Hue festival honours “ao dai” in fashion show

The elegant beauty of “ao dai”, Vietnam ’s traditional long dress, will be honoured with a special performance taking place as part of the 2012 Hue Festival.

With the theme “Lotus in the fine arts”, the show will be a combination of the lotus, which is on way to becoming the national flower, and the “ao dai”, underlining their aesthetic value in the souls of Vietnamese people.

With nearly 20 designers from the length and breadth of the country and 150 models, the 90-minute show is expected to attract a large audience.

Explaining why lotus was chosen as the major theme for the show, Minh Hanh, a leading designer, said that the lotus is very familiar to Vietnamese people, especially those who live in Hue .

It is not easy to represent the beauty of the lotus in a long dress as the flower embraces all the spiritual hallmarks and purity of the Vietnamese people. However, using their own creativeness the designers have created numerous romantic images of the lotus on “ao dai”, said the designer.

According to Hanh, the traditional and mysterious beauty of the “ao dai” is very easily understood. The national traditional long dress had previously been showcased at seven Hue festivals.

Vietnamese designers are also making an effort to promote the image of the “ao dai” overseas as many foreigners have shown an interest in the dress.

Vietnam ’s traditional long dress is beautiful in the eyes of foreigners because of its gracefulness and contours, said the French based General Director of the Big C Group.

The “ao dai” show will take place on the bank of the Huong (Perfume) river, where a huge conical hat made of leaves is also on display. Both are expected to become high points of the Hue Festival.

Hue Festival attracts artists from 30 countries

This years biennial Hue Festival, held in the former imperial city of Hue , will feature 40 different groups of performers from nearly 30 countries from all five continents and run from April 7-15.  From France, the street performing act Carabosse will bring a unique fire lighting act to the festival. While the Combo Box and Ego will also play their brand of jazz along various streets. The Nantes based trio Smooth, is a jazz-funk/ electronic outfit, who first got together in 2005. Their music is a mix of influences from different times and places that could easily have been played in a 1960s underground venue in London or a Berlin café in the 70s. Many have put together special acts to perform at the festival, including “ Russia, My Love” by the Raduga dance troupe from Khabarovsk in Russia. Added to this, Deep Roots, a Cuban folk group, will bring a colourful and exciting dancing and singing performance to the festival. The band Cuartoelemento from Argentina, singer Manou Gallo and composer Max Vandervorst from Belgium are also set to entertain the public with their unique performances. All the acts will give their first performance for patients in hospitals in Hue and for workers and soldiers throughout the city.

Thua Thien-Hue to host National Tourism Year 2012

The National Tourism Year 2012 themed “Hue-Ancient capital city-New experiences” will be held in central Thua Thien-Hue Province. The event is expected to promote Vietnam’s tourism products and cultural heritages, attract more foreign tourists and boost domestic tourism.  Hue Festival – a quintessential biennial event of Vietnamese cultural heritages – will be the major cultural draw card. Lying on the north-south railway and main road connected to Laos and northeastern Thailand and with the Phu Bai International Airport and the Chan May Seaport, Thua Thien-Hue Province will be a stopover for central and nationwide tourists.  In particular, Hue City – the local tourism centre – was the capital city of the Nguyen feudal dynasty and is the sole place in the country preserving the Vietnam court music recognised by UNESCO as masterpieces of oral and intangible heritage of humanity. Thua Thien-Hue is also well known for its cuisine, craft products and folk festivals, including the Cau Ngu festival, the boat race on the Huong (Perfume) river and Hue Festival. The system of tombs and pagodas together with beautiful beaches like Lang Co, Thuan An and Canh Duong and the Tam Giang-Cau Hai lagoon will be especially attractive destinations for tourists. The National Tourism Year 2011 themed “Exotic Beaches and Islands” took place in central coastal Phu Yen Province on April 1.

Exploring the mysteries of Sicily

Sicily, the Mediterranean’s largest island, has a culture entirely of its own and harbours a sinister history. Lift the lid on Italy’s volcanic island with Lonely Planet Magazine’s guide.

