F1 Grand Prix 2020 – A world-class sport event

Whether you are a fan of this Formula one racing or not, you may expect this legend racing after you see its design. This is the first time Hanoi hosts F1 Grand Prix, people pay much attention to the investor of the racetrack. And Vingroup, one of the largest enterprises in Vietnam, is chosen to be the exclusive sponsor of F1 Vietnam Grand Prix 2020.

The F1 racetrack: The circuit lasts 5607 meters including 23 challenging turns. Built with FIA Grade 1 standards, the racetrack comprises a part running around My Dinh complex and the rest constructed in parallel with some bustling streets. Therefore, the Hanoi F1 racetrack promises an exciting circuit because of its difference with the previous circuit. It draws the attractions to many famous racers ,the top 8 worlds best racers such as Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc will participate as well. These racers will present in Hanoi at the beginning of April. You should not miss a great chance to witness their pursuit racing.

Particularly, there are 2 purposes for 1 Vietnam trip. Besides watching the racing, you could take time to explore Hanoi. This city will be a great stopover on your holiday. Hanoi boasts historical sites, beautiful landscapes, friendly people and especially flavorsome cuisine.

I believe that you will fall in love with Hanoi and will not even immediately get back to your home after F1 Hanoi Grand Prix finishes since there are many worth-seeing destinations to explore on this Vietnam trip.

Vietnam during the Coronavirus outbreak

That is all about the Vietnamese Grand Prix 2020. It sounds great; however, there is still a small hesitation on Coronavirus.
You can scroll down to have the best decision

Do you remember the 2003 SARS outbreak appearing in Vietnam? It became the experience for the Vietnamese government effectively controlling this Coronavirus outbreak.

Coronavirus prevention of Vietnam:
– Closure of overland border crossing between China and Vietnam
– Suspension all flights to and from mainland China
– Increase measures to protect tourists and Vietnam citizens as checking the temperature at the airport, offering free mask…
– 14 days of quarantine with the traveler from China and Korean

Until now, Vietnam has not had the death of coronavirus. All 16 coronavirus patients were recovered and discharged from the hospital. Vietnam is safer than what you imagine.
Furthermore, this event takes place from 3rd to 5th April when the temperature will be higher and could prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Finally, you should not be worry about it, you even could plan to own your trip with the cheapest cost by some advice below:

– You should apply for Vietnam visa as soon as possible at well-known websites such as vietnamvisa, visaeviva then come to Vietnam before this attractive event starts because the airport will be crowded.

– You also should book in advance a hotel room, flight ticket because in this coronavirus outbreak, the price of those services tend to get down.

I hope you make the best decision.

The celebrations are first held at the Po Sha Inu tower in Phan Thiet city with Brahmin priests performing rituals and Cham people taking part in cultural activities and traditional games.

Later, the Kate festival will be celebrated in each village and family throughout the seventh month of the Cham calendar.

Activities include a competition to decorate gifts offered to Po Sha Inu, a goddess of the Cham people, and demonstrations of traditional crafts such as brocade weaving, ceramics making as well as performances of traditional instruments and folk dances.

This year, visitors attending the celebrations are able to take part in a traditional game in which one has to carry a bucket of water on their head and overcome obstacles – a game closely related to the everyday activity of the Cham community.

For the occasion, social organisations in Binh Thuan have paid visits and given gifts to the Cham people in the province.

Source: Nhan Dan Online

Rain Praying Festival of White Thai people

For White Thai people in Moc Chau, Son La, rain praying festival is one of the most important events of the year, which occurs in the Lunar February 15th to pray for favorable weather and upcoming bumper crops.

Before the festival, each household is supposed to willingly make donations depending on their financial means. Families all participate in the preparations of required steps for the festival such as raising “nêu” tree or offerings…

Afterwards, on oracle performs a water asking ritual. Offerings strictly include a chicken, a duck, clothing, fruits and in particular, 6 dyed eggs. After the rain praying ceremony, the 6 eggs are thrown into the water so that widows are allowed to fetch them home.

Yen Tu Festival:

Yen Tu festival takes place on the Lunar January 10th and lasts three spring months. The solemn ceremony held at the mountain foot is flowed by a pilgrimage of thousands of people to the peak of Yen Tu – Dong pagoda. The path to Yen Tu trickily meanders under the shade of perennial trees through vast woods of pines and bamboos. To reach Dong pagoda makes pilgrims feel like having arrived in the Nirvana. Yen Tu has for long reputed as an elegant religious, cultural and ecological destination.

Dong Da Mound Festival

Dong Da Mount festival takes place annually on the Lunar January 5th at Dong Da Mount, Hanoi. The festival is hosted in memory of the illustrious of Emperor Quang Trung, a peasant hero in the Vietnamese history of resistances against foreign invaders. The festival boasts many physical games to honor martial spirit. The Thang Long Fire Dragon is the most unique game off all. Formal ceremonies are followed by games and folk art performances such as kylan dance, dragon dance, wrestling, human chess or chicken fights. After the liberation of the Capital (October 10th, 1954), Dong Da mount festival is regarded as a traditional festival of national significance.

Perfume Pagoda Festival

Perfume Pagoda Festival takes place from the Lunar January 6th to the end of Lunar March.

During peak festive days, the Perfume Pagoda is crowded with traveling boats. A unique feature of the festival is boat tours to relish the picturesque landscape. Leaving boats, visitors will embark to trips to the pagoda and start climbing mountains and marveling at caves with delightful stalactites inside.

Thay Pagoda Festival

Thay pagoda is situated in Sai Son commune, Quoc Oai district, 20km Southwest from Hanoi center. Lunar March 7th is said to be the day monk Tu Dao Hanh transformed himself into Buddha and Thay pagoda festival was launched in honor of monk Tu Dao Hanh. However, the festival lasts from the Lunar March 5th to 7th.

