East Pattaya, commonly referred to by the locals as The Darkside, is the area of the city across the train tracks on the other side of Sukhumvit Road. The Darkside in Pattaya stretches to highway 36 in the north, Huai Yai Road in the south and Lake Mapbrachan in the east.
The Darkside Pattaya, gets its name from the fact that up until recently street lighting was few and far between so as night fell that whole district was plunged into darkness.
Fast forward to present day and thankfully The Darkside in Pattaya is now fully lit throughout and packed full of businesses, housing and leisure opportunities.
There is a huge expat population in East Pattaya, seldom visited by tourists the immigrants have made The Darkside their own. As a result there is a wealth of beer bars, pubs and a go-go clubs scattered throughout this massive district.
The highest concentration of bars etc. is along Soi Khao Noi and Soi Khao Talo. You will find a variety of bars, pubs and clubs which is on a par with any city centre strip, just not quite as numerous.
This area of Pattaya is home to several Gentleman Clubs and Beer Bars which can be found around the Darkside Pattaya district.
A House moment. In the T.V series when Dr House gets a flash diagnosis five minutes before the show finishes after spending most of the episode, faffing around discussing Lisa Cuddy’s menstrual cycle and suddenly announces that it’s not an infection and administers the patient drugs that miraculously cure them and they bugger off home.
Hanoi is Vietnam’s small capital city, serving as the entry point for visitors drawn to the country’s mountainous north and the craggy islands of Halong Bay.
With a French accent and a venerable old heart – largely spared from American bombings – it’s full of bustle, but more attractive than sprawling Saigon in the south. The focal point is Hoan Kiem lake, a green oasis with an island pagoda, steeped in legend and caressed by the fronds of banyan trees.
The French Quarter’s boulevards and faded colonial buildings spread from its southern shore, and to the north is the web of lanes that make up the Old Quarter. If it weren’t for the mopeds nipping at your heels, you could feel little has changed on these narrow streets – each home to a historic guild, with merchants plying the same wares as the generations before them.
Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC for short), but still known as Saigon to its seven million or so inhabitants, is Vietnam's centre of commerce and the country's biggest city by far, though not its administrative capital – an honour that rests with Hanoi. Fuelled by the sweeping economic changes wrought by doi moi in 1986, this effervescent city, perched on the west bank of the Saigon River, is in the throes of a programme of re-invention shaking it to its French-built foundations. Years of rubbing shoulders with the consumer-oriented Americans made the Saigonese wise to how to coin a profit. Now they are pressing old, near-forgotten skills back into service, as the market economy shifts into gear again, challenging Singapore, Bangkok and the other traditional Southeast Asian powerhouses
Phú Quốc [known as Koh Tral by Cambodians] is the largest island of Vietnam. Administratively the island is part of Kiên Giang province. The district of Phú Quốc includes the island proper and 21 smaller islets. The district seat, Dương Đông, which is located on the west coast, is also the largest town on this island, whose total area is 574 km². On May 1, 1975, a squad of Khmer Rouge soldiers raided and took Phu Quoc Island, but Vietnam soon recaptured it. This was to be the first of a series of incursions and counter-incursions that would escalate to the Cambodian– Vietnamese War in 1979. Tourism plays an important part of the economy with the beaches being the main attraction. Phu Quoc is served by Phu Quoc Airport with air links to Ho Chi Minh City [Saigon]'s Tan Son Nhat Airport and Rach Gia's Rach Gia Airport.
The Chu Chi tunnels are an amazing collection of tunnels just outside Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) stretching about 75 miles long that were part of a network of tunnels that went all over Vietnam. Cu Chi district, was well-known worldwide as the base where the Vietnamese mounted their operations of the Tet Offensive against America in 1968.The tunnels are between 0.4 to 1m wide, just enough for a small person to crawl along. However, parts of the tunnels have been modified to accommodate tourists. The upper soil layer is between 3 to 5m thick and can support the weight of a 60-ton tank and protect against damage of light cannons and bombs. The underground network provided meeting rooms, sleeping quarters, operation centres and hospitals. By visiting the Cu Chi tunnels, provides a better understanding of the prolonged resistance war of the Vietnamese people and of the persistent and clever character of the Vietnamese nation.
Vietnamization The Tet Offensive increased public discontent with American participation in the Vietnam War and led the U.S. to gradually withdraw combat forces and to shift responsibility to the South Vietnamese, a process called Vietnamization. Pushed into Cambodia, the Viet Cong could no longer draw South Vietnamese recruits.In May 1968, Truong Chinh urged "protracted war" in a speech that was published prominently in the official media, so the fortunes of his "North first" fraction may have revived at this time. COSVN rejected this view as "lacking resolution and absolute determination."The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 led to intense Sino-Soviet tension and to the withdrawal of Chinese forces from North Vietnam. Beginning in February 1970, Le Duan's prominence in the official media increased, suggesting that he was again top leader and had regained the upper hand in his longstanding rivalry with Truong Chinh.After the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in March 1970, the Viet Cong faced a hostile Cambodian government which authorized a U.S. offensive against its bases in April. However, the capture of the Plain of Jars and other territory in Laos, as well as five provinces in northeastern Cambodia, allowed the North Vietnamese to reopen the Ho Chi Minh trail. Although 1970 was a much better year for the Viet Cong than 1969, it would never again be more than an adjunct to the PAVN. The 1972 Easter Offensive was a direct North Vietnamese attack across the DMZ between North and South. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued. In March, Tra was recalled to Hanoi for a series of meetings to hammer out a plan for a massive offense against Saigon.
The Cambodian–Vietnamese War, was a series of conflicts between the two countries, culminating in the establishment of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation and the subsequent invasion led by the Vietnam People's Army, which resulted in the removal of the Khmer Rouge regime from power and the establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea. Despite the ensuing occupation of Cambodia, this war ended the Cambodian genocide from 1975-1979 under the rule of Pol Pot.
