As mentioned in my post on the Vietnamese New Year, Park23/9 is one of the places in Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, where you can catch the New Year atmosphere. This year, the Tet flower market at Park 23/9 runs from 6th to 13th February…

Visited Cholon to check out the Vietnamese New Year atmosphere there. Returned with these pictures…

If you are wondering about the big deal with the Vietnamese New Year, or Tet, it is the most important and biggest holiday and festival in Vietnam. You see, for us Asian, many of our culture and customs are based on the Lunar Calendar. And Tet, aka Lunar New Year, falls on the very first day of that calendar…

Vietnam pictures of Vietnam sleeping beauties One culture of Vietnam is that the Vietnamese can almost sleep anywhere…

Among Ho Chi Minh City’s many tourist attractions, the Emperor Jade Pagoda is one of the most interesting ones. The Jade Emperor Pagoda, built in 1909 by the Chinese Congregation, is truly a gem among Chinese temples in Saigon. It is one of the most spectacularly colourful pagodas in Ho Chi Minh City, filled with statues of phantasmal divinities and grotesque heroes. The pungent smoke of burning joss sticks fills the air, obscuring the exquisite woodcarvings decorated with gilded Chinese characters. The roof is covered with elaborate tile work. The statues, which represent characters from both the Buddhist and Taoist traditions, are made of reinforced papier-mache. The pagoda is dedicated to the Emperor of Jade, the supreme Taoist god…

Christmas, although not a public holiday in Vietnam, is widely celebrated in the major cities particularly in Saigon. Vietnam is predominantly a Buddhist country but come Christmas, its young Vietnamese population paints the town red and green (Christmas theme ). Christmas in Vietnam is a major festival and the Vietnamese people celebrate it with equal enthusiasm as of the New Year.

In this picture you can see a couple ladies who were sitting behind us have some coffee and cigarettes. They were watching us, talking to us a little bit too. I just love these two ladies for the styles they represent. The one in the foreground who is smoking is wearing her pajamas which a lot of Vietnamese women do because of the heat; it’s comfortable wearing loose clothing that breathes. The woman in the background is really pretty and is really elegant, looking classy. Both came to the same cafe to sit and people watch. I snuck this picture of them by putting the camera on the table and turning off all sounds and flash. They had no idea I took this picture…

Hal: When I hear the word, “village,” I generally think of a small community of houses built in a rural locale, surrounded by farms and all the trappings of a pastoral life. And when I hear the phrase, “silk-weaving village,” I imagine a tiny hamlet wherein old women tend to small wooden looms, following local traditions handed down for generations. So these were the images I had in mind when a friend suggested we visit Van Phuc, a local Vietnamese silk-weaving “village,” and center of Vietnamese sericulture for nearly two thousand years…

See how people in Vietnam work high and outside a building with a safety harness

Most visitors have a love-hate relationship with the traffic in Vietnam. They hate it for being messy, scary and is even perceived as dangerous. But most, if not all, will tell you that crossing the Vietnam streets is one of the best experiences during their Vietnam travel…