Link to the original site

Link to the original site

Link to the original site

When I arrive in Madurai and stagger down the bus steps at 3.15 in the morning I am not in the best of moods.  We left Ooty nine hours ago in which time the same lengthy old black and white Bollywood movie has played twice loudly, this having been followed by ceaseless mega-decibel DVD cycling of brain-searing Hindi-pop love songs.  That same old high-pitched histrionic singing drilling into your cerebellum.  I bite my tongue polite until midnight and then blow ‘Will you turn this f**king cr*p off!!! Some of us wouldn’t mind some sleep!’  When I again implore the ticket man to ‘Turn the goddamn music off!’ it’s nothin’ doing.  ‘The driver is asleep’ he explains.  I assume he isn’t actually asleep as miraculously we still appear to be on the road (always a bonus where Indian bus drivers are concerned) but it is inferred he soon would be if the music were to be cut or turned down.  I’m not going to argue with my potential safety so slump lower into my seat and cringe as the DVD skitters and pauses and skips again schizophrenically from one scrap of god awful track to another, again and again and again to the beat of every pothole, onward through the night.

Having miraculously snatched 0.5 seconds of deep fleeting sleep towards the end of the journey I am in a fuggy daze as I stagger back under the weight of my backpack.  Yet another arrival at an impractical and disorientating hour.  These are the witching hours for travellers.  Too late to be just Late and not early enough yet to be Early.  That little void in the middle at a too far remove from daylight and practicality either way you turn.  It’s a difficult time.  You feel tired, disorientated and unnerved by unfamiliar surroundings.  What surroundings?  Everywhere looks the same by night.  But this is not a comforting uniformity.  You feel a little vulnerable.  Sometimes a little fear.

‘Master.  Master.  Where you want to go master?’  The words usher out of the darkness besides me.  I blink a couple more times.  Eyes not focussed yet.  Mind not focussed yet.  Nothing but Hindi songs still skittling around the circuit board of my brain.  ‘Rickshaw master?’  Oh, of course!  The nocturnal jackal-like packs of rickshaw drivers have smelt blood, and circle their weary though wary prey in the dark.  Rupees and starlight glinting in their eyes.  Sizing up their kill.  Sizing up the commission potential at this hour that speaks so potently of necessity and desperation for lost souls.

‘Rickshaw master?  Which hotel master?’  Who the?  What the?  ‘Master you want good cheap hotel master?’  What’s all this ‘master’ cr*p about?  Uttered behind the grinning teeth of insincere smiles as it is.  Rickshaw drivers cum hotel touts putting on some kind of Igor act.  ‘Master.  Master.  Let me save you from this black night within which no traveller should find himself abroad’ I imagine them whispering next.  But I am abroad.  But in India, not Transylvania and they come across more like Gollum than friendly little Igor, their faux servility being so obviously laced with ulterior motives.  And tired and grumpy as I am I don’t like it one bit.  Too fatigued to conjure any emotion more subtle than anger I belt out ‘NO.  LEAVE ME ALONE.  I AM NOT YOUR F**KING MASTER OKAY!  I AM NOBODY’S MASTER, PLEASE STOP CALLING ME THAT!!  LEAVE ME ALONE.’  I need space to think.  Another rickshaw driver pads in from the outer pack ‘Master, where you go master?’ ‘Look pal, I am tired and confused and I am not A master, or YOUR master, okay!’  I huff off with my backpack, dump it down by a 24/7 bus station chai and biscuit stall (playing as it happens mega-decibel Hindi-pop love songs) and sit atop of it awaiting the dawn and local bus services.  

I’ve not experienced this phrase; this entitlement in India before.  A characteristic unique to Madurai.  And one that I get no more comfortable with in the three days I spend here.  I hear it a lot.  It rankles me lots.  Some strange allergic reaction to some vestigial ‘colonial guilt’, an occasionally inflamed appendix of my particular cast of English mind.  A psychological aversion to any reminder of the Master-Servant/ Slave relationship upon which my nation grew strong.  Pointless I know.  But I is who I is, and I am as I am.  And I guess by 31 there’s about as much chance of that changing as History.  

