Showing posts with label foreign visitors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreign visitors. Show all posts

Friday, February 11, 2011

Coffee buzz surrounds festival

The third international coffee festival will be held in Buon Ma Thuot in the Central Highlands on March 10 - 13.

At the event, more than 160 foreign and local coffee firms will showcase their technologies, products, and services at 500 booths.

There will be an international seminar on coffee attended by representatives from the world's biggest coffee producers, including Brazil, Columbia, Indonesia, and Ethiopia.

Ethnic groups from the Central Highlands and artists from coffee-growing nations will put on performances.

Brazilian football legend Pele will be among the attendees.

Hotels, resorts make ‘best' list

Four hotels and resorts in Viet Nam have found a place in Conde Nast Traveller's 17th Annual 2011 Gold List of World's Best Places to Stay.

Sofitel Legend Metropole Ha Noi, Life Heritage Resort Hoi An, Evason Ana Mandara & Six Senses in Nha Trang, and Park Hyatt Sai Gon were the ones making the list published in the magazine's January issue.

The list was selected by readers.

Life Heritage and Evason were also among Conde Nast Traveler's 20 Best Resorts in Asia last November.

Last year the Conde Nast Traveller Readers' Choice Awards ranked Evason Ana Mandara & Six Senses eighth followed and Life Heritage Resort Hoi An, ninth.

Trekkers race to summit Ta Cu

Thousands of local and foreign visitors gathered in Tra Cu Mountain in Binh Thuan Province on Wednesday to watch a contest to trek to the top.

The 15th annual contest attracted 250 male and female athletes from Binh Phuoc, Dong Nai, Tay Ninh, Binh Duong, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, and Binh Thuan Provinces.

The course measured 6.3km for men and 5.3km for women, including the 2,300 steps leading up to Linh Son-Truong Tho Pagoda.

Ta Thanh Xinh of Binh Thuan won the men's open division in a time of 40 minutes. Nguyen Ngoc Quang of Dong Nai and Tran Cong Binh of Binh Thuan came second and third.

In the women's division, Nguyen Thi Diem My of Binh Phuoc was first followed by Nguyen Thu Hiep of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Nguyen Thi Dung of Binh Phuoc.

Travel firms call off Egypt tours

Vietnamese travel agencies have cancelled tours to Egypt though it is the high season due to security concerns following spreading unrest in the country.

Viet Media Travel cancelled tours departing on February 4 and 5 for which 62 persons had booked.

Perfect Tour Travel and Vietravel also cancelled trips scheduled to start during Tet last week. Vietravel said it will resume the tours when the political situation in Egypt stabilises.

VN welcomes 470,000 foreigners

Viet Nam welcomed 470,000 foreign visitors in January, a year-on-year increase of 8.9 per cent, according to the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism. The largest number came from Cambodia, followed by France, China and Japan.

HCM City received 310,000 of them, a 10 per cent rise.

The figures include overseas Vietnamese, mostly from the US, Australia, and France.

2,000 cruise tourists visit Nha Trang

More than 2,000 passengers and crew on board three cruise ships visited Nha Trang on Wednesday. Minerva, a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel brought 400 passengers, mainly American tourists, Princess Dauphine (Portugal) came with 300 visitors from Australia and Europe, and Nautica (Marshall Islands) had 700 Americans.

According to Khanh Hoa Province tourism authorities, the city had also welcomed 1,800 foreign visitors on board the cruise ship Artermis (Bermuda) on February 5.

In the first five days of the lunar year – starting on February 3 — the city welcomed 96,000 visitors, including 19,000 foreigners, a year-on-year increase of 9 per cent. — VNS

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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Phan Thiet’s youngest kitesurfer lives out his passion

Spectacular aerial flips over the blue sea lent 26 years old Nguyen Thanh Trung –aka Can or Can Chocolate-- popularity among local youth and foreign visitors to Mui Ne in the central city of Phan Thiet and the status of youngest local kiteboarding coach.

Kiteboarding, introduced in Vietnam in recent years thanks to its unexploited beautiful beaches, is a surface water sport using the wind to propel the rider across the water while standing on a board with or without foot-straps and holding a large controllable kite.

Trung started his career in 2004 as assistant to foreign kiteboarding trainers in Phan Thiet. He quickly mastered the advanced techniques and after barely two years of training, thanks to his hard work and dedication, he began the performances which eventually made him a local celebrity among the sports’ enthusiasts.

In 2007 the International Kiteboarding Organization officially recognized him as an international coach.

“I love it when foreign visitors watch me perform, jump and propel my small-sized body into the air to the rhythm of the waves with just a flying kite and a surfing board”, Can told Tuoi Tre.

Trung mastered several riding styles from wave-riding, freestyle, free-riding, jumping and cruising.

Of the US$50 tourists pay for an hour of kiteboarding, he gets $16 the remainder going to the resorts’ club. It is much more than his previous assistant wage of just VND 1 – 1.5 million ($53 - $79) a month.

Since 2008, he left Windchimes water sport club in Mui Ne and moved to the kiteboarding club of the five-star resort Princess d’Annam in Ham Tien District of the central Binh Thuan Province, just 30km from Mui Ne.

Kiteboarding techniques

A beginner to the sport is first introduced to the most basic techniques such as kite launching and handling of the string bar, lines and safety devices, and then begins practicing advanced skills such as flying and landing on the water surface.

Balancing on the board is also an important basic step to master.

Most riders can’t wait to jump the waves though it is a very risky advanced step requiring much preparation, Can said.

Before jumping, the surfer builds up tension in the lines by strongly edging the board. Then the kite is quickly flown to an overhead position, sometimes just as the surfer goes over a wave, he explained.

As the kite begins to lift, the board edge is “released” and the rider becomes airborne. The kite is then piloted from overhead to the direction of travel. A large variety of maneuvers and tricks can be performed while jumping.

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