Diverse Sicily: Palermo

Sicily’s indefinable qualities are apparent in the island’s food. A fantastic dish like pasta con le sarde – pasta with sardines and raisins – has its roots in the Arab invasion, with a sweet and sour taste that you will find nowhere else in Italy.
Sicily’s capital Palermo is a layer cake, each tier representing a different outside influence. Walking its streets is like travelling through time. The Cappella Palatina, or Palatine Chapel, is an extraordinary blend of Norman, Byzantine and Arab art, and a few streets away is the castle of La Zisa, built for a Norman king by Arab craftsmen. The post office is a huge, white, Neoclassical fascist temple, now a monument to Mussolini’s failed experiment to destroy the Mafia’s power and popularity. Veering off behind it in every direction is a honeycomb of tiny little streets – so narrow that it would be pointless trying to squeeze through in any vehicle larger than a three-wheeler – each with lines of washing hanging all along them.

Dark history

During the 14th century, the Spanish empire sucked Sicily dry – people were treated as serfs and retreated inland to form their own, separate society. By the 19th century, this vagabond culture was completely entrenched, with the whole of Sicily being ruled by nameless, shadowy figures who became the Mafia.
The Mafia is the idea of the family turned into an alternative political system. The notion that your family is what you cleave to – rather than the state – is an ancient one in Sicily because, traditionally, the island has been ruled by outsiders.
The tide began to turn in the 1980s when a Mafioso broke the code of silence and mass trials led to hundreds of prosecutions. Since then, the anti-Mafia movement has gained strength and support from across  society. And in the summer of 2004, a group of youths frustrated that they couldn’t open a bar without paying pizzo, protection money, started a guerrilla campaign. The anti-extortion movement has gathered pace, with the youths’ organisation ‘Addiopizzo’ (‘goodbye pizzo’) at its helm.

Spiritual Sicily: Modica

To participate in Sicily’s communal and genuinely popular approach to religion, there’s nowhere better than Modica on Easter Sunday. This southern town of higgledy-piggledy houses tumbling down a steep hillside is home to the Madonna Vasa Vasa – an enactment of the sorrow and the joy of the Christian story as a huge piece of public theatre.
On the morning of the Madonna Vasa Vasa on Easter Sunday, everyone dresses in their finest. The street becomes a catwalk, from three-piece 1960s suits that you might otherwise only see in a Fellini film to teenagers in coordinated colours. Two huge processions, one carrying the Virgin Mary and the other carrying Christ, make their way through the streets to music with a sombre drumbeat, each purposely evading the other. By midday, 30,000-odd people have congregated in the town square, as mother and child finally come face to face. Mary – a sort of life-size puppet in this portrayal – opens her cloak to release a clutch of doves and the audience waits to see what happens next. If the birds fly skywards, it is taken as an augury of a good harvest.
The climax of the ceremony is the vasa vasa (‘kiss kiss’). At the moment the statues are brought together in an embrace, it’s as if the local football team has just won the cup, the crowd erupting with cries and shouts of celebration. The festival celebrates life after death, and in Sicily the contrast between light and dark, life and death, has always been extreme.

Green Sicily: the road to Enna

Though the island, historically, has been poor, things have always grown very well here. A drive along some of its long, straight, inland roads – like that from Modica to the hilltop town of Enna – passes huge tracts of unpopulated land, great wheat fields and wild, empty landscapes. From Enna, it is possible to look out in all directions across this vast, fertile island.

Volcanic Sicily: Etna

Sicily was just a satellite of Greece’s empire, but Mount Etna obviously had a huge impact on the Greek imagination, because it was the birthplace of so many of its myths. It’s where Persephone, daughter of Zeus, goes into the underworld; it’s where Zeus’s son Hephaestus (Vulcan is his Roman god equivalent) has his forge. Then there’s the myth about the cyclops Polyphemus.
Etna is a ‘multi-flue’ volcano, which means that there’s no central crater, so an eruption can take place anywhere. Today Etna is a strange and mysterious place, with dark black stone that looks like somebody’s just given the surface of the moon a going-over with a digger. Because the volcano is still active, the landscape is constantly changing.
Although Etna is a world apart on Sicily, it encapsulates the island’s extremes. It’s created a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape that seems like it’s all about death, but just a stone’s throw away is the most incredibly fertile volcanic soil, where everything from grapevines to tomatoes flourish and grow. 

