Hi Linh

welcome to the forum, i would love to find out about the beaches in Vietnam so far i know about Cua Tung and china Beach are there any other famous beaches in Vietnam.

Hello Linh,

nice to meet you. What is a local helper? I have never heard that before? Are you a tourist guide? Are you paid by the government to promote your country for tourism?

I also love to travel. It is very exciting to see new places and to meet new people and cultures. I have never been in Asia, although I have seen many interesting photos to make me want to go there. My Dad has been in Vietnam countless times. He was an engineer for a medical equipment manufacturer. 

Hi there and welcome. Hope you will have fun here and find what you are looking for.

Cua Tung has so far been one of the most beautiful beaches of Vietnam. But it's not the best. Down the South of Vietnam is Nha Trang, one o the top bay in the world, Mui Ne, Cung Tau and much more...

these beaches will offer you time of relaxing and doing whatever you want. I've just been to Nha Trang this summer and found it perfect.. why don't u give it a try?

nice to meet you, andre, too. It's a bit weird the name local helper, right? I borrow the word from another forum, which is used for people who are willing to help tourists who come here or almost come here. For example: the questions need to be answered or a tour around the city or some suggestion all the way... (So hope i'll be a professional guide in the future, but not yet!!) And Andre, who pay for me when i'm just volunteer and still a student?

It's great to know sb who love travelling to. Why don't u some day drop by Vietnam or any Asia countries? (i'm sure if you love travelling and haven't spend any holiday here, you did miss half of ur life's enjoyment!! that's not advertising, anyway,)

Have a nice time, then!

What places have you been to?

I am sure that I am going to visit Vietnam once. As a photographer it is one of those places I am really interested in. Rice terraces are a wonderful photographic subject and a bull in a rice field is a classic motiv that I would love to photograph one day.

Andre

Travel Photos 

it is my dream to travell around the world at take photographs but for now i will just have to settle for looking at other travellers pictures. i would love to see some pictures of vietnam if you have any.

i have plenties of picture of Vietnam (i'm addicted to photography too).

# Andre: sure, u shouldn't miss Vietnam on your photo-trip. fantastic things to shoot some pic... hope one day i may welcome u in my country...

#callis: following are pictures of Vietnam, as what u ask for. but you know, i think these cannot decribe everything of what i saw. it's... fantastic.

http://my.opera.com/mercisorini/albums/show.dml?id=105241 => this is my album of Dalat.

grasp a look!

Linh, I took the liberty of fixing your picture in your post.

When you link to a picture, you need to link to the actual JPG file instead of the html page. On your website, right click on the picture and select "properties". From there you can copy the location of the picture.

Thanks for sharing your website. I enjoyed the pictuers.

I am sure I am going to come to visit one day, I just cannot foresee when this is going to happen.

Andre

Travel Photos 

Xin chao!

Welcome to our travel forum!

I am glad you liked my article about Hanoi. It's the first travel report I have ever written.

Ten toi la Janine. Toi la nguoi Duc.

My Vietnamese is rather poor. I know just some words, like:

vang, khong, cam on, mot, hai ,ba, bon, nam, sau,

or some important sentences like:

xin loi, nha ve-sinh o-dau?

I guess I have to learn some more before I go to Vietnam next time.

As for  the beaches in VN, I have been to Vung Tau Beach, Nha Trang Beach and China Beach near Da Nang. All of them are worth a visit.

My favourite Vietnamese dish is: nem Sai-Gon with Nuoc mam sauce. I found a Vietnamese store here where I baught Nuoc mam and Rice paper, but I don't know how to prepare the NEM  But perhaps you can help me and provide the recipe here and tell me how to do it? This would be very nice of you! (I guess it would be wise to open a new thread about Vietnames food then

@andre, if you go to vietnam, make sure to announce it in time, so maybe we can both meet in Hanoi with Linh.

I found out that Vietnam Airlines opened up a non-stop connection Frankfurt-Hanoi with quite reasonable prices...

@Linh: What countires have you been ?

