By Emmanuel T.Erediano
Variety News Staff

TWELVE students from Whispering Palms School are set to leave for Vietnam this coming Friday for an educational trip.
The sixth to eighth graders will be with teachers and parents for a two-week tour that will take them to Ho Chi Minh City and other towns and cities in Vietnam.
Whispering Palms students get to visit other countries every two years, according to students Amber Roberts, Emma McCullough Stearns and Min Joo Jung.
They said this year they will learn about the history and culture of Vietnam while traveling in the Southeast Asian nation.
The students said they expect to see how the people in Vietnam live and visit various landmarks, historical sites and tourist destinations.
They will see the tunnel in Cu Chi where soldiers lived and fought underground during the Vietnam War.
Thu Trang and Steve Nguyen who work in the Public School System shared with them their own experiences during the war.
The students will spend a night on a train traveling from Ho Chi Minh City all the way to Hue where they will transfer to another train bound for Hoi An. There, they will see the old Tan Ky House, a covered bridge and the Phuc Kien Assembly Hall.
They will go by boat along the Perfume River to visit the colorful Thien Mu Pagoda as well as the tombs of Emperors Minh Mang and Tu Duc.
They will likewise visit the Ho Lo Museum, the Temple of Literature, an art museum and the Saigon waterpark before heading back to Saipan via Manila.
Roberts, McCullough and Jung said they began preparing for this trip as early as December last year by holding fundraisers. They sold cook books, washed cars and, with the help of their parents and school, held a golf tournament just recently.