Khmer people cheer Sene Dolta Festival

Nearly 1.3 million Khmer people in Mekong Delta localities are celebrating the Sene Dolta Festival, a Khmer holiday to express their gratefulness and appreciation to their ancestors.

This year’s Sene Dolta Festival is being held from the 30th day of the 8th lunar month to the second day of the 9th lunar month, which falls on September 18-20.

Khmer people will gather together to pay tributes to their ancestors, and enjoy traditional songs and dance performances and other light-hearted activities after a hard working year.

To mark the occasion, a delegation led by Son Song Son, the Deputy Head of the Steering Committee for the South-Western Region, visited Khmer people and monks in Vung Liem and Tra On districts, the southern province of Vinh Long on September 17.

He presented gifts to monks and nuns at the Hanh Phuc Tang and Gia Kiet pagodas and urged local authorities to make a great effort to improve local people’s living conditions and open more classes to teach the Khmer language to ethnic minority.

On the same day, leaders of Soc Trang and An Giang provinces visited and handed over gifts to heroic mothers, families which have positively contributed to the country, and over 150 Khmer pagodas in the provinces.

The majority of the Khmer population are living in the southwestern region, which has 453 Khmer pagodas.

The event is one of the largest annual festivals of the Khmer people, besides the Chol Chnam Thmay (New Year) and the Ooc Oom Bok - a festival to thank the Moon for a good harvest. 

My Khanh Tourist Village in Can Tho

Paying a visit to My Khanh Tourist Village, visitors in Vietnam travel often feel relaxed and comfortable. It brings the features of a garden-style eco-tourist site in Can Tho. Visiting the village, visitors not only can experience the old days of Southerners’ life, but also enjoy fruits, hot tea and listen to music.

My Khanh tourist village is located at 335 Lo Vong Cung Street, Phong Dien District, about five kilometers from Can Tho City by road or river.

My Khanh village, which was established in 1996, features a garden-style eco-tourist site. The village is a special one in Can Tho which brings about comfort and relaxation for any visitor.

Visiting My Khanh Tourist Village, visitors in Vietnam travel can experience the old days of southerners’ life by taking on the costume of a rich landlord who lived in a big house or of a normal traditional farmer to feel the difference. As a rich landlord, you can enjoy fruit, hot tea and listen to music from a hand-operated gramophone made more than 300 years ago. As a farmer, you are given opportunity to work and prepare meals as southern farmers did in the past.

 Another feature that makes My Khanh tourist village special is the 100-year-old southern house that was moved piece by piece from Can Tho's Binh Thuy Ward and reassembled.

At the village, you are served with Mekong Delta specialties such as baby rabbits, snakes, tortoises, bats, cuckoos and crocodiles, etc. The meals include regional fruits such as rambutans, durians, langsats, mangosteens, oranges, tangerines and pomeloes.

My Khanh tourist village also provides accommodation features of Central Highlands-style stilt houses with total 300 well-furnished rooms in all. Besides, there are other entertainment services including a swimming pool, fishing and boating on the river.

Monkey Island in Nha Phu Bay

Nha Phu Bay, about 15km north of the famous city of Nha Trang , is beautiful and impressive with crystal clear water and romantic scenery. Not far out from the Bay is Monkey Island , an eco-tourist site that is home to up to 1,200 monkeys and attracts hordes of visitors each year.

There are three groups of monkeys living here, all under the control of a robust, powerful male considered their King. Tourists to this lush, green, tranquil island are transported by horse-drawn carriage along a path that passes through a cycad tree forest and on to a coconut tree forest where they encounter the first group of brown monkeys. 

Soft-fur monkeys sit in a group and wait for handouts from tourists

Further along the trail visitors come across another group of monkeys that are two-toned in colour. Many of these primates are young mothers with babies suckling at their breasts. The tour guide is very knowledgeable and keeps the guests well informed about the personal characteristics of each group.   

Taking photos with the monkeys playing on the tree branches

In the home of the third group of monkeys, visitors can interact with the animals. With this group, tourists can hold hands with the monkeys or feed and play with them while some members of the clan inquisitively look on from tree branches.

