Visa Application Request

If you need a visa to enter Vietnam for attending this workshop, we can provide an official visa invitation letter. Please send your request to IWAMD 2023 (iwamd2023@gmail.com). You can submit the letter along with other required documentation to an appropriate Vietnam Embassy office in your country or apply online at this link.

You can also obtain a visa on arrival at Noi Bai international airport. Details on how to obtain visas at the airport are available at this link.

Local Transportation

Taxies are available for transportation between Noi Bai international airport and Thai Nguyen University (see Google map below). Cars might be arranged for pick up and drop upon reservation.
Thai Nguyen is the very favorable location in terms of traffic, 50 km from Noi Bai international airport. However, there is no public transport.
The most popular and convenient types of transport from Noi Bai International Airport to Thai Nguyen are taxi and serviced-cars (called-limousine) with the price of 7-25 USD (~150.000-600.000 VND)

From Hanoi city to Thai Nguyen
Suggested limousine service contacts:
- Ha Lan Limousine: 02083737373
- Hoa Mai Limousine: 19009262

Tourism

We are pleased to announce that we have arranged a city tour of Thai Nguyen for participants of IWAMD 2023. To assist us in making adequate arrangements, we kindly request that you register for this tour using the form here. More information about the tour can be found here.

Thai Nguyen has revolutionary tradition, historical vestiges. The following are the best things to do in Thai Nguyen

1. Nui Coc Lake
The 18km of windy roads from Thai Nguyen City’s centre to the lake are lined by tea-terraced fields on hills, and gentle rivers under a blue sky. The mystical Nui Coc Lake always surprises tourists with its legendary beauty. The scene is more like a water-colour painting than a real landscape.
With a width of 2,600 ha and a depth of 50m, Nui Coc Lake is an interesting eco-tourism destination. What brings the lake back into reality is the large tourism area built next to it. The lake comprises 89 islets; some are covered with trees, some with flocks of birds, and others with flocks of storks or mountain goats. About 40 species of birds and 15 species of mammals have been recorded in the reservoir area.
Nearby the lake, Coc Mountain stands imposingly amid the blue sky, the bright sunshine over every blade of grass and twig, all creating marvelous and splendid scenery. The water surface is large and quiet. Somewhere some storks sore above the islands in the middle of the lake, which suggests a quiet and pleasant life far from the bustle and crowdedness of the urban life.

2. Thai Hai Ethnic Village
The Thai Hai Ethnic Village covers 20 hectares of green forest area, with more than 30 traditional houses-on stilts. The Tay community of 4 generations is preserving the traditional culture, including its language, customs, rituals, ceremonies, and clothes as tourism attractions.
The village promotes local culture’s potential to form unique and authentic tourism products. It hosts traditional spiritual festivals, utilizing the village’s ethnic people who have specific cultural knowledge and language skills to act as tour guides. Moreover, the locals actively preserve and maintain the traditional stilts houses which are shared with visitors. The homes of the villagers offer homestays for tourists to showcase Tay cuisines, breeding, agriculture activities, and crafts.

3. Kem Stream & La Bang green tea co-operative
La Bang Tea Cooperative located in La Bang commune, Dai Tu district. From the center of Thai Nguyen city to here is about 35 km. This area has over 400ha of organic green tea cultivation with beautiful landscapes of green tea terrace fields in hills. The visitors could join and experience the activities of tea harvesting and producing with the local farmers.
Kem Stream is a beautiful stream in this area. Visitors will experience a destination full of nature, cool and clear. Along the two sides of the stream are green grass interspersed with rocky beaches. Visitors can sit here to enjoy the view or organize a small picnic party.

