National precious objects announced

The MIG-21 aircraft No 4324.

MIG-21 aircraft No 4324 and a strategic map used in the “Ho Chi Minh campaign” were announced as national precious objects at a ceremony jointly held by General Political Department of the Vietnam People’s Army and the Vietnam Military Museum in Hanoi on March 10.

In the war against the US, the jet fighter made 69 flights, faced the enemy 22 times and fired 16 times. In 1967 alone, nine pilots of the Vietnam People’s Air Force flew the jet fighter and shot down 14 US aircraft.

The military strategic map entitle d“Ho Chi Minh Campaign’s Determination” was completed on April 21, 1975. The campaign led to the liberation of South Vietnam and the country’s reunification on April 30, 1975.

The aircraft and map are among 12 newly-recognised national objects on display at the Vietnam Military Museum in Hanoi.

Exhibition portrays happiness road in Ha Giang

An exhibition “Happiness road, now and then” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the road’s construction opened in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang on March 10.

On display are 113 photos, 72 artefacts and 11 merit certificates honouring 2,500 young volunteers who helped build the 160-kilometre road connecting downtown Ha Giang and Dong Van and Meo Vac districts.

The road leads to Ma Pi Leng pass in the globally recognised karst plateau Dong Van where volunteers roped themselves to the rock cliffs during the dangerous 11-month building process that led to the death of 11 workers.

The volunteers came from the northern provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Kan, Lang Son, Thai Nguyen, Tuyen Quang, Ha Giang, Hai Duong and Nam Dinh in 1959 and spent six years building the road.

The event, which runs to the end of this month, also presented an occasion to introduce the history of the road and natural beauty of Ha Giang to visitors at home and abroad.

Anh wins silver in no-gold contest

Nguyen Duc Anh, a Vietnamese pianist, has won the silver prize at the Alkan–Zimmerman International Piano Contest held in Athens, Greece.

The 23-year-old pianist placed equal with Italy's Alessandro Marino, while the bronze medal went to Melina Karagianni from Greece. A first prize was not awarded.

Nguyen Duc Anh, born in 1991, had studied at the Vietnam National Academy of Music for 13 years before he was recruited to Freiburg Music Academy in Germany.

At present, the Vietnamese talented pianist is a last year student under the guidance of Professor Tibor Szasz.

'French Village' to open soon to tourists in Danang

Work on a six-hectare area that consists of 20th-century French-styled castles and houses is set to be completed by the end of April on popular tourist mountain Ba Na in Danang.

French Village, as the site is officially known, also includes a hotel, a shopping mall, restaurants, and an indoor theme park, news website Zing reported.

Its investors expect the US$70-million village to bring tourists back to the time when the mountain, about 46 kilometers southwest of Danang, was home to a luxury resort built by French colonialists in 1901 for military officials and high-ranking civil servants.

Ba Na, which is nearly 1,450 meters above the sea, once had more than 200 French-styled villas, hotels, market, opera house, and stadium.

Most of them, however, were destroyed after the 1945 August Revolution that forced the French to withdraw from Vietnam.

The remains of the former resort are now just small paved paths, moss-covered walls, or ruins of fireplaces.

British book spotlights millennium-old Cham towers

A cluster of 1,000-year-old Cham towers in a central Vietnamese province has just been added to the revised edition of a British book that highlights must-see architectural buildings across the globe.

Banh It Tower Cluster, also known as Bac Towers, has just been included in the revised edition of the “1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die” book.

Banh It Towers, a gem of the millennium-old Cham towers located in the central province of Binh Dinh.

Located atop a hill in Tuy Phuoc District in the central province of Binh Dinh, the cluster was built around the 10th century and comprises four towers.

The cluster is among the most unique surviving Cham towers that boast astonishing artistic values, as British archeologist Stephen Anthony Murphy notes about it in the book’s section which accentuates structures built from the ancient times to the Renaissance.

“The cluster, which is one of our province’s greatest sources of pride, needs proper conservation. We also plan to promote its charms as well as the bewitching mystique of the overall Cham Binh Dinh cultural space in the coming time,” said Ho Quoc Dung, chair of the provincial People’s Committee.

The cover of a book titled "1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die" and the writing on Banh It Towers, located in the central Vietnamese province of Binh Dinh.

The “1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die” book features photos and writings by noted professors, architects, and architecture postgraduate students from around the world.

The book was edited by Mark Irving, a famous British author on architecture.