In fact it’s true of most of my time down south that I find it hard to get away from unwanted honorific titles and over-politeness.  ‘Sir sir sir.’  Okay, very common, not so bad and usually meant with warmth and sincerity.  A term of politeness I deploy often enough myself in momentary amicable interactions.  But there are times when I just can’t get my Indian friends and hosts to drop the stifling formality of it all.  Four days in Fort Kochi staying with a wonderful Keralan family in their own home, getting to know them, but can I get Ansel or, particularly his wife Gigi to call me anything else but ’Sir’?  No!  ’Gigi my friend, you don’t have to keep calling me ’Sir’.  My name’s Stephen remember, or rather Steve, not Sir.’  And this in fact has become the catchphrase of the southern phase of my Indian adventure : ’The name’s Steve, not Sir.’  T-shirts are going into production as we speak.  But Gigi just laughs as if at some preposterous suggestion having been made and says ‘No, ha ha, you are Sir.‘  

Indeed even at the time of writing this in Alleppey ( 01/03/2010) I have had several conversations with a nice old boy called Francis who has a crucifix tattooed upon the underside of his right forearm and who will be my backwater boatman for eight hours tomorrow.  I have already been jokily tutoring him in the art of calling me ’Steve, not sir’ to which so far he just smiles and says ’oookay sir, okay.’  I’ve even tried getting around the fact that I am not a member of my country’s landed gentry, nor having yet been honoured by the Queen by giving new names to us : ’Ah, Francis.  A good Christian name.  Francis of Assisi.  My name is Stephen so you are Saint.Francis and I am Saint.Stephen. Ha ha.’  Admittedly yes this is upgrading myself from a ’Sir’ to a ‘Saint’ in one fell swoop (queue jumping poor old Mother T who still awaits final beatification) but what else is a humble sinner like myself to do in the circumstances?  My plan though has thus far failed to work.  I remain a lowly ‘Sir‘.  But you can (please!) call me Steve.  ( Nanny Wes, yes you may call me ‘You Little B*gger’ for having stayed away from home so long.)

But back to Madurai.  I’ve been in enough Indian towns and cities now that with a few note-worthy exceptions it does start to get a little tricky for the travel-addled mind to make the effort to differentiate between them.*  Sometimes this is just not possible as, blindingly diverse though this nation be in its details, like any rapidly developing country its urban centres do tend towards a rather depressing concrete and advertising hoarding homogeneity.  There’s neither the money or the civic will to achieve anything else.  That’s fine.  No complaint.  This is necessity manifest.  Progress, with all its lack of inspiration and aspiration, 21st Century style.  Live with it.  Or get off the boat.  ( I’m hoping to get off the boat as soon as I can afford myself a small island to hop onto and call my own! - perhaps the Queen will give me one to go with my new title of Master Sir Saint Stevie MBE? ;)    

Madurai though is one of India’s oldest cities and at its historic heart contains one of its most revered and impressive temples.  The large, many towered, many chambered complex of the Sri Meenakshi Temple.  From what I could gather from broken conversation the temple has recently come through a phase of ceremonial re-painting.  True or not its psychedelically composed and coloured goporum towers look absolutely pristine.  Every bonkers multi-limbed god and goddess, every rainbow-vomiting many-fanged garish gargoyle thingamy, its menagerie of animals that are gods and gods that are animals and techni-coloured pillars and arches; all are picked out in an unblemished Looney Toons palette of bright pastel paints.  The overall effect is as strangely enchanting as it is impressive.  A somewhat lurid vision just about tempered enough by the sombre grey granite of its lower flanks.  I do wonder sometimes what came first though, Bollywood or Hinduism?  Their contemporary aesthetics I feel owe a lot to each other.  