Decoding Italy’s menu mysteries

The search for common ground between food lovers and weight-watchers, bargain-seekers and luxury-lovers ends in the most unlikely place: Italy. The country has reached the end of the reign of culinary extremists like chef Elena Fabrizi, whose restaurant sign on Rome‘s Isola Tiberina commanded non solo primi (no first courses only) as mercilessly as any emperor’s edict at an ancient Roman bacchanal. Tourist menus may still try to convince novices that pasta, mains and dessert are essential to the Italian restaurant experience, but Italians are no longer buying the three-course mandate.

Italy’s modern meal plan

Never fear, Italy has not gone on a diet – che orrore! the horror! – only become a bit more practical over the past decade. In Italy’s urban centres, tighter budgets have made ordering ample first courses such as pasta or risotto a decadent yet sensible choice. Many modern Italian workplaces are following Milan‘s trend-setting example of reducing the traditional three-hour pausa (break) between noon and three to a more literal lunch hour (well… hour and a half). This abbreviated lunchtime is good for shopping, and bad for sobriety. Beware Milan’s stylish Quadrilatero d’Oro, where Franciacorta and espresso imbibed in rapid succession with a light pasta can induce a woozy, giddy state that make psychedelic Pucci-print halters seem like must-haves with Missoni zig-zag tuxedo pants.

Timing is everything

Before you obey the Italian rumble in your stomach at noon, consult your calendar. Seasonality is the key to Italy’s sun-drenched, vine-ripened, flavour-bursting cuisine. Even if you rightly crave prosciutto e melone(thinly sliced ham with cantaloupe) as a summer treat, think twice before entering a restaurant that offers a wan, tasteless version mid-winter. When you look over the menu posted in the front window, also count the number of asterisks indicating dishes featuring frozen ingredients, as required by law. This is one case where five stars is actually a bad omen for your meal.
The most authentic Italian menus change not only seasonally, but daily. Fridays are traditionally dedicated to fish, while gnocchi is a Thursday speciality – and you’ll want a month of Thursdays to sample the superb dumpling variations across Italy. Glide down the Italian Alps’ ski slopes fuelled by rustic, hearty breadcrumb gnocchi, and time your Thursday arrival in Florence‘s Renaissance restaurants for gnocchi made with ricotta and spinach. These pillows of dough are so heavenly yet sinful, they’re known as strozzapreti (priest-stranglers).

Get to know your local primi

As you review your primi (first-course) menu options, consider where you’re sitting. ‘Never order pasta in a pizzeria’ is Italian folk wisdom that this sceptical restaurant reviewer has diligently tested across the country. Sadly, the adage has held true everywhere except Naples, where wonders performed with extra-fluffy, super-elastic ‘zero-zero’ milled flour never cease. Starches double as geolocation devices in Italy: if polenta, gnocchi and risotto are on the menu, you’re probably in the north, while rustic bread, pizza, and farro place you squarely in the south.

Secondi specialities

Menu focus shifts to secondi (mains) in Tuscany, where you’ll find thick, tender steaks of chianina, the rare white cattle breed of Maremma, and in Sicily, where the local tuna is a true delicacy grilled with a squeeze of  Sicilian blood orange and brushed with a sprig of thyme. When confronted with such obvious delicacies, why be conservative or contrarian and stick to pasta? Instead of going with what you know, go with the local flow.

Dinner bargains

If dinner seems too ambitious after an abundant lunch, do as Milan supermodels and savvy students across Italy now do: enjoy aperitivi, happy-hour drinks served with lavish free buffets of salumi, cheeses, pasta salads and savoury pastries. Venetians organise their daily, weekly and lifelong schedules around cicheti, or Venetian tapas – small, perfect bites of lagoon seafood and speciality cured meats and cheeses that line bar counters from noon-2pm and 6.30-8.30pm daily.

