Sep
10
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HCM City's Monkey Island offers kids a real experience
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VietNamNet Bridge – When I asked my four-year-old son where he wanted to go for the weekend, he said he wanted to visit a place where monkeys lived.
A boat tour through Rung Sac mangrove forest,
a guerrilla base during the American War, is part of a visit to Monkey Island.
"Real monkeys, not the ones you see on television or in cages at the zoo," he said.
Searching the internet to find such a destination, I discovered Monkey Island in Can Gio District, HCM City.
We left home at 9am on a sunny Sunday.
The sunshine in HCM City is really different. It did not make us feel worn out and tired like in the north and the central areas, where we just want to stay at home, especially in the summer.
We decided to open the car's windows to enjoy the natural wind and gaze at the landscape outside.
The drive to Monkey Island from the centre of HCM City is not really far. It is about 70km and the beautiful view along the road makes the trip feel much shorter.
After a little over one hour, we reached Can Gio.
The road from here to the island was very beautiful with many trees, green rivers and tiny yellow flowers, which we guessed were wild peanut flowers.
Through the underbrush: A group of teens explore the mangrove forest on Monkey Island.
The flowers, together with the light green leaves, created a colourful carpet along the road. The sight energized us and made us excited to start our trip, on which we hoped to have many new experiences.
The amazing landscapes, cool winds and blue sky made me realise that Viet Nam's winding coastline was home to many beautiful sites that we had not discovered. Some places, I thought, were more beautiful than similar places in other nearby countries and even Europe.
A sign at a crossroads told us that we had reached the Monkey Island.
Passing the gate, we saw our first monkeys: a family with parents and two little monkeys.
My son was really excited that his dream was coming true. He shouted out a series of rapid-fire questions: "Why do they live together? Why do they climb up the tree? Why do the little monkeys hug their mothers?"
We walked around the island on a cement road while trying to answer all of these questions.
It's called an island because it is surrounded by a mangrove forest. But just 200m from the gate, we really saw an island of monkeys. There were some 1,000 monkeys! They ran around and climbed up mangrove trees. They followed us or just stood still to look at us with no fear.
Other visitors told us that the monkeys were sizing us up to see if we would give them food.
My father decided to buy some food for them. He bought four small bags of potatoes, gave them to my son and taught him how to feed the monkeys.
When the first potato bag came into my son's hands, tens of monkeys came around him and stared at the bag.
He started to deliver the potatoes to the monkeys very happily. He threw the snacks as quickly as possible because the small amount was unlikely to be enough for the primates.
Suddenly, a monkey quickly ran to my son and took the bag away. Although we had been warned at the gate that monkeys might take stuff from us, this action really surprised all of us because the monkey was so quick that we did not have any time to react.
We all laughed out loud but my son looked so tense and sad. His face turned grey and it looked like he was going to cry.
To console my children, I promised to show them a new thing that they had never experienced: canoeing.
Monkeys are the island's major citizens
and are well-acquainted with a human presence.
We decided to go on a boat tour to visit Rung Sac, a guerrilla base during the American War inside the Monkey Island. It was lucky for us that the water level was high that day. If not, we could not use boats because this is a muddy area.
This is a famous historical place, dating back to a majestic period of Vietnamese history. A commando regiment of the liberation force was stationed at the jungle from 1966-75. It served as a spring board for them to fight in Sai Gon.
In fact, the place we visited was just one part of the whole base but it was enough to help us understand the challenges that Vietnamese fighters had to face in the past.
The landscape was very beautiful with thousands of mangroves growing in a big muddy area. Sometimes, we all had to bend down low to avoid being hit by the mangroves' branches. The boat sped quickly through the water, splashing water on us: a really amazing experience.
The bamboo bridges connected me and the other tourists to places where we could see how the commandos had meetings, slept, fought and ate.
The sudden advent of a rainstorm cut our visit short. We came back to the boat station with many feelings.
My parents especially liked the tour as it reminded them of the days of the war against the Americans.
To say good-bye to the forest, we treated ourselves to ice creams. When we turned around, we were startled to see five monkeys waiting for us.
"You have potatoes. The ice cream is for me," my son told the monkeys and held onto his ice cream, very tightly.
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Sep
10
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Number of Chinese tourists in Jan-Aug period down
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The number of Chinese tourists visiting Vietnam in the January-August period dropped by 9.7% from the same period last year, and arrivals from this source market are forecast to remain weak towards the year-end.
According to the General Statistics Office, there were nearly 894,000 tourist arrivals from China to Vietnam in the eight-month period, down 9.7% while last year’s same period recorded a growth rate of nearly 48%. Vietnam last year welcomed over 1.4 million Chinese arrivals, rising by up to 56.5% from the previous year.
Statistics of travel firms showed the same situation. Specifically, the number of Chinese tourists at HCMC-based Lien Bang Travelink has dropped by 30%.
“Some partners have booked tours for this year-end, but tours may be canceled at the last minute like what has happened since the year’s beginning,” said Tu Quy Thanh, director of Lien Bang Travelink.
