Coconut Tree Prison on Phu Quoc island – Hell on Earth!

We are all well aware of atrocities of the Vietnam War – there is no doubt about it. This war was hell taking place in the terrain of today’s Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. During the very same war called by the Vietnamese ‘’the American war’’ there was a prison which functioned in Phu Quoc Island until 1973, the jail where the Americans were sending tens of thousands of captives – it was the cruelest prison of the Vietnam war. It was at that time the prisoners were burned alive, had their teeth knocked out, had nails hammered in different parts of their bodies, had their genitals crushed… This post is about the true Hell on Earth …

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Vietnamese New year – how is it celebrated in Hoi An?

Tet Nguyen Dan (known as ” Tet ”) is the most important Vietnamese holiday. This is the period when the Vietnamese celebrate the Lunar New Year (the date is taken from the lunar calendar). It is a movable feast, which falls at the end of January or in early February – at exactly the same time as the Chinese New Year. This year the Vietnamese have celebrated the New Year on January 28. It is said that the celebration lasts normally 3 days, but in practice we saw it continued up to 1 week and it significantly differed from the typical New Year celebration in Europe.  There are no grand balls and parties, it rather resembles the Polish Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, when gifts are handed in to relatives who gather together at a big table covered with lots of nice food. Let’s have a closer look at it then 🙂

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