Italian table manners

Your surest bets are local, seasonal, and daily specialities, but any menu item you choose is perfectly acceptable in Italy – with a few noteworthy exceptions on the drink menu. If you’d prefer soda instead of wine with your pizza without a complementary side-order of scorn, go for takeout pizza al taglio (pizza by the slice). But no matter where you go, don’t feel obliged to commit to a bottle: even high-end ristoranti offer high-end DOC wines by the glass, and osterie (pubs) serve house wine by the 250ml-500ml carafe. Acqua al rubinetto (tap water) is increasingly encouraged by many Italians, who are balking at ‘designer water’ price tags and the environmental costs of recycling millions of bottles annually.
Just don’t chase your espresso with water in Naples, where the world’s strictest baristas consider it an insult to the robust, lingering flavour of their finely crafted coffee. There’s no shame in a macchiato (espresso lightly stained with milk foam), but sipping cappuccino after a hearty lunch or supper is considered both bad for your health and unsightly to fellow diners, akin to swilling grappa (high-proof spirits) straight from the bottle. But at the modern Italian table, one ancient Roman caveat still applies: audacity is forgiven and even applauded, as long as you do it with gusto.

Thailand: which beach is right for you?

It isn’t fair, really – there are over 200 countries around the globe and Thailand has managed to snag a disproportionate amount of the world’s top beaches.
These aren’t your average stretches of sand; you’re about to uncover perfect powder-soft dunes and dramatic limestone crags that pop straight out of the impossibly clear waters. Robinson Crusoe, eat your heart out!

Hat Phra Nang, Railay

This beauty will shock and awe. Perfect sand, limestone cliffs and caves, emerald water and colourful long-tail boats make this photographic bliss. It’s little more than a cosy nook, and tends to get crowded in high season.

Hat Khao Lak

On this seemingly endless swath of golden, boulder-studded beach, expect outrageous sunsets and lazy days. The Surin and Similan Islands as well as inland jungle parks are an easy boat or road trip away.

Ko Tao

Trying to decide between a slice of lively sand and hermitic retreat? Ko Tao offers plenty of both. Hit the island’s west side for tiki-torched beach bars, and escape to the eastern shores to re-enact your favourite scenes from TV’s Lost.

Ko Mak & Ko Kut

Take your pick on quiet Ko Mak: sling your hammock up on a desolate beach or the next one over, which is just as perfect and pristine. Jungle-ier Ko Kut next door has an excellent spread of flaxen sand as well.

Ko Ngai

Cook on the slender, powder-white beach, dip in the sandy-bottomed shallows then slip over the reef for clear water, healthy corals and fish aplenty. Knobby karst islands fill the horizon towards the Krabi mainland in the distance.

Ao Bang Thao, Phuket

With 8km of white sand, expect calm seas in the high season and surfable waves during the low season. Don’t let the posh Laguna Complex scare you; this laid-back yet lively beach has something for everyone.

Ko Pha-Ngan

Every month, on the night of the full moon, pilgrims pay tribute to the party gods with trancelike dancing and neon body paint. Join the legions of bucket-sippers on the infamous Sunrise Beach for the ultimate gathering that eclipses all other celebrations around the world.

Brunei Travel Guide

Thanks to sizeable deposits of oil and gas, the tiny tropical sultanate of Brunei Darussalam has one of the highest standards of living in the world. Its two non-contiguous territories, situated on the northern coast of Borneo in South-East Asia, are home to some of the region's most pristine rain forest habitats.

The country only gained independence in 1984, but has the world's oldest reigning monarchy and centuries of royal heritage. At the helm of the only remaining Malay Islamic monarchy in the world, the Sultan of Brunei comes from a family line that dates back over 600 years. The current sultan, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, has been on the throne for 43 years and is one of the world's richest individuals.


Visitors to the "Abode of Peace" (the literal translation of darussalam) will find the country surprisingly laid-back and relaxing. In addition to admiring the gilded domes, towering minarets and extraordinary ornamentation of two landmark mosques in the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, tourists can explore water villages by boat and on foot, learn about local culture in several interesting museums, sample delicious Malay cuising (some of the best can be found at open-air markets), and experience the incredibly biodiversity of the Bornean rain forest in Ulu Temburong National Park.

