West Lake was created from a curved part of Red River and appeared in several Vietnamese legends. One legend suggests that West Lake was shaped after the battle between Lac Long Quan and a night-tail fox spirit, that’s why the lake was once called “Fox Corpse Swamp” (Vietnamese: Đầm Xác Cáo). Another folk story claimed that original name of the lake is “Golden Buffalo Lake” (Vietnamese: Hồ Trâu Vàng, or Han Viet: Hồ Kim Ngưu) because it was formed from struggle of a buffalo after the disappearance of her calf. In 11th century, the lake was named “Foggy Lake” (Han Viet: Hồ Dâm Đàm) from its misty condition and ultimately its name was changed to “West Lake” in 1573 to avoid the given name of king Lê Thế Tông which was Duy Đàm.

West Lake in Hanoi

As Hanoi’s largest lake, located right in the center of Hanoi, West Lake is rammed with many gardens, hotels, restaurants and other entertainment centers. For this reason, the real estate price of areas near West Lake is staggering[1] and the surrounding quarters are often full with imposingly large edifices occupied by rich Vietnamese people and ex-pats.

Legends
The tale goes that Le Loi King came across a shining metal bar when he visited his friend. It turned out that his friend caught the bar in one of his attempts for fish. The King asked for the bar, brought it home and moulded it into a sword. All of a sudden, there was two words printed on the sword “Thuan Thien” (harmonious with heaven).

Le Loi then understood that the sword was a gift from heaven. He used it for the battle against the war with a neighbouring country. At the beginning of 1428, when peace prevailed, on one of his trip to the Thuy Quan (now Hoan Kiem) Lake, there was a tortoise rising above water and shouting: “Please return the sword to the Dragon King”. Without hesitation, the King threw the sword to the lake. The tortoise took the sword and dove down the water. From then on, Thuy Quan became Hoan Kiem lake.

Hoan Kiem Lake

About the lake
The lake is not only special in her history. The water color of Hoan Kiem Lake is not commonly found in other lakes elsewhere in the country: greenish, with dark or light shade depending on the reflection of the sky. The lake is full of tortoise, which is second to none to be found among Vietnamese lakes. If you are lucky, you will catch sight of these giant animals rising out of water. And because tortoise is considered a sacred animal in Vietnam’s culture (along with dragon, phoenix and unicorn), Hoan Kiem Lake then become a holy place that nurtures tortoise.

Before and even after Hanoi’s massive expansion in 2009, Hoan Kiem lake is still a pride of all Hanoians and the center for any distance measurement. Nowadays, it’s still a gathering place yet new Hanoians may live too far to count their distance to the lake. Still, as you walk by, you will be able to witness the pace of life in this peculiar city.

Activities
If you can wake up early in the morning, at about 5 a.m., you will see lines and lines of oldies and teenagers doing anything from yoga to tai-chi to aerobics (read Our Blog on early morning exercises in Hanoi). It looks as if the whole city was up and running for morning exercise. They work out in group or by themselves, with or without equipment. In the course of one of the high profiled meetings in Hanoi, an Australian prime minister also joined the early jogging around the lake.

Hoan Kiem Lake

When darkness takes over, you can see couples holding hands walking side by side along the lake, trying to breathe in the breeze of summer night or keep warmth against the winter cold. If you have time and really want to observe Hanoi’s life, sit down on one of the stone bench, enjoy the view and have a good talk with some local friends over an ice-cream cone.

How to get there
Hoan Kiem Lake is centrally located and minutes walking from Hanoi’s Old Quarter, where most hotels gather. From Noi Bai Airport, it takes about 40 minutes to get here. If you stay in West Lake area, just take Yen Phu Road to reach the Old Quarter and head east to Hoan Kiem Lake.

Previously, it was a big lake in Dalat City, covered about 5sq.km in the shape of a crescent moon. The Lake is a poetic site, attracting leisure visitors from both inside and outside the city to meet, talk and fall in love; and also a popular rendezvous site for coubles. The road round Xuan Huong Lake is fully surrounded by pine-tree shadows, sometimes running straight, or curved. You can sit under ancient conifers to fish, play on the lake with pedal-boats in the shape of swans or rest at Thuy Ta Restaurant, admiring its exceptional architecture while tasting a glass of fresh sweet water.

Xuan Huong lake

Long time ago the lake was a river bend of Kim Long with the first name was Ky Te pond. Under the 3rd year of Minh Mang reign (1822), up to 8000 soliders took part in lake’s improvement, turn it to a Royal lake. After finishing, it was renamed as Tinh Tam.

