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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
Tet in Vietnam: Do you know the way to the airport?
STIVI COOKE UPDATED : 01/24/2017 14:03 GMT + 7 It’s time for Vietnam’s Tet holiday annual exodus. And it’s chaotic. Having recently battled my way through Tan Son Nhat International Airport on the way back to Hoi An in the center of the country, I can inform you that this year you might need body armor, a baseball bat, shark spray repellent (or incredibly bad body odor) and the battle tactics of the Vietnamese army to get to your flight in one piece. Mind you it’s not as massive as China’s flood of humanity, estimated at more than 700 million moving by train and bus and an estimated 58 million plane trips! Ah...airports; expensive, crowded, slow, jammed, demented, over-worked, too many planes and never enough staff. I’d stay at home except I live a cosmopolitan, jet-setting lifestyle (stop giggling) and urgently need to get on that plane... Now! Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport is a tough place to break into. The hotel receptionist tells you to take the taxi about 40 minutes before your flight but the ride (about 7km from District 1) on this particular occasion took an hour, interrupted by two traffic jams, one accident and someone selling sugarcane expensively on an unauthorized footpath. I do remember about five years being delayed on the way to the airport as a young skinny guy was having a punch-up with a well-dressed middle-aged fellow in the middle lane of the access road to the domestic terminal, forcing my taxi to a crawling pace as we all poked our heads out, laughed and added our comments to the untalented, clumsy brawl. I read recently that an overly ambitious chap proposes building a cable car system to get passengers to the airport on time, which sent my imagination into overdrive. I can just picture the chaos at the cable car boarding stations as passengers man-handle huge cardboard boxes of goodies for their relatives’ shops and families and seven pieces of luggage onto an already dangerously overloaded cable car. With everyone squashed in, their faces squeezed against the windows, the likelihood of making it to the terminal without the cable breaking is a terrifying yet funny fantasy. At least they wouldn’t get wet as the city sinks! My own brilliant idea involves digging a canal that outbound travellers could float down in relative peace and relaxation until they disembark at the departure entrance – I think it would be more impressive than pulling up in a limo. Another answer to the stress on Ho Chi Minh City’s fragile traffic system as you inch towards the airport (fuming...) might be hot air balloons. I think a trial project set up linking Da Nang Airport to Hoi An for research purposes would be sensible. It was suggested to me a few years ago and still holds true as a great idea is to simply walk the last half mile with your luggage provided it’s not all enormous boxes of trade goods for your aunt’s bedding shop in downtown areas. Hmm...might be an opportunity for enterprising young locals for wheelbarrow carting to the terminal? The simple truth as with most things is to cut out that one small annoying, interfering factor that makes a mess of things. In this case, it’s the number of road users occupying the airport terminal lanes by putting a concrete barrier between the lanes which prevents them from slipping in and out of the lanes – that way they are trapped into the airport road circuit increasing their travel time. This also forces drivers and riders to make a choice much earlier to abandon using the airport lanes so the traffic thins out long before the approach to the airport. Another mess to fix is the huge amount of time dropping off passengers is taking. In Australia there are ‘tow away’ zones at many airports that are much stricter than here in Vietnam with more aggressive warnings by security to move ‘or else’. So whichever way you make to the airport in Ho Chi Minh City or out of Hanoi’s airport, it’s only the start of your adventure in doing the ‘airport obstacle course’ in Vietnam. You haven’t gotten through check-in, security or the departure gate yet! So have a great time travelling over the Tet holiday. Maybe you should pack a unicycle!
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
Vietnam imposes tax duty on foreign room-booking sites
By VnExpress January 25, 2017 | 10:49 am GMT+7 Firms such as Agoda and Expedia will have to pay a 10 percent duty. The Ministry of Finance has told foreign accommodation booking services to pay taxes if they wish to continue operating in Vietnam. A document recently released by the ministry asked booking sites like Agoda, Traveloka and Expedia to pay a combined 10 percent of their total revenue made in Vietnam. Vietnamese accommodation providers that have signed contracts with these foreign sites are obliged to fulfill these tax duties on behalf of them. The ministry said that the move aims to prevent tax losses from foreign-based companies that are gaining from online business transactions. Vietnamese accommodation booking site Vntrip had previously held a press conference and sent a document to the ministry accusing Singapore-based travel agency Agoda and some other sites of tax evasion. Vntrip said that the acts of these foreign companies had resulted in huge losses to the state revenue and created unwholesome competition. This is not the first time the Vietnamese government has imposed taxes on international businesses operating in the country. Last September, the popular ride-sharing service Uber was officially ordered to pay taxes after two years of providing transport services in Vietnam.