Visiting Monkey Island by boat.

After touring the island, visitors can purchase some refreshments and sit back under some shade trees before heading on to the monkey circus. Here the trained primates play catch, husk rice, pound rice, stand on their hands and do gymnastics. One old male pedals a cyclo that carries a pretty little female monkey, dressed in a skirt, in the front.

The monkeys are friendly with tourists.

Monkey Island offers some peaceful beaches where visitors can lay back or go for a trip in the tranquil sea. At present, apart from bringing into full play the potential of the sea and forests, managers of the Monkey Island are implementing positive measures to protect and multiply the monkeys under the international law on bio-diversity.

 Watching monkeys’ performance.

Source: Vietnam.vnanet.vn

Traditional tunes to lull UNESCO

Cultural authorities of the northwestern province of Tuyen Quang are completing a profile on hat then (then singing) to submit to UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage

  Then singing is typical of the Tay and Nung ethnic groups, living mainly in the north-west, and is presented at important events of the community.

Then melodies consist of several stanzas accompanied by a tinh tau (a two or three-string instrument).

The provincial Culture, Sports and Tourism Department director, Nguyen Viet Thanh, said a profile of the art form is expected to be completed by the end of this year. It will be submitted to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism before being sent to the UN cultural agency.

At the moment, there are two veteran then singers in Tuyen Quang, who can remember the old melodies, including those sang in the cap sac ceremony (a ritual to recognise a new shaman), then ky yen (songs to pray for luck) and those sang on festive occasions.

In order to promote the art form, the province has set up cultural tourism villages, to give people access to this "cultural speciality".

UNESCO has already recognised as intangible cultural heritage: ca tru (chamber music) in the North, quan ho (love duet) in the northern province of Bac Ninh, xoan singing in the northern province of Phu Tho, gong culture space in the Central Highlands and the Giong Festival in Hanoi.

Source: VNA

Phu Cam Conical Hat Village in Hue city

Lying on the southern bank of the An Cuu River in the centre of the former imperial capital of Hue, hat-making village Phu Cam is famous for its traditional way of making conical hats. Since hundreds of years, Hue conical hat has become an integral part of Hue culture.

Phu Cam conical hat or Hue conical hat has not only a beautiful form but also modest color. It is light and so thin that light seems to pierce through it. Through natural light, visitors in Vietnam travel can see Hue landscapes with verses engraved on paper placed between two layers of leaves.  

Phu Cam-made hats look graceful, soft and thin as silk. Hue landscapes or even poems can be seen clearly through the hats in the sunshine. It takes woman much time to make the frame and iron leaves before young girls start sewing. The beauty and grace of a hat depend much on the frame (made of 16 brims from the hem to the top). Artisans use sharp knives to prepare the brims and make the frame that needs skills, techniques and experiences, as well as mathematical calculations which have been handed down for generations.

Leaves to make hat play a vital part, leaves have to be blue-white, neither too young nor too old. Collected leaves are to be put to dry in the sun, put to be moistened by dewdrops, and then to be ironed flat on a steel- plank above a kiln, cleaned with a towel. After all this, leaves are cut to fit the frame.

It is not easy to arrange the leaves on to the frame. Each hat needs 50 leaves and between the leaves are colored papers with pictures or paintings of landscapes, or even poems. Hat-makers are hardworking and careful and diligent. Hats are served with silk-threads and the chin-straps are made of colored silk (black, white, yellowish, purple, violet, etc) to harmonize with Hue climate and beauty.

Poem-hat or “Non bai tho” is a distinctive feature of culture in Hue. Locals say they like to do the job not only to earn money but to preserve their age-old tradition as poem-hats have been absorbed into folk music and songs. Today hats are still used by young girls to shade their heads in the sun and to make them look more graceful in the traditional long dress “Ao Dai.”

Therefore, when visiting Phu Cam village, tourists joining tours in Vietnam will have a chance to know more about how to make a Hue conical hat- an integral part of Hue’s culture.