Sunflower

@andre: thanks alot... hix. i'm bad at IT and really don't get why the picture didn't show, and amazingly when i came back, it shows a nice one. then it turns out that you have fixed it for me!!! thanks alot. i'll do better next time!

 @sunflower: let's say i admire your writing. i don't know if you were in my situation, how would you feel but i feel really grateful to read others writing so nice about the country (but in fact, it's nice right?).

i've just been to Thailand and Singapore and hope to travel much more further than South East Asia.

And.... i would love to welcome you and andre and any member of this warm forum to Hanoi one day, sure, i would bring you guys home for a traditional dinner (say Nem?) or a tour around Hanoi (in a local way!!!). would be much fun!!!

the recipe of Nem. Nem (or spring rolls) varies a lot in recipes, including Hanoi rolls, seafood rolls, Saigon rolls,.. alot. but i will send them all to you tomorrow, is it ok?

uhm. eagerlly waiting to meet all in Hanoi ..

cheers

(don't know if it's suitable to put here...)

Ingredients: meat, mushroom, woodear, rice paper, pepper, instant-noodle, additives, eggs (1 or 2 only).

For the sauce: sugar, vinegar, fish sauce, chili, water.  

Process:

- grind the meat well. soak mushroom in cool water and woodear in hot water to make them soft, then mince them.

- instant noodle: put inhot water to make them soft, then mince or use scissors to cut all into tiny pieces.

mix all of what you have prepared above together with egg, some pepple and a little salt (just aaaaa little or u will spoil everything). the better you mix, the better the food will be.

- stretch the rice paper on a flat surface, put the mixture in the front and roll .

- Fried the rolls.

The sauce: 1 spoon of vinegar, 1 spoon of sugar, one spoon of fish sauce, stir well until they become a dark-yeallow sauce. then add water until you feel pleased.

That is what we often do at home for  traditional spring rolls. I think the most difficult for you to make the dish is the ingredients which are plentiful here but so rare there . Janine, i hope you could succeed with the food (that is it tastes quite the same as what you had in Hanoi). but i do assure that you can never make one exactly the same! next time you come, i'll make one for you!!!

Bon appetite!

Absolutely. I think the less rules the better.

I see you managed to show images in your post .

The dish sounds delicious, but I have to admit it is too much work for me .

I rarely cook but I am sure that I will try it out at least once. I guess if I make it myself it will always taste better to me, probably because of all the effort. 

Fortunately around here we have restaurants from every imaginable place in the world, so I can always get whatever I feel like. 

Sunflower: Vietnam is on my list but I don't know when this will actually happen.

Andre

Travel Photos 

hallo linh,

one last question about the nem.

what do I do with the eggs?

I guess I have to boil? them or frie? them before i use them?

I checked it out. I can get all the ingredients here. They are on my shopping list and I am going to give it a try this weekend.

I will keep you informed if I succeeded or not.

sunflower

If we don't hear from you, we will assume the experiment went bad.

it can go that bad that we will not hear from her.

jan, the egg is not cooked beforehands. it is used to mix with other ingredient to make the mixture aromatic and have eggy-taste. cannot lack when you make nem.i'm sure.

good luck with the dish!

Hiya, I prepared the nem and had them for dinner yesterday. They tastet pretty good but by far not as good as the ones I had in Hanoi, so you were right , linh. Especially the sauce tastet different, it was too sweet for my taste, so I guess I'll take just half spoon of sugar the next time. I'll give it another try the following weekend S.

Hi Linh! Me and 2 of my buddies are planning to visit Vietnam this October 2010. We love travelling ! We've been to many places in Asia for the past 2 years and we're looking forward to seeing your country.

 We're from the Phils and we see the similarities between your country and mine in terms of hospitality of people, beautiful landscapes, vibrant streets, food to die for and many other things.

We're so much excited to go to Saigon and Hanoi. With the limited time we have we hope to discover and learn about your country.

We're planning everything as early as now so as not to miss any important places we must visit.