Apart from religious rituals, Thay pagoda festival also takes pride in enticing folk games such as water puppetry that features kylan dances, dragon dances, milling, rice pounding or buffalo fights…

Rice cooking contest in Chuong village

Chuong village in Thanh Oai, ha Noi is famous for its conial hat craft. On the Lunar March 10th, youngsters in Chuong village joyously take part in their annual festival. The event proves to be a short break for villages after their hectic farm work. CHuong festival boasts various folk games such as human chess, chicken fights, pot breaking or duck catches… of which the most outstanding and attractive game is the rice cooking contest.

Participants include some od the most skillful maidens of each village. Girls are dressed in four flapped tunics and wear quai thao hats roaming the courtyard and cooking rice. One carries a pole of two earthen pots who is flanked by two other participants to keep the flaime alight. A huge throng of villagers and visitors flocks to the contest. They densely surround the courtyard and the belfry. After 20 minutes, well-cooked and delectable rice pots of competeing teams will be given to villagers and visitors to determine the winner. During the contest, the temple courtyar of Chuong village is draped in the tantalizing odors of cooked rice and joyful screams.

Elephant races

Traditional elephant races of mnong locals in Buon Me Thuot usually take place in the Lunar March, one of the finest months of the Central Highlands to honor the martial spirit and elephant taming skills of the locals. Elephant races are held on a spacious, tree-scare platform of Yokdon National Park or a loose forest by Serepok River. Amidst the ecstatic cheers of the crowds, racing elephants also seem more enthusiastic. They toss and lower their trunks to greet all spectators.

After strong low sound of olifants, elephants rush forward at an unparalleled speed. Two trainers, sit in the front and the back to keep the elephant in right track and durable. Spectators are mainly the locals in tawdry floral ethnic costumes who scream out with great joys, giving the race a breath taking ambience. Winning elephants are showred with thumderous screams from the spectators. They are awarded with flowers and belts. Winning elephants and their drivers are also given one pig and 7 jars of precious liquor. Spectators are also give elephants sugar canes or sugar pines. After the race, the locals get to the stilt house to indulge themselves in feasts and dances until the dawn.

Whale festival

Whale festival is closely associated with fishermen’s life. The folk festival is on an annual basis in springtime across costal fishing villages in the Center and up to the South. Meant to pay homepage to Sea Gods and pray for good future catches, the festival is also a rendezvous for fishermen to relax and exchanges ideas for a new fishing year ahead. The Whale festival is assimilated with the cults of Whale-the sacred animal of fishermen. The fish has served as a savior of wrecked fishermen, thus its honor name “the God of the South Sea”.

The wale worship is hosted in three conservative days on beaches or estuaries. Some festivals are even held on the water surface, near estuaries and on a row of boats. Offerings are subject to financial conditions of a fishing village. However, requisites are incenses, votives, flowers, liquors, cakes, bananas, sticky rice, compote, rice, salt, a little pig or chicken heads… Offerings should never ve seafood. The whale worship festival is a strongly religious event of fishermen in the Center that both demonstrate humanitarian values and people’s cultural behaviors of human beings towards the sea and also their gratitude to explorers of their estates. The longest lasting impression of the three-day festival is a mix between formal rituals and ceremonies and robust, energetic folk games among coastal people.

Among thousands of festivals, Lunar New Year (or Tet Nguyen Dan) stands the first in the list – it is a sacred festival of every Vietnamese. Tet features the transition between the old and new year in the complete cycle of the universe. Embodied in Tet are humanitarian values that reflect the relationship between human being and nature and universe through the four seasons – spring, summer, autumn and winter, and highlight simple-minded Vietnamese farmers’ concept of “ showing gratitude to Gods for favourable weather”. Tet offers an occasion for family reunion, villagers’ gathering, and for one to show respect for his or her ancestors, the universe and the community. I love Chung cake very much, a traditional Vietnamese rice cake which is made from sticky rice, mung bean, pork and other ingredients. Very tasty.

The second is Mid-Autumn Festival, a formerly autumn festival, and then becomes moon festival of children. On 14^th and 15^th August (Lunar Calendar), the moon is at its brightest and roundest in the year, and the weather is cool. The festival involves the custom of parading with lanterns shaped as moon and stars, lion dance and eating pasties and fruits. Very excited.

The last is Ooc-Om-Bok Festival. It is a religious activity of the Khmer minority group praying for the luck, happiness, good weather and bumper crops. The festival is held when the dry season begins and rice is ripening on the fields.

Hope that this information will help you to have some ideas of activities you can attend for your cultural tour to Vietnam. Special thanks to www.evivatour.com which has provided information for me and Ms. Phuong Dong, the sales that supported me very much for all my trips.

Vi-Giam folk music is a repartee sung while working. It reflects the work, cultural life and feelings of the residents in the central coastal provinces.

The preservation is currently facing a number of problems since fewer residents sing this genre of music and many of the documentaries relating to the singing were lost.

The province, therefore, is working on campaigns to raise the public’s awareness of the cultural value of Vi-Giam and encourage the localities to set up teams of local singers to increase its popularity.

The province plans to introduce the singing in schools and its external activities along with organising regular singing programmes in tourism areas.

It also looks to hold an annual event for the type of singing to nurture its development.

A website named “Nghe Tinh’s Vi-Giam folk singing” will be built in association with the intangible cultural heritage database under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Vi-Giam folk music is popular in nearly 260 villages in the central provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh. The two provinces have 75 singing clubs with over 1,500 vocalists, many of whom are actively preserving the folk music.

It was officially recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity in November 2014.

Source: VNA