Inside the complex there is a museum of sorts within the ‘1,000 Chambered Hall’ sporting lots of long-neglected, excellently realised but poorly lit bronze statues of the Hindu pantheon.  This wing of the temple complex though, as throughout, has some fine animistic deity carvings leaping forth from its many columns.  The large outer-inner sanctum circumference (if that makes sense? - non-Hindus you see are not allowed to enter the very hearts of the temple shrines where the deity images are housed and venerated) of the temple consists of a ante-chamber area filled with statues of apsaras, gods and Nandi the bull.  All besmeared with the wonderful mix of colours and pastes and petals and oils that denote Hindu worship.  Bas relief carvings glisten in the semi-darkness from the grime of centuries of palm touches and anointing oils.  Large trays of clarified butter or oil lamps burn away picturesquely, black wisps of smoke ribboning up from their wicks.  The three remaining sides of the inner square complex are vast long halls of carved stone pillars with brightly coloured ceilings.  A rather beleaguered, water-bereft tank (the Golden Lotus Tank) forms another key part of the complex but is in a bit of a sorry state right now.  Nice to sit around it’s red and white candy-cane stripe decorated ghat steps and people watch though.

Just outside the precincts of the temple, a huge granite structure of the same provenance as the temple has been turned over to become an undercover market,  the Puthu Mandapam.  Its high ceilings shelter, and its many carved beasties look down upon a claustrophobic sardine-squeeze of tourist stalls and long rows of male tailors who sit one besides the other at their treadle-pedal Singer sewing machines waiting for orders to sew.  Each soft ’shikka-shikka-shikka’ of one machine coalescing with that of another and another to make quite a busy composite clatter of garment construction.  Bangles, jewellery, saris, shawls, paintings, deities, metal and wood crafts and all the other usual Rupee-sniffing suspects are on sale here.

I visited the Tirumali Nayak Palace (those wings that remain of it) but to be honest it offers a momentarily grand but ultimately unrewarding visit I felt.  Any sense of architectural or historical awe somewhat undermined by its too, too neatly restored surfaces, structures and smatterings of statuary.  Another site of greater interest (to me anyhow) was the Gandhi Memorial Museum.  It’s free and presents an excellent and detailed account of the entire history of the birth of India as an independent nation state i.e. tracing the struggles origins from several centuries before Mr Gandhi was on the scene.  

However the museum is most renowned in its capacity as a memorial, housing at its conclusion the soiled and blood stained dhoti or loincloth that Gandhi was wearing when shot and killed in January 1948.  It resides here rather than in New Delhi or elsewhere as it was in Madurai that Gandhi made his famous declaration and gesture to renounce all other forms of dress other than traditional Indian hand-spun white khadi.  This formed one pillar of his (some say misguided, or unrealistic) attempts to instil an idea of independence through micro-labour and economic self-sufficiency.  It is though the symbol of the khadi spinning wheel that came to sit (in blue) at the heart of India’s national flag, conveniently mirroring the Chakra wheel of the ancient Ashoka Indian empire and symbolising the welfare of the Indian people.

It was in 1921 here that Gandhiji stated ‘In the context of the conditions of my people, I cannot afford a greater luxury than a loincloth.’  Consequently this white cotton dress material, so strongly associated with Gandhianism and ideas of humility and service to ‘The People’, is nowadays quite an expensive, exclusive item and generally only to be seen being worn by politicians whose standards of personal conduct often fall far, far short of those of their ‘Bapu’ (Gandhi’s affectionate nickname).  Consequently too, nowadays it tends to be more associated with images of self-interest, wealth and corruption, all three being as they are inter-linked.  Off the top of my head I forget the statistics but the number of currently serving MLAs (democratically elected Indian Ministers of Parliament) with proven and charged criminal records is obscene!

