Exploring culture of Vietnam’s southern waterways

The South of Vietnam is a spacious area with rivers, streams and green fields, forming a unique cultural feature of waterways. To explore some of the cultural features of the south while relaxing in open and luxuriant places, tourists visiting HCMC need only go as far as the Binh Quoi II Tourist Resort, 5km away from the city centre. Located on the banks of the Saigon River, Binh Quoi II Tourist Resort is built with different areas offering a variety of services, from food to entertainment, games, bungalows and stages for cultural and art performances that are rich in Vietnamese identity. One notable feature of the resort is the dance and music performance, staging a “traditional marriage ceremony of the South” in the customary style, in combination with a tour of the river. This performance is staged with great care to replicate a traditional marriage ceremony of the southern people, with the scenes from matchmaking, proposing marriage to meeting the bride and bringing her home in boats on the river. The programme runs from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Guests will be picked up at the port of Bach Dang Wharf in the city centre at 5:30 and taken on a tour of the Saigon River to Binh Quoi Tourist Village II. There, they will have a meal and enjoy the cultural performance from 7 p.m. The package price of the tour is US $13 per guests. This is the only tour offering this performance to foreign guests in HCMC. The unique tour attracts many tourists and leaves a unique impression. There are also a group of restaurants with a capacity for up to 1,000 guests in the resort along the Saigon River bank. Besides European and Asian dishes, these restaurants also serve specialties collected from many regions and areas around Vietnam, such as snails stuffed with meat and ginger leaves, grilled chicken with steamed glutinous rice, a five-coloured vegetable dish and fish hotpot. The restaurants also offer several buffet programmes with more than 60 kinds of seafood dishes. Guests may also order special dishes for parties. Binh Quoi Tourist Village II has a total of 43 bungalows sheltered in a quiet and green space that is hard to find in the busy city centre. The village is equipped with a number of canoes, all with lifesaving devices, and offers insurance to guests choosing to travel on the Saigon to visit places such as Can Gio Ecotourism Site, Cu Chi Tunnels, Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces.

(Source :Vietnamtourism-info)