With weather being cool all year round, Sapa Town in the northern upland province of Lao Cai is an ideal place to enjoy grilled food. Skewered veggies and meat are grilled on burning charcoal at an eatery in Sapa Town – Photo: Nguyen The…

As its deep lyrics narrate daily life stories, the art form has been considered to be the nation’s delicate cultural item, and has become an important part of the Vietnamese people’s spiritual life. For a long time, the art-form fell into oblivion and faced…

‘Banh ran’ is a delicious finger food for breakfast in Vietnam. There are two main kinds of banh ran, namely salty cake and sweet one with the latter being much more common than the former. While the filling of sweet cake is sweet mashed…

I’ve tried a wide array of folk dishes and street food available on sidewalks. Among them, I find “bánh tráng nướng” (grilled rice paper) particularly irresistible as a simple delicacy with a unique taste. In my opinion, not only expats living and working in…

Vietnamese people’s culinary styles and dishes do not make diners obese. Vietnamese people generally look fit instead. Take pho for example. Foreigners at our hotel are hooked on pho for breakfast rather than their own traditional dishes, including butter, eggs, and bread. The taste…

Low-cost airline Vietjet Air has officially launched a promotional programme from August 24-26 offering 300,000 tickets, starting at zero dong, on some domestic routes. The promotional tickets will be available for routes linking Ha Noi and Hue with Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang,…

Hanoi is set to ban all vehicles on streets around Hoan Kiem (Sword) Lake every evening from Friday to Sunday starting September 1 to make it tourist-friendly. They will be pedestrians-only from 7 p.m. to midnight, and relevant agencies will assign personnel to regulate…

Twenty-one hotspots are being installed around Hoan Kiem Lake as Hanoi prepares to launch its free public Wi-Fi service in the area on Sep. 1, an official has said. Visitors to the lake, a well known tourist destination, will be able to roam using…

The LGBT community got on their bikes to fill Hanoi streets with vibrant colors yesterday as part of the fifth annual VietPride. The “Viet Pride – Path of Pride” parade organized by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community Sunday morning called for…

I wouldn’t have had the chance to visit the But Thap Pagoda last week if it wasn’t for my mother asking me to take her back to her favourite pagoda in the country. She was particularly taken with the sound of a bell ringing…