You should also get stuck into whatever food market areas of Madurai you can locate.  Some of those to be found just off to the north west of the Sri Meenakshi Temple on or around West Avani Street are some of the most wonderfully earthy, centuries old feeling vegetable and fruit organised-shambles markets I have stepped my way through these last six months.  Unable to spot exactly where the piles of viable produce stop and the primordial mulch of discarded vegetal matter that carpets the market in waves starts it really is commerce ‘of the soil’.  A scene populated by crusty, rusty, salt of the earth types whose dark sun-wrinkled skins have grown so slackened on the bone from over boiling and toiling that the folds of flesh and fabric work as one composite garment.  Poverty, or just general hardship, as with age, has a tendency to somewhat desexualise the human form I find and its kind of refreshing to see the unblinking acceptance of such being so here.  The matter of fact Mother Earth bodies, the frail or voluptuous flapping forms of the female peasantry here often cascading out of their loose saris as freely as the green chillies, tomatoes and garlic bulbs from their woven baskets.  I avert my eyes out of politeness.  The men all smile broadly, ask for photos and show off prize-winning vegetables of names unknown to me.

The only other point of note to my memories of Madurai is another gripe I’m afraid, ending in tone as I began, though this gripe not specific to the place itself.  Madurai just happens to be the particular city where my long building irritation at India’s psychopathic love affair with the car horn reaches critical mass AND I JUST CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!  Following from my introduction to this theme in previous entries ( ‘Vipassana : Suffering in Silence’ ), by this time many towns and cities further down the line my mind is reeling from the ceaseless sonic storm of car, bike, rickshaw, lorry and bus horns that so violently offend India’s airwaves and therein one’s sanity after a time.  Every single ear drum perforating blast of a Hero Honda (bike) or Ambassador (taxi) now runs through my brain like a heated skewer.  I feel like a bull being taunted, poked and provoked with a hundred spears, trapped in a Toreador’s ring.  And I’m beginning to… no, I have lost my cool on this particular point.  

Many is the time now (and since) that cars and bikes honking long, loud and proud when there is absoluuuutely zero need to do so (a particular passion of the moronic Indian male driver species) prompt me to scream expletives just as vigorously back into the air : ‘SHUT THE F**K UP YOU F**KING MORONS!!!’ I have often belted into open car windows as the perpetrators, insensible both to their offence and my impotent rage, glide past me.  Genuinely a tourist with Tourettes!  ( Tour-ettes?) I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking so.  Random cussing and swearing into thin air, and what with my now monstrous red beard and mop to match on top I must cut quite a curious sight, a fright, to locals and other tourists alike.  HONK HONK HONK WAAAAAAAGGH!!!  It’s the first time I begin to think that after five months it might just soon be time for a break from this incredible, though occasionally incredibly infuriating country.  ‘SHUT THE F**K UP YOU NOISY B*ST*RDS!!!’  Obey.  Your master has spoken.         

* In making lazy statements like this, whatever measure of truth they may possess should not completely distract from the fact that what I am also doing is confessing to possessing an inadequate wealth of knowledge and architectural vocabulary to make any literary differentiation for you.  Apologies to yourselves and Madurai.

Link to the original site

very beautiful cathedral in Saigon. there was no entrance fee when we were there but it closes in the afternoon. to note was that in 2005 the statue of virgin mary in front of the cathedral was reported to have shed tears down her right cheek, much to the disbelief of the authorities, and a failure to disperse the crowd flocking to the site for days. to note too was that all the original materials used to build the cathedral was imported from france initially. there were a few tourists when we were there but not as much as what you would expect to see in Siem Reap.

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this was pretty much a trip on a whim, the ticket was booked at the last hour and the plane almost left before i carried my only bag, a 64gb ipod and the clothes on my back in. because of its rushed nature in getting there (and getting back) the trip was pretty much spent sightseeing and travelling within saigon. one of the main places which pulled me there was actually to visit saigon notre-dame basilica, which was actually the first place i went to, for reasons i do not understand. to note was that in 2005 the statue of virgin mary in front of the cathedral was reported to have shed tears down her right cheek, much to the disbelief of the authorities, and a failure to disperse the crowd flocking to the site for days. to note too was that all the original materials used to build the cathedral was imported from france initially.

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Entry originally typed up March 13th, 2010.

—

Getting into Kuala Lumpur once again took a little longer than I had anticipated again. And this time, it was a little harder to get my bearings as I got dropped off right in the middle of a huge intersection. Fortunately, I managed to get figure out I was near Chinatown and managed to get a double room for 30 ringit. Still cheap enough. The rest of the night had me take a quick look through the street that I was staying on. Petaling Street is the major night market street for Chinatown and once again, it was like most other night markets I had seen. At this point, I had gotten past worrying about buying anything and just walked through the area.