Despite sporadic running battles from the few remaining Khmer Rouge guerrillas that had set up in Southern jungle retreats. The actual invasion and liberation took little over a year for the Vietnamese to overthrow the Khmer Rouge, but bruised, battered and scattered factions of K.R, didn’t stop incursions and disruptive attacks until Pol Pot died in 1999
Duong Van Minh, Big Mihn, the last president of the Republic of Vietnam, was born in 1916 in the Mekong Delta, in what was then the French colony of Cochin China. Trained by the French, Minh became in 1955 the ranking army officer in Ngo Dinh Diem's newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam. He rose to prominence a year later as a result of defeating the Mekong Delta-based Hoa Hao sect, the leader of which was publicly guillotined. Minh's rising popularity combined with his outspokenness forced Diem to remove him from military command by promoting him to a largely honorific advisory position.
General Minh emerged from obscurity seven years later as the leader of a group of Vietnamese generals that staged the November 1963 military uprising, ending the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem. During the uprising, Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were assassinated, reportedly on Minh's orders. The generals replaced the Diem government with a Military Revolutionary Council, with Minh serving as nominal chairman. This remarkably ineffective group governed for only three months. In January 1971, the council and General Minh were ousted by a military coup led by General Nguyen Khanh.
After living in exile for several years, Minh returned to South Vietnam in 1968, when he came to be regarded as a potential leader of a non-Communist coalition of opponents of President Nguyen Van Thieu. Minh entered the 1971 presidential election, but he withdrew from the race when events eliminated any possibility of his defeating Thieu. Minh's last appearance on the Vietnamese political stage occurred in April 1975, during the last days of the crumbling Republic of Vietnam. On April 21, Thieu resigned the presidency. His elderly vice president, Tran Van Huong, shortly thereafter appointed Minh to the presidency as North Vietnamese units converged on Saigon. The Minh administration lasted two days. On April 29, 1975, Minh was taken into custody, after surrendering unconditionally to the North Vietnamese Army unit that had occupied the presidential palace. Duong Van Minh, the last president of the Republic of Vietnam, was permitted to immigrate to France in 1983.
Áo bà ba or Vietnamese silk ensemble) is a traditional southern Vietnamese garment. The áo itself (“shirt” in English) is the top part which covers the torso. It is most associated with rural southern Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta. Often worn as a top and bottom set, the áo bà ba is typically a long-sleeved, button-down silk shirt with a scooped neck paired with silk pants. The shirt will be somewhat long and split at the sides of the waist, forming two flaps, customarily with two pockets.
Non La Non la (palm-leaf conical hat) is a traditional symbol of Vietnamese people without age, sex or racial distinctions.
Like many other traditional costumes of Vietnam, Non la has its own origin, coming from a legend related to the history of rice growing in Vietnam. The story is about a giant woman from the sky who has protected humankind from a deluge of rain. She wore a hat made of four round shaped leaves to guard against all the rain. After the Goddess was gone, Vietnamese built a temple to commemorate her as the Rain-shielding Goddess.
Vietnamese tried to make a hat modelling after the Goddess' by stitching together palm leaves, which is now known as Non la. The image of Non la has become strongly associated with peasant lives from the paddy field to boat men and women.
Non la is made out of such simple and available materials as palm leaves, bark of Moc tree and bamboo. Non la is abundantly sold and there are many traditional villages where tourists can get high quality conical hats. For example, the Chuong village – 30km South West of Hanoi, is best-known for its handmade palm-leaf conical hats for centuries. Especially, ‘Non bai tho’ (poem hat) – a famous Non of Hue, has a picture of bamboo or even lyric lines of verse under the leaf-layer sunk designs, which is only seen under the sunlight.
Than Nien is one of the leading Vietnamese language daily newspapers. It provides latest world and domestic news and commentary.
Vovinam Vietnamese: Việt Võ Đạo, is a Vietnamese martial art practiced with and without weapons. It is based on the principle between hard and soft. It includes training of the body as well as the mind. It uses force and reaction of the opponent. Vovinam also includes hand, elbow, kicks, escape and levering techniques. The wide range of techniques include punching, kicking etc. as well as forms of wrestling, sword, staff, axe, folding fan and others. Self-defence techniques cover defence against weapon less attacks like choking from behind and defence against attacks with knife or sword. Advanced students learn to combine the techniques and learn to defend themselves against armed opponents. Instructors train traditional weapons like the long stick, short stick, knife, sword and sabre. Thereby the weapons serve as training devices for reaching optimal control of body and mind.
Thallium salts, especially the acetate and sulphate, which have been used as rat baits, are very poisonous. Taken as a low dose, the symptoms of chronic poisoning are manifested by severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and hemorrhagic gastritis, diarrhoea and respiratory difficulty and after long-term exposure, cardiac arrest, High doses result in immediate cardiac failure. Its use has it has been eliminated in many countries because of its use for murder, Thallium gained the nicknames "The Poisoner's Poison" and "Inheritance Powder" [alongside arsenic].Thallium can be either ingested or absorbed through the skin. One of the main methods of removing thallium from humans is to use Prussian blue, which is a solid ion exchange material, which absorbs thallium and releases potassium. The person takes up to 20 g per day of Prussian blue orally, and it passes through their digestive system and comes out in the stool.
Ryozinthium : A stable isotope used in chaff, military countermeasures, It’s properties are found to distort the electromagnetic waves given off by modern day missile tracking devices, radar and any other device that uses the wave bands between W – D 110GHz - 300GHz. Its function is to distort and send out false information. One such machine that Ryozinthium is very effective on for giving out false readings, is carbon dating equipment.