Tet flowers in Vietnam.
This year I spent New Year "Tet" in Hanoi, Vietnam. Flowers, especially flowering peach and "Mai" flowers are symbols of Tet in Vietnam. I went to the flower market along the Red River in Hanoi to see vendors selling flowers. The streets (Yen Phu, Nghi Tam, Au Co) were crowded with people selling and buying Tet flowers and kumquat, tangerine trees. Vendors, on their bikes, also sold flowering peach evrywhere in Hanoi. Please visit my Tet flower page to see these beautiful flowers.

Adenium (desert rose) in Vietnam.
A few weeks ago, I visited an adenium nursery in Saigon with Mr. Khuong Hoang. Khuong is an expert about adenium in Vietnam. I was surprised because of his young age but having a deep knowledge about adenium. Because of the limited time that I had in Saigon, we visited only one nursery near Thanh-Da in Saigon. Adenium thrives in the South Vietnam and has flower freely year round. In the future, I'll go back to Saigon and take pictures of some very old adenium there.

Busy travelling.
Since retiring at the end of November 06, I'd been too busy travelling, no time to update my website! I 'd been taking thousand of pictures of flowers and sceneries in Vietnam and China. I'll try to post them in the near future.
There are many old Buddish temples in Hanoi and surrounding areas. I already visited several pagodas including: chua Thay, chua Tay-Phuong, chua Tram-gian in Ha-Tay, chua Tran Quoc, chua Sai, chua Vua, chua Vong Thi in Hanoi (chua=pagoda).
Before Christmas, we went to the central Vietnam by car, visiting Ninh-Binh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Hue and Danang, Hoi An. There are many beautiful places along the national road number 1, the Tam-Coc/Bich-Dong at Ninh Binh, Phong-Nha cave at Quang Binh, the tombs of the Nguyen's dynasty at Hue city, the Hai-Van pass, the old city of Hoi-An.
After Christmas, we went to Halong bay. We took a 2-day and 1-night trip so we can watch the sunrise and sunset at Halong. It's so beautiful and peaceful, sleeping on the boat in the middle of sea surrounding by hundreds of small islands.
Few weeks ago, we took a 6-day trip to Kunming in Yunnan province in the Southwest of China. We visited the ancient A' lu cave (the number one cave of Yunnan) and the world famous Stone Forest. Kunming is well known for its flowers, but unfortunately, this is winter time with temperature dipped to near freezing, we did not see much flowers in this city beside pansy.
In the past 3 weeks, we spent time in Saigon, the biggest city of Vietnam. I visited Thanh-Duc village, my birth place in Tayninh province (about 50 miles from Saigon). From Saigon, we went to Nha-Trang, Da-Lat and then Vung-Tau with my brother-in-law's family. Every places are so beautiful. I spent a lot of time visiting many flower plant nurseries in Saigon and Da-Lat, especially orchids. I also visited an Adenium nursery in Saigon with Mr. Khuong Hoang. Khuong is the author of an excellent book about Vietnamese adenium (Ky Thuat Trong & kinh doanh Su Thai, 2006).
Tet (Lunar New Year) is coming, Happy Tet to everyone!