The following day, I decided to take a walk through the nearby areas. The first stop was Merdeka Square, the site where Malaysia declared its independence in the 1950s. It’s a huge open courtyard and boasts what I hear is the tallest flagpole in the world. And yeah, it was pretty tall. There’s a National Museum next to the square as well as a building called the Sultan Abdul Samad, but amazingly enough, both places were under rennovation so there wasn’t much else to see there. I then wandered north into the area of Little India. If I hadn’t mentioned it before, it’s that Malaysia seems to be subject to freak downpours. There’s no such thing as consistent rain here. The sky just darkens and the rain just comes down real hard and maybe lasts for 20 minutes and then completely stops. It’s all or nothing in a sense. So while I got caught in one of these downpours, I decided to step into an Indian shopping center for silk. And wow… there’s a lot of silk. Scarves, dress shirts, dresses, even bed coverings and pillow cases. All at prices way beyond my budget. It was quite extravagant and just shows to remind me that there are pockets of wealth in even a 3rd world country.

While not being able to completely outwait the rain as it would come down again, I made my way to an area called the Golden Triangle. While the Golden Triangle in KL is mainly known for its huge shopping malls and night life, I was only visiting the outskirts which features a small rainforest in the middle of the city. So, yes, I did get to see a few square kilometers of rainforest on this trip. And of course, the humidity absolutely drains me here. But it was neat, and salvation was just up ahead. For within the Golden Triangle, there is also the Menara KL Tower, one of the tallest radio towers in the world. When I got there though, it was more than just a Tower, there was also an animal conservatory there as well as a replica small village as part of the entire entertainment complex. So I went up the Tower first. I have to rue my luck when visiting 300 meter towers because every time I’ve gone to one (like Tokyo Tower years before), it always seens to be cloudy or hazy. And this was no exception. All in all, it was eerily similar to how Tokyo Tower was designed. The animal conservatory however was really neat. They had all sorts of uncommon animals there including a wide variety of snakes, reptiles, birds, and primates. You could also buy food to feed the animals. This included, by timing, someone buying a live chicken to give to a Burmese Python. When the handler brought the chicken (it cost 20 ringit) and set it on the python’s body, it coiled around the chicken instantly and started to suffocate it. Despite there being no blood, you can still say it was gruesome as the chicken twitched every now and then and after a few minutes, stopped moving. It took some time before the python decided to actually get around to swallowing the chicken. Even then, it was a long process as it wrapped its jaws around the head and tried to work on swallowing it whole. It was going to take too long to actually see the whole thing so I left after awhile.

That pretty much concludes my first 2 days in KL. The next entry will cover the rest of KL which isn’t actually much, but I’ll go into some detail about something that happened.

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Vu Phong, a bright candidate for the Golden Ball Award 2009.

The list of ten male footballers does not include the winner of Vietnam Golden Ball 2008, goalkeeper Duong Hong Son, because he didn’t play well at his club (Hanoi T&T) or on the national squad. His absence, however, doesn’t make the competition less fierce.

The list includes: Pham Thanh Luong (Hanoi ACB), Nguyen Vu Phong, Huynh Quang Thanh (Binh Duong), Vu Nhu Thanh, Mai Tien Thanh (Ninh Binh), Nguyen Minh Phuong (Dong Tam Long An), Bui Tan Truong (Dong Thap), Le Tan Tai, Nguyen Quang Hai (Khanh Hoa), and Le Cong Vinh (Hanoi T&T).

Last year, the national football squad didn’t pass the qualifiying round of the Asian Cup 2011 while the U23 national team didn’t realize its goal of gold at the Southeast Asian Games. There were no outstanding individuals, so it will be very difficult to guess the winners this year.

Among nominees who are members of the national squad, striker Le Cong Vinh, who won the Vietnam Golden Ball Award three times, scored 15 goals for Hanoi T&T club last year, but he was not outstanding in the national squad, so Vinh’s opportunity is low.

