What's a communist country in SE Asia like Vietnam to do when your country is over flowing with people and your looking around for things to do - so you strengthen ties with North Korea, aid Lao with police and military matters, add new investments in Cambodia and help in redrawing those pesky boarder lines. Wonder what the long range plan is?
The Vietnamese Bank for Social Policy has announced a new loan program to help the poor - 8,000,000 dong ($430. us) and 10 years to pay it back at 3% interest.
Last Month the Vietnamese Communist Party celebrated its 80 th birthday - Happy Birthday!
So your thinking - hey, would have got that flu shot but was just a bit short on cash last month. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. The US is in the process of providing 7.9 million in flue vaccine aid to Vietnam, so there you are.
My laundry is included into the monthly price of my room as everyone that knows me knows, along with "they even iron my boxers". Though if your staying in the Pham Nhu Lao backpackers area here in Saigon and aren't like me and have laundry that needs - according to the sign posted in front of a shop I saw, it will cost you 7,000 dong (.38 us) a kilo. Now does that include ironed boxers?
Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs. Just liked the name.
A new section of a highway in Tien Gieng Provence, still uncompleted, was opened to help with Tet's heavy traffic, here are the rules -
- maintain speed of over 70 km per hour
- slow trucks or trucks larger than 4.2 x 2.8 m not allowed
More on the road theme - as in most coutures, major holidays and here its Tet, are the most dangerous time to be on the roads. I pulled these figures from the "Vietnam Today" newspaper, their wording:
- killed about 300
- injured more than 400
- unreported accidents with victims being hospitalized 14,000
An old Vietnamese saying I pulled out of the same paper from an article on corruption - "A clean fast is better than a dirty breakfast"
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