Vinh Long offers special Tet treat

Travel companies in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta Province of Vinh Long have launched many tours for this Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, targeting 2,000 foreign and more than 50,000 local visitors.
Under the Welcome Tet in Vinh Long programme organised by the Cuu Long Tourist Joint Stock Company, tourists will join local residents to prepare the year-end meals, making banh tet (cylindrical glutinous rice cakes) and take part in many folk games and other activities.
Tourists will also enjoy the art of brewing Vietnamese tea and riding bicycles along the island that teems with orchards and waterways.
The Vinh Sang Tourist Farm this year has co-operated with travel companies in HCM City to visitors to stay in local homes during the Tet festival.
Besides taking part in the daily life of local people, visitors will have chance to visit orchards, enjoy tropical fruit and traditional music and learn how to cook local special dishes.
To prepare for the Tet travel season, the farm has invested more than VND1 billion (US$54,156) to upgrade its infrastructure, improve service quality and set new games including grass slides and water sports.
The farm expects to receive more than 15,000 visitors for this festival, or 3,000 higher than last year, said owner Le Hoang Vinh.
Tran Minh Triet of the provincial Department of Cultural, Sports and Tourism said travel companies in the province this year had focused on adding innovations to their tour and avoiding overlap with other touring groups.
They had also paid more attention to community-based tourism, including visiting old houses in the province, offering the opportunity to discover the daily life of Vietnamese people in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta as the region opened up, Triet said.
Situated between the Tien and the Hau rivers, Vinh Long Province is bordered by Tien Giang Province to the north, Dong Thap Province to the north-west, Tra Vinh Province to the southeast, Hau Giang and Soc Trang provinces to the south, and Can Tho City to the south-west.
The province has high potential for developing tourism with many interesting places to visit including the Cong Than, That Phu and Van Thanh temples, the Tan Hoa Communal House, the Phuoc Hau, Tien Chau and Saghamangala pagodas and the An Binh Isle.
The province has nine travel companies and 45 hotels serving visitors.
Though the price of tour services has generally increased strongly for the Lunar New Year holiday, travel companies in the province have still retained their original prices and are offering discounts for tourist groups in the first days of the season.