A bright candidate is halfback Nguyen Vu Phong, who played very well at both his club and on the national team. He scored 15 goals in 2008 and won the Bronze Boot Award 2009.

At Asian Cup 2011, Phong had two goals in matches against Lebanon and China. He scored four goals for Binh Duong club at the AFC Cup (the Asian C2 Cup), contributing to the team’s first entrance in the semi-finals. Phong also made six goals at V-League and three at the National Cup to help his team rank second and third.

Some other potential winners are Pham Thanh Luong, Mai Tien Thanh and Bui Tan Truong from the U23 national team.

The list of female players includes Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh, Do Thi Ngoc Cham, Bui Thi Tuyet Mai (Hanoi), Doan Thi Kim Chi, Dang Thi Kieu Trinh, Tran Thi Kim Hong (HCM City), Nguyen Thi Mai Lan (Coal and Mineral Group), Dao Thi Mien, Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet (Hoa Hop Hanoi), Van Thi Thanh (Hanoi).

Sports analysts have remarked that this will be a competition between Vietnam Golden Ball Award 2008 winner Ngoc Cham, Kim Chi, Kieu Trinh, Dao Thi Mien and Kim Hong, all members of the national team.

The nominees for the title Outstanding Young Player are Tran Manh Dung (Nam Dinh), Nguyen Trong Hoang (Song Lam Nghe An), Pham Nguyen Sa (Da Nang), Hoang Dinh Tung (Thanh Hoa) and Ha Minh Tuan (Da Nang).

Foreing players Philani (Binh Duong), Leandro (Hai Phong), Gaston Merlo (Da Nang), Lazaro (Military Zone 4) and Timothy (Dong Thap) will compete for “Best Foreign Player.”

Ballots will be sent to experts, coaches and sportscasters from March 13-25. The results will be announced in early April 2010.

Founded by Saigon Giai Phong newspaper in 1995, this has become a prestigious football award in Vietnam.

The male winners of Vietnam Golden Ball Awards from 1995-2008:

Le Huynh Duc (1995)

Vo Hoang Buu (1996)

Le Huynh Duc (1997)

Nguyen Hong Son (1998)

Tran Cong Minh (1999)

Nguyen Hong son (2000)

Vo Van Hanh (2001)

Le Huynh Duc (2002)

Pham Van Quyen (2003)

Le Cong Vinh (2004)

Phan Van Tai Em (2005)

Le Cong Vinh (2006)

Le Cong Vinh (2007)

Duong Hong Son (2008)

PV

Related posts:

1. Leg burning climb promises cool green reward
2. Burning belly-dance show in cold spell
3. Mud on the tracks: thousands turn out for cow race

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Red-headed cranes flock to southern sanctuary

Red-headed crane doctor

Rare crane habitat under threat

The last count of red-headed cranes in Kien Giang in late February 2010 showed that the number of rare birds reduced sharply, even in the peak season.

Kien Luong district, the major place for cranes, had no red-headed crane at the time of counting.

Meanwhile, Giang Thanh, a new home for cranes, had only 28 heads, a drop of over 100 compared to early February and equivalent to 13.2 percent of 2009.

These small numbers of red-headed cranes have not maintained their habitat in Kien Giang because of environmental changes.

The Kien Giang Department of Science and Technology promised that zooligists and area government officials have made great efforts to maintain and attract more cranes by restoring pastures. Yet the rising impact of industrial and agricultural production, especially in Kien Luong province, has reduced the number of birds.

The red-headed crane is one of the largest of its kind, standing approximately 1.75m tall and weighing 8.7kg. The birds have an average wingspan of 2.5m. These cranes, once prevalent in all of Southeast Asia, can now only be found in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is estimated that over 200 of the birds live in An Giang, Dong Thap, Kien Giang and Dak Lak provinces in Vietnam.

