Northern Vietnamese eye sunny southern region for Tet tour
13:19 04/03/2009

      Northern Vietnamese, long thought to be reticent about traveling during the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, are planning to travel in numbers this year, mainly to the sunny south, travel agencies said.

They traditionally celebrated Vietnam’s largest festival at home with the family while people in the south took the opportunity to travel.

But that is set to change this year, travel firms in Ho Chi Minh City said. Tran Tuong Huy, head of the Fiditourist’s R &D Department, said many planned to travel particularly to the Mekong Delta.

“Many families from Hanoi have booked our Tet tours to the southern region.”

Director of Saigontourist, Vo Anh Tai, also reported a sharp increase in booking by northern tourists.

He said further: “I think this trend will continue [even] after Tet.”

Huy said Fiditourist was arranging some special programs for the northern visitors. 

“[They] will have a chance to enjoy some typical Tet activities in the Mekong Delta like rural tours by horse-drawn cart, festivals, and eating special southern dishes.”

Many southern tour companies also offer long trips to the north including to pilgrimage centers like Chua Huong (Perfume Pagoda) near Hanoi.

Others offer short tours to popular resorts like Dalat, Nha Trang, and Buon Ma Thuot closer home.

Overseas tours

The past few years have seen a considerable rise in Vietnamese going on tours aboard, mainly to Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, during Tet.

This year Thailand is not among the top choices because of the recent bomb blasts.

Many have booked tours to Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, where too Lunar New Year is big like in Vietnam.

Ben Thanh Tourist is offering a tour to Tokyo departing on the first day of the New Year. It will include a ride on the Shinkansen high speed train – the legendary bullet train – from Toyoahshi to Hamamatsu.

China is also a popular choice, particularly a tour of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, known for its beautiful landscapes and warm weather.

Reported by Trung Binh – Translated by Thu Thuy

Source : thanhniennews.com