4. Museum of the Cultures of Viet Nam's Ethnic Groups
The Museum of the Cultures of Viet Nam's Ethnic Groups contains more than 10,000 documents, and artifacts belong to the cultural heritage of 54 ethnic groups of Viet Nam.
The museum also presents an extensive collection of agricultural, handicraft, and hunting tools. Typical ritual clothes with bright colors and decorative motifs of different ethnic minorities are also exhibited. The unusual costumes of the Tay and Nung ethnic groups used for worshipping their sorcerers are embroidered with lines and designs that supposedly perceive magical sounds.
The exhibition system of the museum includes 5 showrooms:
The Viet-Muong showroom presents nearly 500 documents, objects, and photographs illustrating archaeological articles discovered in Phung Nguyen, Dong Dau, and Go Mun in the North of the country. Exhibits of Vietnamese national agricultural and handicraft productions and brocades woven by Muong ethnic minorities are also displayed.
Exhibited in the Tay-Thai showroom are nearly 500 documents and artifacts related to the slash-and-burn agricultural technique and traditional trades of minorities, such as the Tay, Thai, Lao, and Lu. Women's clothes and musical folk instruments such as the tinh string instrument, the flute, as well as displays of the traditional ceremonies of several minorities are also exhibited.
The H'mong-Dao showroom displays approximately 600 documents and artifacts reflecting the agricultural practices of the H'mong, such as slash-and-burn farming, terraced rice fields, hunting weapons, and clothes of the H'mong-Dao ethnic group.
The Mon – Khmer showroom introduces unique cultural features of 21 ethnic groups who live scatteringly in the North – East, Central – Central Highlands and South in Viet Nam. Architectures of communal house and long house on the Central Highlands and pagoda of Khmer people; weaving handicraft and community cultural festival are specific traits of the Mon – Khmer people.
The 5th showroom popularizes cultural values of Austronesian and Han ethnic groups. The Austronesian culture and Han culture have the matriarchal characteristics and the patriarchy characteristics, respectively.
The Museum of the Cultures of Viet Nam's Ethnic Groups is a repository depicting the culture of ethnic groups living throughout the nation. It is also a place for people to learn about the origins and traditional cultural identities of every ethnic group in Viet Nam.

5. Hao Dat Tea Cooperative, Tan Cuong Tea Area
With the advantage of being located right in Tan Cuong - a famous tea area since ancient times, the cooperative has determined to build a brand by producing clean and safe tea according to VietGAP standards, high quality, ensuring hygiene and safety to be highly competitive in the market. Every year, members of the cooperative and associated groups are trained to improve their qualifications, master technology, understand the clean production process, and smoothly apply technical tools and machines in production. During the cultivation process, the households plant tea according to the natural process, completely eliminating harmful chemicals, pesticides, giving priority to biological pesticides, organic fertilizers and environment friendly.
The cooperative has built and put into operation the tea culture space since the end of 2019 to meet the need of visiting and experience of tourists and take advantage of the available strengths of the Tan Cuong tea area.

6. Phuong Hoang Cave, Mo Ga Stream
Phuong Hoang (Phoenix) cave and Mo Ga stream in Vo Nhai district, Thai Nguyen province is a national landscape. Those who love the nature can visit this tourist site to enjoy climbing mountains and bathing in a fresh and cool stream or visit a relic of the Bac Son-Vo Nhai uprising.
The cave and Mo Ga stream are part of a complex of limestone mountains. To reach the cave, visitors walk on a zigzagging precipitous path. Tiredness after one hour walking will disappear when they reach the cave, enjoying both its natural beauty and fresh and cool air. Stalactites inside the cave will help visitors imagine their watching an elephant kneeing down, or lions dancing and a woman embracing her child. Looking up, they can see a phoenix spreading its wings to welcome visitors.
The cave is not only a famous landscape but also a historical relic of the Bac Son-Vo Nhai uprising against the French colonialists. On November 27, 1944, militia and 373 local families with all the weapons they had: flintlocks, scimitars, stone traps and grenades pined a battalion of French soldiers down, causing a severe damage to them.
Going 150 meters farther from the cave gate, visitors will reach Mo Ga stream. This may be a cave-stream with water flowing from the inside. It is unclear how long the cave is. Going about 300 or 400 meters further inside the cave, visitors can see a fascinating beauty of the cave. Stones look like beds of fairies. Visitors can have a great pleasure swimming on a cool stream. Going there, visitors will have chance to taste some local delicious specialty dishes like bamboo-tube rice or wine.
Thai Nguyen Tourism Portal

Cuisine and Sightseeing