve the national tourism industry.
It will also facilitate tourists who travel from the north to the south and vice versa, he added.
According to the VITM 2013 organising board, travel agents attending the mart have sold out of domestic summer tours by offering a 20 percent price reduction.
In the first quarter of 2013, Ho Chi Minh City welcomed more than 1 million foreign tourists, a year-on-year increase of 8 percent, earning 20.6 billion VND, a rise of 20 percent over the same period last year. The capital city has so far welcomed 634,000 foreign tourists this year, up 9.8 percent over the same period last year.
~News courtesy of SGGP~
Monday, April 15, 2013
VA offers promotional fares
VA offers promotional fares on domestic, int’l flights
Vietnam Airlines, the country’s national carrier, announced on April 5 a special promotional program to cover the coming holiday season called ‘Hello-Summer Vacation 2013’.
The Airline will offer passengers preferential fare rates on both domestic and international flights from April 8 to 21.
All one-way fares on domestic flights departing from May 5 to October 31 will cost either VND333,000(US$15.9) or VND666,000 ($31.8).
Similarly, return-fares on international flights starting April 22 to October 31 will be priced from VND189,000 ($9) to VND8,363,000 ($399).
The above fare rates exclude VAT and other surcharges. The promotional offer does not apply for flights during the Independence Day holidays from April 30 till May 1.
For more information, please see log onto www.vietnamairlines.com.
~News courtesy of SGGP~
Vietnam Airlines, the country’s national carrier, announced on April 5 a special promotional program to cover the coming holiday season called ‘Hello-Summer Vacation 2013’.
The Airline will offer passengers preferential fare rates on both domestic and international flights from April 8 to 21.
All one-way fares on domestic flights departing from May 5 to October 31 will cost either VND333,000(US$15.9) or VND666,000 ($31.8).
Similarly, return-fares on international flights starting April 22 to October 31 will be priced from VND189,000 ($9) to VND8,363,000 ($399).
The above fare rates exclude VAT and other surcharges. The promotional offer does not apply for flights during the Independence Day holidays from April 30 till May 1.
For more information, please see log onto www.vietnamairlines.com.
~News courtesy of SGGP~
Lexicon
The words in orange belong to the Vietnamese native lexical stock while the ones in green belong to the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.
Like other east Asian countries, as a result of close ties with China for thousands of years, much of the Vietnamese lexicon relating to science and politics is derived from Chinese - see Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.
At least 60% of the lexical stock has Chinese roots, not including naturalized word borrowings from China, although many compound words are composed of native Vietnamese words combined with Chinese borrowings. One can usually distinguish between a native Vietnamese word and a Chinese borrowing if it can be reduplicated or its meaning does not change when the tone is shifted. As a result of French occupation, Vietnamese has since had many words borrowed from the French language, for example cà phê (from French café).
Nowadays, many new words are being added to the language's lexicon due to heavy Western cultural influence; these are usually borrowed from English, for example TV (though usually seen in the written form as tivi). Sometimes these borrowings are calques literally translated into Vietnamese (for example, software is calqued into phần mềm, which literally means "soft part").
~Info courtesy of Wikipedia~
Language
Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) is the national, official language of Vietnam. It is the native language of Vietnamese people (Kinh), and of about three million Vietnamese residing elsewhere. It also is spoken as a first or second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam.
It is part of the Austroasiatic language family of which it has, by far, the most speakers (several times that of the other Austroasiatic languages combined).
Much of Vietnamese vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese, and it formerly used a modified set of Chinese characters called chữ nôm given vernacular pronunciation. As a byproduct of French colonial rule, Vietnamese was influenced by the French language; the Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ) in use today is a Latin alphabet with additional diacritics for tones, and certain letters.
~Info courtesy of wikipedia~
It is part of the Austroasiatic language family of which it has, by far, the most speakers (several times that of the other Austroasiatic languages combined).
Much of Vietnamese vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese, and it formerly used a modified set of Chinese characters called chữ nôm given vernacular pronunciation. As a byproduct of French colonial rule, Vietnamese was influenced by the French language; the Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ) in use today is a Latin alphabet with additional diacritics for tones, and certain letters.
~Info courtesy of wikipedia~
Friday, April 5, 2013
First five-star resort opens in Ben Tre
First five-star resort opens in Ben Tre Province
The first five-star resort has just opened in Ben Tre Province across 21 hectares of land in Phu Tuc Commune of Chau Thanh District, providing such facilities like restaurants, spas, luxury villas, a golf course and conference facilities.
Forever Green Resort has been built by Lo Hoi Company at a cost of US$50 million, and considered the largest investment in tourism in Ben Tre Province.
The resort provides 60 modern villas, restaurants, an ecological park, a spa, karaoke bar, fitness and recuperation centre.
The facility also has 120 rooms, a swimming pool and conference facilities for 1,000-1,500 guests.
Still to be built are 120 bungalows, a golf course and a seafood restaurant by 2018.
~News courtesy of SGGP~
The first five-star resort has just opened in Ben Tre Province across 21 hectares of land in Phu Tuc Commune of Chau Thanh District, providing such facilities like restaurants, spas, luxury villas, a golf course and conference facilities.
Forever Green Resort has been built by Lo Hoi Company at a cost of US$50 million, and considered the largest investment in tourism in Ben Tre Province.
The resort provides 60 modern villas, restaurants, an ecological park, a spa, karaoke bar, fitness and recuperation centre.
The facility also has 120 rooms, a swimming pool and conference facilities for 1,000-1,500 guests.
Still to be built are 120 bungalows, a golf course and a seafood restaurant by 2018.
~News courtesy of SGGP~
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