Theme Week Laos – Champasak Town

23 September 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  4 minutes

River bank of Don Khon with stilt wooden houses at golden hour from Don Det © Basile Morin/cc-by-sa-4.0

River bank of Don Khon with stilt wooden houses at golden hour from Don Det © Basile Morin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Champasak is a small town in southern Laos, on the west bank of the Mekong River about 40 km south of Pakse, the capital of Champasak Province. The town was once the seat of the Kingdom of Champasak, an independent Lao state which was abolished by the French in 1945 when they created the Kingdom of Laos, but the last King of Champasak had his palace in Pakse.   read more…

Theme Week Laos – Phongsali

22 September 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Phongsali © Stefan Auth

Phongsali © Stefan Auth

Phongsali or Phongsaly is the capital of Phongsaly Province. It is the northernmost provincial capital in Laos, opposite Attapeu in the south. The town has about 6,000 inhabitants. It lies at approximately 1,430 meters elevation on the slopes of Mount Phu Fa (1,625 meters). Phongsali has summer temperatures around 25-30 °C, with frequent rain. In winter, from November to March, it is cool and mostly sunny, with daytime temperatures between 10-18 °C.   read more…

Theme Week Laos

21 September 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  14 minutes

Mekong River flowing through Luang Prabang © flickr.com - Allie Caulfield/cc-by-2.0

Mekong River flowing through Luang Prabang © flickr.com – Allie Caulfield/cc-by-2.0

Laos, officially the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao: Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxôn Lao), is a socialist state and the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the Indochinese peninsula, Laos is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast and Thailand to the west and southwest. It is a one-party socialist republic, espousing Marxism–Leninism governed by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, under which non-governmental organizations have routinely characterized the country’s human rights record as poor, citing repeated abuses such as torture, restrictions on civil liberties, and persecution of minorities. There is a distinct rainy season from May to November, followed by a dry season from December to April. Local tradition holds that there are three seasons (rainy, cold and hot) as the latter two months of the climatologically defined dry season are noticeably hotter than the earlier four months. The capital and largest city of Laos is Vientiane and other major cities include Luang Prabang, Savannakhet, and Pakse (Geography of Laos and List of cities in Laos). In 1993 the Laos government set aside 21 percent of the nation’s land area for habitat conservation preservation. The country is one of four in the opium poppy growing region known as the “Golden Triangle“. According to the October 2007 UNODC fact book Opium Poppy Cultivation in South East Asia, the poppy cultivation area was 15 square kilometres (5.8 sq mi), down from 18 square kilometres (6.9 sq mi) in 2006.   read more…

Theme Week Vietnam – Haiphong

28 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  11 minutes

Du Hang Pagoda © HoangTuanAnh/cc-by-sa-3.0

Du Hang Pagoda © HoangTuanAnh/cc-by-sa-3.0

Haiphong is a major industrial city, the second largest city in the northern part of Vietnam. Hai Phong is also the center of technology, economy, culture, medicine, education, science and trade in the northern coast of Vietnam. The city is popular as a starting point for excursions to the famous Halong Bay. Hai Phong city traces its origin to its 1887 founding as a seaport province by colonist of the French Colonial Empire. In 1888, the president of the French Third Republic Sadi Carnot promulgated a decree to establish Hai Phong city. From 1954 to 1975, Hai Phong served as the most important maritime city of North Vietnam, and it became one of direct-controlled municipalities of a reunified Vietnam with Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh city in 1976. In the 21st century, Hai Phong has emerged as a trading gateway, modern, green industrial city of Vietnam, oriented to become the third special-class city of Vietnam in 2030 or by 2050 at the latest.   read more…

Theme Week Vietnam – Vung Tau

27 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  11 minutes

© Hoangvantoanajc/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Hoangvantoanajc/cc-by-sa-3.0

Vũng Tàu is the largest city and former capital of Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu Province in Vietnam. The city area is 140 square kilometres (54 square miles), consists of 13 urban wards and one commune of Long Son Islet. Vũng Tàu was the capital of the province until it was replaced by the much smaller Bà Rịa city on 2 May 2012. The city is also the crude oil extraction center of Vietnam.   read more…

Theme Week Vietnam – Quy Nhon

26 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên/cc-by-sa-3.0

Qui Nhơn is a coastal city in Bình Định Province in central Vietnam. It is composed of 16 wards and five communes with a total of 284 km² (110 sq mi). Quy Nhơn is the capital of Bình Định Province. Its population is at 311,000. Historically, the commercial activities of the city focused on agriculture and fishing. In recent years, however, there has been a significant shift towards service industries and tourism. There is also a substantial manufacturing sector.   read more…

Theme Week Vietnam – Can Tho

25 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

© panoramio.com - trungydang/cc-by-3.0

© panoramio.com – trungydang/cc-by-3.0

Cần Thơ is the fourth-largest city in Vietnam, and the largest city in the Mekong Delta. It is noted for its floating markets, rice paper-making village, and picturesque rural canals. It had a population of 1.2 million as of 2011, and is located on the south bank of the Hau River, a distributary of the Mekong River. In 2007, about 50 people died when the Cần Thơ Bridge collapsed, causing Vietnam’s worst engineering disaster. In 2011, Can Tho International Airport opened.   read more…

Theme Week Vietnam – Hue

24 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  13 minutes

Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Imperial City © Arabsalam/cc-by-3.0

Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Imperial City © Arabsalam/cc-by-3.0

Huế is a city in central Vietnam that was the capital of Đàng Trong Kingdom from 1738 to 1775 and of the Nguyen Dynasty from 1802 to 1945. A major attraction is its vast, 19th-century citadel, surrounded by a moat and thick stone walls. It encompasses the Imperial City, with palaces and shrines; the Forbidden Purple City, once the emperor’s home; and a replica of the Royal Theater. The city was also the battleground for the Battle of Hue, which was one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.   read more…

Theme Week Vietnam

23 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  14 minutes

Nha Trang beach © ntt/cc-by-sa-3.0

Nha Trang beach © ntt/cc-by-sa-3.0

Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Southeast Asian Indochinese Peninsula. With an estimated 95.5 million inhabitants as of 2018, it is the 15th most populous country in the world. Vietnam shares its land borders with China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares its maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital city is Hanoi, while its most populous city is Ho Chi Minh City, also known by its former name of Saigon.   read more…

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