Crowded streets, tons of people are everywhere. Especially on motorbikes. Everybody is in hurry, everybody is rush to work, business, family. That’s Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City. The city had never felt asleep.
Vietnam is slowly becoming a tiger of Southeast Asia. It’s not surprising at all. The Vietnam people are extremely hard working. Especially people from the south, which is more developed than the north part. The ‘never sleeping’ Ho Chi Minh City is busy all the day and night. In far Mekong delta, there is thousands of people hard working on their rice fields. The harvest is so huge they become the second largest exporter of rice in the world. When you take into account Vietnamese business abilities, the economic boom is not surprising at all. The life at Mekong delta is tightly connected with living on a water and it’s one of the most spectacular sites of Vietnam.
Vietnam state area has an unusual shape. It’s formed as a very thin land, adjoining to the South China Sea from its east side, which is great for both local fishermen and tourists who can refresh at nice beaches. One of the most famous places to visit is Halong Bay. More than 3000 small limestone islands are rising out of the sea. Very spectacular. Another popular destination is capital Hanoi with pleasant historical center, full of shops and small markets.
Unfortunately many historic sites were destroyed during Vietnam War, but the government is working on reconstructions of several destroyed buildings. One of the buildings currently being repaired is former King Palace in Hue city in the central Vietnam. The only remaining parts of the palace are fortification walls. The only few conserved historical sites are beautifully decorated graves from the time of Nguyen dynasty.
The Hoi An city makes pleasant stop. It’s famous because of the conserved city center and Japanese bridge from 1593. The city is just on the way to ruins of former Cham Empire which used to be based there in between of 2nd and 15th century. The Cham Empire had been competing with the Angkor Empire in Cambodia. The official Hinduism religion in Cham Empire can be still noticed in My Son, interesting for its extraordinary architecture. The buildings built from bricks are often decorated by Hindu ornaments. Completely in different atmosphere can be felt in Dalat city. It’s located in mountain area, with nice refreshing and cool environment.
The north of the country is closer to the neighboring Laos then Vietnam itself. In the mountain area there are living so-called mountain tribes, variety of different ethnics with completely different life style then the rest of the Vietnam society.
