(For more information about these videos, see HERE)
We took a family trip to Con Dao Island (W) in Vietnam. As usual, my wife planned everything, and I just went along for the ride. But I took some videos, so I'm going to post them here.
After getting off of the airplane, we got into a hired car that took us to all the tourist sites.
The first stop was the grave of nationalist Martyr Vo Thi Sau (W), who was killed by the French on Con Dao island in 1952.
I regret to say I don't know a ton about the history of Vo Thi Sau, but she is definitely a name you hear everywhere in Vietnam. Lots of stuff is named after here, including a prominent street in Saigon.
Next was Van Son Pagoda.
We then stopped at the shrine to Phi Yen, and the shrine to Prince Cai. (Unfortunately my Vietnamese history is not very good, so I have no idea who these people are. You're on your own. Sorry.)
Then, the next two stops on the tour I don't have video for.
First, we stopped briefly at a monument to all the Vietnamese martyrs for independence that were killed by the French. (I believe the French. I actually only got a very brief description of it from my wife.) My father-in-law got out briefly to pay his respects here, but I wasn't invited to get out, and by the time I got my wife to tell me what the place was, we were moving on to the next stop.
The next stop was a museum about the history of Con Dao island. (The French had used the island as a prison for political prisoners, so there was a museum about that history.)
It looked like it was interesting, but our 5 year old was taking a nap during this time. My wife stayed with the five year old in the car, so I had to watch the two year old around the museum, and didn't get a chance to take any video.
The next stop was the historic French Prison itself (W). I was still watching the 2 year old, but because this was a historic and interesting place, I tried my best to take some video here nonetheless. Apologies for the bad quality of this video. I was juggling a 2-year-old while I took this video.
After this, we stopped briefly at the beach at the main town where the prison and museum were located.
We then finally went to the hotel/resort that we were staying at. We stayed for there for 2 nights, so the video contains footage from 2 different days.
We stayed at a room with the mountain view, because it was much cheaper than the rooms with the ocean view. It wasn't entirely a loss though--the view of the mountain was very nice as well.
Afterwards, we stopped briefly by a scenic overlook along the road. (There were many scenic overlook stops along the road. We stopped at one of them, but there were many more we just drove by.)
And we stopped at a fish farm to get some fresh seafood for lunch.
Playlist HERE:
5 comments:
Võ Thị Sáu has a song which primary and middle school students have to sing during pioneer youth group gathering and similar occasions. I don't know why but I can't find that song on the internet. The only song I could find is one that I and classmates didn't sing at all (unless that's precisely the one and what we sung was a simplified lite version of it).
Alongside her (young martyrs whose songs about them are mandatorily sung in schools) are Kim Đồng and Lê Văn Tám.
Notable things about them as I was told in school: Võ Thị Sáu had an unyielding attitude even before she was executed, Kim Đồng was a "giao liên" - maybe some sort of undercover informant who went up and down and something further, Lê Văn Tám burned the enemy's fuel storage.
>...have to sing during pioneer youth group gathering and similar occasions.
During the 5-15 minutes before the first period of the class too, we had to sing one song chosen by the responsible person in the class (I can't remember their role's name even in Vietnamese), I forgot this.
As always, thank you for the comments. You've taught me a lot.
I don't recognize those other two names.
But come to think of it, I might not have known Vo Thi Sau's name if it weren't for that main street named after her right in the middle of Ho Chi Minh City. I mean, I think there's a lot of other stuff named after her, but it's that street that really cements her name in my memory.
Kim Đồng has a very popular publisher named after him. The publisher is most known for publishing Doraemon in Vietnamese, way before they acquired its copyright! I think you will notice its stall if you pass by the book street in HCMC again.
He's the most notable of the bunch. As other than the song, he's featured in a chapter in the Vietnamese (national language) textbook. And some other stuff too maybe.
Lê Văn Tám rarely has anything named after him (maybe just street and school names), as far as I know and remember.
Bonus the two songs: KD, LVT
Thank you. I'll keep my eyes open for it the next time I'm on Book Street
Post a Comment