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
Guess how much pilots make in Vietnam: Enough to keep them flying
By VnExpress January 24, 2017 | 02:00 am GMT+7 A Vietnam Airlines pilot now earns $5,100 a month after many of them threatened to quit. National carrier Vietnam Airlines has announced a series of pay rises that will see its pilots earn VND115.3 million ($5,100) a month. A pilot's salary has been raised by 8.5 percent from 2015 while flight attendants now earn VND25.5 million ($1,130) a month, a 13 percent increase. Managers also enjoyed income bumps, and engineers now earn at least VND17.4 million ($771) a month. Vietnamese workers earned an average of $2,200 in 2016, according to the General Statistics Office. Vietnam Airlines said the new salaries are around 75 percent of the average regional income, putting it among the top paying airlines in Southeast Asia. The carrier raised wages twice last year after the transport ministry warned that a large number of highly trained employees, including pilots, air traffic controllers and aircraft maintenance workers, wanted to jump ship. At that time, each of its pilots earned around VND80 million ($3,500) a month, while foreign pilots made $8,000-13,000. Vietnam Airlines explained that it did not have to pay to train foreign pilots, a cost of around VND2.5 billion ($117,000). But some Vietnamese pilots said they also earned much less than local colleagues at other airlines. The carrier reportedly raised salaries by 15-25 percent that year. A new financial report from the company, which is 86 percent owned by the government, showed it earned VND59.1 trillion ($2.6 billion) in 2016. Its pre-tax profit climbed 5.6 times from 2015 to nearly VND1.6 trillion ($71 million).
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
Eating the Vietnamese New Year
By VnExpress January 19, 2017 | 12:11 pm GMT+7 Believe it or not, Tet is very much about how much you can stomach. Vietnam’s Lunar New Year festival is just several days away and some of you may be wondering what it’s all about. Eating. Seriously. Vietnamese don't "celebrate" Tet. We “eat Tet.” Some "play Tet,” which most interpret to mean we are eating and drinking Tet. Here's a list of some of the stuff you can expect to eat. Sticky rice cakes Everywhere you go, expect to an offer of banh chung. This meat and bean-filled sticky rice gets steamed and wrapped in a big dong (Phrynium placentarium) leaf. To be honest, it's dense enough to stop a bullet. As the days of Tet wane, people take to deep-frying pieces of it, which (naturally) makes it better. Most shape these cakes into a thick square as a nod to the traditional belief that the Earth was square and the sky was round. Legend has it that the recipe was invented four thousand years ago while a king was trying to figure out who was next in line. He ordered his sons to come up with a meaningful recipe and the simple mix of sticky rice, mung beans and pork outdid all other offerings—presumably a lot of exotic animals stuffed into other animals. The king's choice made banh chung a central part of the Lunar New Year. continue reading here http://e.vnexpress.net/news/travel-l...r-3530578.html
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
Quote:
Quite true but then given conflicting accounts between 2 evils such as Russia & them I rather believe them than Russia Cheerios......SS08 ^_^
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
Quote:
Quote:
You never realised meh???? Cheerios.....SS08 ^_^
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
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Have of cos.....once he have huge stacks of them he will invite me over to smell the crisp new notes Cheerios......SS08 ^_^
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
That one must release if not "siao cheong nao" liao Cheerios......SS08 ^_^
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
You know I know lah......... Worst case is we all sitting at lobby waiting for 15mins liao then no choice go knock on his door and found out he still sleeping Cheerios.......SS08 ^_^
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
you hua hee jiu hor...
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
no leh...that day was posting using free wifi...suddenly the wifi gone and hang there...so din know what happened...anyway tcss so not very particular...
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Re: All Vietnam Related TCSS / Info / Gatherings / Help Thread
lidat oso can ha...u happy or not...
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