Tinh Tam lake is rectangular shape in 1500m circumference, including 3 islets amidst named: Bong Lai, Phuong Truong and Doanh Chau. It is separated with outside by the circle brick wall and there are 4 gates: Ha Huan in the south, Dong Hy in the north, Xuan Quang in the east and Thu Nguyet in the west. willow and many kinds of flower was planted everywhere and along the river’s bank.

Bong Lai islet situated in the south, right in the middle is Bong Doanh palace with the architecture of 3 main compartments and 2 extra ones, tiles roofed, facing the south, surrounded by brick parapet. In front of palace is Bong Doang gate and bridge connecting islet and river bank. To the east of Bong Doanh palace is Thuy Ta Thanh Tam house facing the east, Truong Luyen palace face the west to the west. There is a gate and bridge with the same name: Hong Cu.

Tinh Tam Lake

Doanh Chau islet: Admist Tinh Tam is Kim Oanh dam linking eastern and western edge. To the east of dyke is the Luc Lieu bridge. In the south, dam connects with a 56 compartments’ corridor, the Bach tan in the middle.

If you travel to Vietnam in June every year, pink and white lotuses blossom everywhere in the country, from lakes, ponds to temples. The most popular places with lotus flowers are West Lake in Hanoi, Tinh Tam Lake inside the Imperial Palace in Hue. With the meticulous, delicate architecture harmonize with nature, the lake is considered as the iconic achievement of art of landscape architecture in 19 century.

Tourists can hear the sounds of the different creatures around the lake such as small birds singing and the sound of water as we glided through the lake  or you also hear a local musician who playing a song which reflect his feelings about the area. Around the lake, the thick, green forest is set against the blue sky. The surrounding forestland was full of local wildlife and many species of insects, and you should bring bug repellent if you venture into the forest.

After a short time on the boat, tourists will enter a small cave at the base of a mountain known as Thang Hen Cave. Its large opening gave way to a ceiling of stalactites, silhouetted against the lake’s surface, which runs into the cave. The shapes give the dark cave a strange atmosphere, as do the plants growing on the rocks.

According to the history of the ethnic group living here, Thang Hen is a mountain lake comprised of 36 different lakes that stretch for 3km in length. During the rainy season, its water level rises, linking them all together. The surrounding mountains stand up to 660m above sea level, and are covered in green and tall trees, which are reflected on the water’s surface.

The Huong Thom restaurant and hotel are located at the Thang Hen Lake precinct and built in the architectural style of ethnic stilt houses made of nghien hard wood which is abundant in the area. This is the only facility providing visitors with food and accommodation close to the lake, and has been praised by locals as one of the best restaurants offering Cao Bang cuisine. The restaurant was famous for wild bamboo shoots, special sticky rice, and a special kind of leaf called mac mat.

Enjoying the natural scenery and culture around the lake makes it worthwhile. You can lie in a boat and soak up the view of the stunning chain of limestone mountains and experience a perfect meal with special way of drinking.

Viewed from a distance, our Vietnamese silk “embroidery paintings” are often easily mistaken for the handiwork of an artist’s brush magically blending raw color into a timeless masterpiece. But up close, the eye feasts on the intricate density of thousands of silk strands exquisitely embroidered on cloth in such a way that the detail in the hand work rivals the detail of the imagery itself.

In face, you must hold the embroidery in your hands, feel its weight, to properly understand that thousands of tiny hand-stitches can blend together to form such authentic art.

For each embroidery artist, thread is their paint, the needle is their brush. With extraordinary patience, the artist  selects carefully each thread they use, and in several cases may incorporate up to 500 different types and colors of thread into each piece of art.

The paintings can take from three weeks to several months to complete, and require that the artist be not only a highly-skilled needle artist, but have the “eye”and artistic talent to accurately render the scene before them.

By means of comparison,  the work of embroidery painting is more difficult than any other form of embroidery, requires much more patience than either sculpting or traditional painting do. And only in Vietnam will you find this particular embroidery technique.

Hand embroidery holds a unique place in Vietnam’s cultural history. Along with cooking and sewing, it is one of the most popular extra-curricular activities in which young high-school girls engage.

Since the 1960′s, hand embroidery painting in Vietnam has been raised to the level of an art, and many male and female are all embroidery artists. Look in on our gallery of pictures.

Embroidery paintings from World Threads are guaranteed to brighten up any home, and certainly that you will enjoy the unique and artistic value of these masterpieces.

These are some photos of Embroidery paintings:

Located northeast of Son Duong commune, Tuyen Quang province it is a trek from Saigon but worth the voyage.