PV

Related posts:

1. Largest flying fox colony discovered in Kien Giang
2. Documentary about Michael Jackson to arrive late in Vietnam
3. Hau Giang seeks to woo farm processors

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Singapore Technologies Telemedia (ST Telemidea) became the second largest shareholder of VNPT Global, a member of the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), after they signed an investment cooperation agreement in Hanoi on March 11.

Under this contract, ST Telemedia will buy 10 percent of the shares of VNPT Global, ranking second behind VNPT.

VNPT Global was established in January 2008 with three founder shareholders: VNPT, Vietnam Mobile Service Company (VMS) and the Vietnam Postal Corporation.

VNPT Global specializes in international telecommunication investment, operating in the fields of building international networks for VNPT, supplying added value services for VNPT’s customers and cooperating with foreign telecom partners.

VNPT Global has expanded to Singapore, Hong Kong, the US and the Czech Republic.

VTC and EVN join hands to provide telecom services

The Vietnam Multimedia Corporation (VTC) and the Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN) have signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The two sides will join together to provide VTC’s content services and value added services by EVN Telecom’s 3G (third generation) and GSM networks.

The two sides will use and share their services and products, such as telecom, TV and content-based services.

The agreement aims to utilize both sides’ infrastructure, capability and specializations effectively to save costs.

Viettel withdraws from Vietnam Mobile Awards

One of the three largest mobile operators in Vietnam, Viettel, retreated from the selection process for the most favourite mobile network (Vietnam Mobile Awards) 2009, which will be announced on March 14.

The Vietnam Mobile Awards, held by e-Chip Magazine and VietNamNet Newspaper, reflects the user’s selection and assessment of telecom products and services in Vietnam, including mobile operators, mobile phone brands and handheld retailers.

This is the fifth Vietnam Mobile Awards. In the last four times, Viettel didn’t win the first position for the two most important titles “The Most Favourite Mobile Network of the Year” and the “Mobile Network with the Best Customer Service”.

MobiFone has won the “Most Favourite Mobile Network” title for the four consecutive years, since 2005.

However, Viettel is praised to have the quickest growth rates of subscribers and coverage. It currently has nine network codes 098, 097, 0163, 0164, 0165, 0166, 0167, 0168, 0169 while MobiFone has 7 network codes 090, 093, 0121, 0122, 0124, 0126, 0128 and VinaPhone with six 091, 094, 0123, 0125, 0127, 0129.

One more digital signature certifier licensed

The Ministry of Information and Communications has granted a license to provide digital signature certification services to Nacencomm, a subsidiary of Hanoi Electronics Company (Hanel).

Nacencomm is the second company to supply digital signature certification service in Vietnam, after the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT).

The firm is allowed to offer this service in e-transactions between enterprises, organizations and individuals. It will provide three kinds of digital certification: Vid Sign for individuals, Vid Stamp for organizations and Vid Web for websites.

Viettel to distribute its own cell phones in 2010

Viettel’s Deputy General Director Tong Viet Trung disclosed that Viettel would introduce its own mobile phone brand in Vietnam in the next six months.

Trung said that Viettel imported handhelds to sell to its customers, in the form of subsidies. Manufacturing handheld equipment on the spot can help cut 40 percent of production costs.

Viettel will focus on mobile phones (average and low prices), computers and USB 3G. This group is now choosing its partners.

The price for popular cell phones in Vietnam is around $23/unit and Viettel expects to offer similar phones at prices 20-30 percent lower.

EVN Telecom will offer 3G services

A representative of EVN Telecom revealed that they will launch 3G services in the second quarter of 2010.

At the time of its launch, the 3G network will cover 20 percent of Vietnam’s territory and 40 percent of the population, just as EVN Telecom committed to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

This operator has installed around 2500 base transceiver stations in 63 provinces and cities across Vietnam.

EVN Telecom – Hanoi Telecom earned a license to set up a 3G network and provide 3G mobile services along with three other firms – Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone. They have invested around 600 billion dong to build this network.

Thus far, only VinaPhone and Mobile offer 3G services.

VietNamNet/TBKTVN

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2. EVN Telecom launches trans-Asia marine cable system
3. CMC TI given telecom licence

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