Japan Travel Guide

 Japan Travel Guide

Japan is swathed in natural beauty, from the snow festivals and lavender farms of the northern isle of Hokkaido to the sun-drenched beaches and turquoise waters of the subtropical islands of Okinawa. Whether climbing volcanic Mount Fuji, wandering the pine forests of Mount Koya, taking in the springtime beauty of the sakura cherry blossoms or the spectacular maple leaves in the autumn, a journey to Japan is a wealth of unforgettable natural landscapes. In recent years, the powdery snow of Japan’s ski fields has also been attracting international visitors.

Culturally, Japan offers a unique and exciting fusion of the traditional and the modern. The speed at which new technological developments are realised in Japan is as impressive as the longevity of traditional art forms and customs. Whilst it is no longer the economic powerhouse it was for the greater part of the 20th century, Japan is still a world leader in innovative design and fashion, and continues to offer superb customer service, clean and punctual trains and meticulously prepared and presented cuisine.

Japanese culture embraces the new while celebrating the past. It’s not unusual to see kimono-clad geisha singing karaoke in downtown Kyoto, or fully-robed Buddhist monks whizz by on motorbikes in central Tokyo. ‘Cool Japan’ has become an internationally-recognised byword for Japan’s popular culture, and Japanese manga, anime and video games have never been more popular. Modern architecture in Tokyo, and other major Japanese cities, is well-regarded for forging radical new styles and using clever combinations of glass and concrete, which hint at traditional architectural forms yet offer minimalist sophistication. However, ancient castles, atmospheric Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and fascinating festivals are never far away.

Despite never having been colonised, the country’s own imperialist ambitions in Asia during the first part of the 20th century had devastating consequences, culminating in the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Japan has also had to deal with a vulnerability to earthquakes and tsunamis that has caused widespread natural disasters throughout its history. The most recent include the powerful earthquake that hit Kobe, a port city in Western Japan in 1995, and in March 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami off the coast of North-eastern Japan caused the country’s biggest loss of life since WWII, and resulted in one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

With great challenges of rebuilding and revitalisation ahead, the resilience of the Japanese people is proving to be essential to recovery. Greater emphasis is being placed on disaster preparedness and environmental issues. Renewed efforts to attract international visitors mean there has never been a better time to visit beautiful and fascinating Japan.

Madagascar Travel Guide

 Madagascar Travel Guide

A jaw-dropping, wildlife-drenched hotspot, Madagascar is one of the most interesting places on earth and home to some of the weirdest and rarest animal species in existence.

The film Madagascar may have brought the island to the big screen, but seeing is believing, and with over 70 varieties of lemurs Madagascar is more colourful than even Hollywood captured.

As well as the famed furry creatures, the island is resting place of the elephant bird – the largest to ever hop about the planet, as well as a whole host of extraordinary creatures making it one of the world's most protected conservation areas.


Golden sand beaches and towering palm trees hem the shoreline while the island’s rich botanical interior is resplendent in its variety, from grassy plateaux to volcanoes and opaque forests to stunning waterfalls.

Neatly divided by the Hauts Plateaux, the island is characterised by forested mountains along its eastern coastal strip while the west is mainly rolling plains.

A mix of influences provides telltale evidence of the Polynesian settlers, Arabic presence, Bantu tribes-folk and European arrivals of the past, all of which have culminated into a fascinating cultural blend to make one of the most unique holiday destinations in the world.

Rome travel guidea

Rome is like a moveable feast of endless courses. No matter how much you gorge yourself on its splendours, you rarely feel you’ve made it past the antipasti.

Few cities offer such variety and few visitors leave without a fervent desire to return. As the seat of the Italian government and home to the Vatican, Rome is a city with genuine capital credentials. From the remains of its imperial glory days to the Renaissance and Baroque riches of its historic centre, Rome is a glorious architectural patchwork, a living masterpiece.
But while there’s no escaping Rome’s illustrious past, modern Romans embrace the present. So do as they do and throw yourself in to the life of the city. Walk the cobbled streets between centuries-old ruins, drink too much wine and coffee, browse heritage markets and grand museums, and eat too much gelato. After all, that’s what the dolce vita (sweet life) is all about.