Tan Trao village was president Ho Chi Minh ’s base during the revolution war and including 17 vestiges such as Lan Na Lua, Cay da Tan Trao, Tan Trao communal house and Hong Thai communal house.

Ho Chi Minh lived and worked in Lan Na Lua during the preparation for the 1945 uprising against the ruling French imperial troops. Simply built from bamboo trees and foliage, the area is helpful to keep the revolutionary troops hidden from French surveillance.

Cay Da Tan Trao 

Most of the vestiges are under the cover of bamboo which helped keep Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary army hidden from enemy soldiers

Lan Na Lua

Ninh Thuan Province is considered “a desert” of Vietnam and Nui Chua National Park is a typical example. there are rows of cacti growing on the hill and mountain slopes. The trees growing on the rocky land look scrawny but full of vitality and there is a forest of apricot trees that look like bonsai trees, but in spring they change into yellow blossom, producing a beautiful landscape.

It said that the forests in Nui Chua are like the forests of bonsai trees. There are scenes of mountains overlapping mountains and rocks overlapping rocks. Its landscape is so beautiful that you want to stop many times to contemplate and take photographs.

Nui Chua National Park

This place attracts visitors with many attractions on Da Vach Mountain that run along the beaches. One of them is the Treo Lake on the top of the mountain, which has a diameter of 80m, with blue water all year round even though it is located in one of the driest areas in Vietnam. After visiting the relics on the mountain, tourists can also spend time on the beautiful beaches on the 40km-long. They can play along the beaches or travel around on a glass-bottom boat to witness the beauty of corals underneath. In addition, they can visit Hom Beach, a natural breeding ground of some rare turtles on the East sea.

Located on the Kon Tum Plateau, in the areas of districts Mang Yang, KBang, and Dak Doa of Gia Lai Province, with the purpose of preserving subtropical forest in the high mountains with species of gymnosperm, Kon Ka Kinh National Park was one of four national parks in Vietnam, together with other national parks in Vietnam: Hoang Lien, Ba Be, and Chu Mom Ray), also one of 27 national parks in ASEAN was listed on ASEAN Heritage Park. The National Park is a priority zone for the protection of biodiversity of Vietnam as well as ASEAN.

Thank to the characteristics of its topography, climate and many other factors, this park contains a great deal of biodiversity. It contains 687 flora species of 459 genus and 140 families, of which the class of Magnoliopsida is dominant (104 families, 337 genus, 528 species). Other diviso of Pteridophyta includes 16 families, 32 genus and 40 species. Gymnosperm includes 5 families, 8 genus, 8 species. In addition, Kon Ka Kinh National park is also the home to several endangered and preserved endemic species. Most of the area in the park is covered by protozoa with the above-mentioned typical flora.

The National Park is home to 428 animal species, of which, 223 species are of vertabrates living on land (34 ordo, 74 families) and 205 species Invertebrates (such as butterfly) of 10 families of (Lepidoptera).

Moreover, the National Park likes as a globally important site for the conservation of amphibian diversity, which supports a number of amphibian species endemic to the Annamite mountains, including four species assessed as globally threatened during the Global Amphibian Assessment: Leptobrachium banae, L. xanthospilum, Rana attigua and Rhacophorus baliogaster.

The park is an important part to local people as a source of natural resources, such as firewood honey and rattans. Anh also, the national park supports at least 110 plant species with known medicinal uses. Use of plants in traditional medicine is widespread amongst locals, although the commercial potential of these species remains largely unrealized.

The park supports a wide variety of habitat types: elevations below 1,800m support lower montane evergreen forest; elevations between 1,800 and 2,500m support upper montane evergreen forest, elevations between 2,500 and 2,800m support sub-alpine forest, while the vegetation above 2,800m is dominated by stands of dwarf bamboo with scattered, stunted trees. Below 1,000m, the forest has been almost entirely cleared and replaced with anthropogenic habitats, including secondary grassland, scrub and cultivation. Secondary habitats are also found at higher elevations.

The park supports a high diversity of animal groups. 347 bird species have been recorded in and around the nature reserve, including 49 species that are restricted in Viet Nam to north-west Tonkin. The park also supports approximately one third of Viet Nam’s known amphibian species, the highest recorded amphibian species richness of any protected area in Viet Nam. Several amphibian species are currently known only from the site, and around 10% of the national park’s amphibian species are globally threatened. Invertebrate diversity is also very high, and many species of invertebrate discovered at the site are known from nowhere else in the world.