Similarly, Cao Tri Dung, director of Vitours in Danang City, said that the firm last year welcomed over 100,000 Chinese tourist arrivals, but the number of Chinese tourists has now dropped strongly.
Explaining for the drop in the number of Chinese tourists, travel firms said that this resulted from economic difficulties. Besides, some Chinese firms have started to provide their own tours to Vietnam instead of cooperating with Vietnamese firms.
“Previously, we used to receive a large number of tourists from China on charter flights, but after that, Chinese partner have organized their tours bringing tourists to Vietnam. This has made us lose customers and the State lose the travel tax,” said Dung from Vitours.
In addition, according to the Travel Department under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the tourism industry has started to reorganize the market and shift to the segment for tourists with higher spending.
Chinese tourists with low spending mainly come to Vietnam via border gates in the northern region and buy tours lasting three days at a price of over VND1 million. Receiving tourists via border gates has been tightened, resulting in the falling number of tourists.
Currently, around 30% and 58% of Chinese tourists come to Vietnam by road and air respectively while the rest arrive here by ship.
According to Nguyen Quy Phuong, head of the Travel Department, amid current economic difficulties, attracting tourists with high spending is not easy at all. However, China is still an important market, and Vietnam will strive to attract more tourists of the high-spending segment.
“To achieve this, we will launch more promotion activities in China,” he said.
Vietnam organized a tourism promotion program in Guangzhou late last month and will continue to hold road shows in Xian and Tianjin in November. The department has plans to invite Chinese press agencies to Vietnam.
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Sep
10
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Travel firms say “no” to “live by makeshift” tourist site
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Some travel firms have announced that they boycott the Ba Na Tourist Complex in the central city of Da Nang, because the tourist site has raised the service fees immoderately – a rarely seen thing in the tourism sector.
Travel firms are believed to act as the intermediaries who connect tourists with tourist sites and service providers. They seem to be safe and unhurt in any cases, because they would raise the tour fees if the input service fees increase, and vice versa. In other words, they would never suffer in case of the price fluctuations.
Therefore, the information that travel firms refuse to cooperate with Ba Na Tourist Complex has caught the special attention from the public.
Explaining the decision, an executive of a travel firm said the tourist site’s management board has spontaneously raised the service fees dramatically, ignoring the warnings by travel firms about the possible bad consequences and the protests by travelers.
“We have decided to do one thing that we never did before,” the senior executive said.
“Saying ‘no’ to a tourist site is the way we have chosen to express our viewpoint and to protect the clients who believe in us,” he added. “It’s the time for service providers to reconsider their service quality and have respect for clients.”
Sharing the same view, Nguyen Van My, Director of Lua Viet travel firm, said tourism should be considered as a kind of religion so as to conduct with reasonable behaviors.
The viewpoint of the travel firms has been supported by the HCM City Travel Association, which said that clients should be respected.
2012 is really a difficult year for Vietnamese tourist sector with the travel demand decreasing dramatically in the economic downturn. Therefore, travel firms have to cut down tour fees and launch big sales promotion campaigns to attract more travelers, Their efforts may become helpless without the cooperation of tourist sites, which raise service fees unreasonably.
A lot of travelers complained that they have experienced a terrible September holiday as they were overcharged at the tourist sites.
Tuan, a traveler, said he had to pay 180,000 dong for a ticket to go from Binh Station to Cat Ba island, instead of the publicly quoted ticket price of 150,000 dong.
“The Hai Phong City’s competent agencies have loosened management, thus paving the way for the service provider to raise the ticket prices. Meanwhile, the ticket prices should be posted to make it known to everyone,” he said.
However, despite the expensive tickets, travelers still could not enjoy their trip. Since the ship was overloaded with the number of passengers double that in ordinary days, Tuan said he felt suffocated.
Tuan and other passengers arrived in Cat Ba one hour later than expected. However, this was not the only trouble he experienced.
Here on the island, travelers had to carry out stiff negotiations with hotels and restaurants. In the negotiations, the service providers got the upper hand. Travelers then had to accept the hotel room rate which was triple higher than the normal rate, though the travelers already booked hotels before.
Especially, the meals here were exorbitant with vegetables, soups – the simple dishes – charged hundreds of thousands of dong.
Bui Trung Nghia, Chair of Cat Hai district’s authorities, said he instructed relevant state management agencies to strengthen the management on the September holiday to prevent the overcharging at tourist sites. However, the instruction was ignored. It seems that Cat Ba does not want to meet the travelers again.
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Ho Chi Minh City to host large int’l tourism exhibition
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10/09/2012 08:53:10
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Province to boost tourism industry
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10/09/2012 08:24:09
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European culinary festival held in HCM City
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10/09/2012 08:22:08
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Vietnamese ethnic designs on show in France
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10/09/2012 08:20:34
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“Hanoi - Journeys of Love” exhibition opens
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10/09/2012 08:18:49
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ASEAN needs to double efforts to realize a community
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08/09/2012 11:26:30
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Rich-poor gap hinders ASEAN integration - Cambodia
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08/09/2012 11:22:27
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Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex
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08/09/2012 10:44:45
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Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex
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08/09/2012 10:34:02
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