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Vietnam Open Tour News & EventsSUNDAY 12 JULY, 2009 |
 Mui Nai waves tourists to summer From HCMC to Highway 1A, over My Thuan bridge, turning towards Sa Dec to Highway 80, onto the Vam Cong ferry to Rach Gia and continuing on Highway 80, we come to the land of Ha Tien after 320 kilometers. Ha Tien, on the coast of Vietnam, attracts people with its natural beauty and its mysterious legends. Once coming here, travelers must visit Mui Nai which is 10 kilometers from Ha Tien.
Mui Nai, with its many peaceful hamlets and villages leaning against the mountain and shaded by rows of coconut trees, has become a popular eco-tourism site of the South. Visitors should rent a room in Ha Tien with rates ranging from VND100,000 to VND200,000 per night. This is a room type with quite good facilities for 3 people. Then, visitors should rent a motorbike priced at VND60,000/ day or VND30,000/ half day to go to Mui Nai or go sightseeing There’s a 1 kilometer sand-bank in Mui Nai in fresh water. In summer, tourists from everywhere come to bathe in the sea or to go sightseeing. The sand here is dark brown mixed with black mud, soft and ideal for mud bathing. The price of food and drink and services is reasonable, such as VND25,000 for seafood rice, VND6,000 for coffee or VND10,000 for a soft drink. Tourists can find many booths selling both fresh and cooked seafood but you should try grilled cuttle, the specialty of Mui Nai. While enjoying seafood, tourists should drink Mo qua, a local wine made from herbs good for the blood, tendons and bones. If you want to buy souvenirs for friends and family, there are a number of tortoise-shell necklaces, strings of shellfish, precious pearls from Phu Quoc or astray and flower vases made from famous Ha Tien marble for you to choose from. Mui Nai has a tourism zone named Doi Nai Vang, or Golden Deer Hill. This is a construction combining both natural and man-made landscapes. Trees cast shadows on the path sloping gently to Doi Nai Vang. Nui Den, or Light Mountain, has a lighthouse belonging to the system of Phu Quoc-Mui Nai-Hon Khoai sea light. At sunset, or after a rain, Mui Nai looks so romantic with its sluggish waves spreading bubbles gently on the sand. Mui Nai’s waves, wind and sand are waiting for you to enjoy. So, hurry up when summer is calling! VietNamNet/SGT
Da Lat presents adventurous tours
To finish the journey, visitors will also climb up five cliffs, reaching between seven and 25 meters in height. This tour has attracts around 1,000 visitors a year. The price is just US$35 per foreigner and VND350,000 for Vietnamese. Camping tours are also a leading choice for groups, which often have 20 to 300 campers, especially Vietnamese. The tour introduces Da Lat’s famous landscapes, such as Langbian Mountain, Tuyen Lam Lake, Love Valley and the Highland’s special ethnic culture to tourists. According to the director of Hoi Huu Da Lat Phattireventuers, his firm also organizes teambuilding exercises. Beside these adventurous tours, there are also other activities, including trekking, biking, rock-climbing, and other central Highland discovery tours. VNN/SGGP
Down in the Delta
The highest concentration of “floating houses” with fish cages can be observed on the western banks of the Chau Doc River near where it meets the mighty Mekong. Nguyen Van De, a local resident from the floating village, takes us on his boat for a quick tour around Chau Doc River. On the tranquil river, we cruise past neat rows of houses, which all have fishing cages underneath them. There are nearly 2,000 floating houses in the village. Some of the more sturdy houses are made with bricks and wooden frames and covered by fibre grass tiles. However, a few more flimsy looking constructions are made out of bamboo and coconut leaves. We clamber off the boat onto the wooden deck of a house. A piece of wood has been left open so you can peer down into the fish cage where a large school of fish jumps up and down. Much to our surprise, the residents seem to have all the mod cons and assets families would have on land: We can see satellite dishes, televisions and motorcycles while all residents seem to own a mobile phone. De can raise about five tonnes of cat fish in eight months. His children can easily get to school after a short boat trip to Chau Doc town too. Life here seems good. Past the floating village, we find Con Tien (Fairy Island) where a community of around 3,000 Cham people live. According to relics at Mubarak Mosque, the Cham community set up their settlement on the island in 1691. Just like any other popular spots for tourists, right at the entrance to the Cham village is a souvenir shop selling Cham silk handbags and scarves! We check out a store owned by a woman called Ysa, who is a surprisingly laid back seller. According to Ysa weaving was one of the prerequisite skills for a well educated girl in Cham society. She has been weaving since she was only 15 and set up the store back in 1998. All of her products are handmade with traditional weaving equipment. She employs 20 women from the village and claims she earns a stable income. According to Ysa, traditionally, while the women weaved and took care of domestic chores, Cham men sailed down the river to trade. Thanks to a common religion and shared customs Cham traders had plenty of success trading with Malays. A colourful culture Chau Doc town is a swirling mix of ethnicity and religion. With Khmer, Vietnamese, Chinese and Cham communities, you will find institutions dedicated to Confucianism, Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism and even Sunni Islam as well as churches for Christians and followers of Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religions. One of the most famous religious buildings is Ba Chua Xu Temple on Sam Mountain. Two hundred years ago, Sam Mountain was said to be covered with a forest and full of wild animals. Only pirates and bandits dared to go there. One day, a group of Siamese men came across a beautiful red stone statue on the summit of the mountain. Although the statue was small, none of them could lift it up. The men quickly grew frustrated and in a blind rage, they smashed the statue and departed. But in a nearby village, on the same day a girl went into a strange fit — her face was flushed red and her head shook violently. She started to speak and called herself Chua Xu Thanh Mau (the Holy Mother of the Region). She commanded villagers to climb the mountain and fetch her statue back to the village. The villagers found the statue on the top of Sam Mountain but they could not move it either. They returned and asked for the little girl’s advice. She told them to send nine maiden girls up the mountain to carry the statue down. Sure enough the nine girls were able to lift the statue up and carry down the mountain. But at the foot of the mountain, the statue suddenly grew too heavy for the nine girls too carry so they laid it down. The village elders guessed that was the place that the Holy Mother wanted to be placed and consulted an oracle. A shrine was duly built on the site on the 25th day of the fourth lunar month and ever since on that day pilgrims have come to Ba Chua Xu temple. Besides Ba Chua Xu Temple, Tan An Pagoda, which was constructed in 1847 by Doan On, is also worth a visit. The three-storey pagoda with the onion-shaped turret designed in the Muslim–Indian architectural style is on the side of Sam Mountain. On the top of the pagoda sits a striking white statue of the Supreme Buddha. From outside the pagoda is not that eye catching but the statues and carvings inside are wonderfully vivid and life-like. VNN/Time-out News for Tuesday 07 July, 2009 View all news for Tuesday 07 July, 2009 on one page Recent News
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