February 24, 2015 - May 24, 2015 Fragrant Pagoda Festival
Aromatic pagoda is a group of caves located near Vietnam's Hanoi. This is a whole complex of mountain sanctuaries and tombs, revered by Vietnamese and Buddhists around the world. This pagoda can be safely called one of the main monuments of the country.
February 9, 2016 New Year in Vietnam
Before the New Year's Eve, a general cleaning or even a small repair is arranged, and then the house is decorated. Vietnamese put in vases blossoming branches of peaches or apricots and small mandarin trees. Ripe mandarin is considered a symbol of prosperity.
Sports festivals in this country can not be counted: elephant racing, boat racing, bullfighting, a festival of fishermen, and cockfighting in general is a widespread phenomenon. But the main holiday of Vietnam is still the New Year, but not the international one, but the one that the inhabitants of the country meet on the lunar calendar, and lasts for several days.
In Vietnam, it is considered honorable to spend New Year's Eve in a campaign of a gray-haired person, who is over 70 years old. In the morning people go in search of a flower with droplets of dew on the petals, tear off a twig of peach tree and give children. These rituals, people in the country believe, will not let evil into the house.
Vietnamese New Year - Tat - has centuries-old traditions. Everyone tries to spend this holiday with the family, no matter how far apart they live. Exactly at midnight, festive fireworks blow up the skies of Hanoi and Haiphong, Danang and Ho Chi Minh. In the temples and pagodas, the sound of copper bells is heard. Colored paper dragons are rushing along the streets. Everything around becomes red-yellow. Theta lasts four days.
It is considered honorable to spend a New Year's Eve in the campaign of an old gray-haired man, who is over 70 years old. In the morning, Vietnamese go in search of a flower with drops of dew on petals, tear off a twig of peach tree and give children. These rituals, people in the country believe, will not let evil into the house.
The longest festival in Vietnam is the Aromatic Pagoda Festival. It lasts more than two months. Aromatic pagoda is one of the oldest Buddhist sanctuaries in the country. It is located in the province of Khatai, 70 km south-west of Hanoi. Annually for three spring months the pagoda becomes the center of pilgrimage of Buddhists from all corners of Vietnam.
This holiday is absolutely not exactly in any other country! Vietnamese believe that parasites are hidden in the human body, from which there are various diseases .So, according to popular belief, these parasites are vulnerable only on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar .This day is called Thet Doan Ngo .In the morning instead of breakfast on this day, eat a special home-made dish from fermented boiled glutinous rice of a special type of black or light yellow color, as well as fruit .In homes hang bunches of bitter wormwood .
July 27 Vietnam marks the Day of Memory of the Perished for Independence. In 1964-1965, the US introduced its armed forces into the country, it was the largest conflict since the Second World War. The war took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fathers and sons. On this day, Vietnamese citizens put in order the military cemeteries, give gifts to the families of deceased soldiers.