03 January 2008
With only one month until the Lunar New Year 2008, or Tet 2008, many tour operators have launched special tours for tourists to relax and enjoy the special atmosphere of the Vietnamese holiday.
Of the numerous options available, many foreign tourists are selecting tours that take them to rural regions to see local people celebrate Tet in a traditional way. Among them is the tour to flower gardens in Sa Dec Town, Dong Thap Province, around 140 kilometers southwest of HCMC.
Sa Dec is known as the flower and bonsai center of the Mekong Delta region. For the Lunar New Year, around 1,500 gardening families in the center are expected to provide over three million flower pots and bonsai to Vietnamese customers for Tet 2008.
Vietnamese and foreigners view the region as a preferred place for tours during Tet, and the most visited part of Sa Dec is Tan Qui Dong, a place which is full of nurseries packed with roses, chrysanthemums and cypress bonsai.
Ben Thanh Tourist, HCMC’s tour operator has chosen February 2, 2008 to launch a two-day and one -night tour to the region. Tourists can see countless potted plants on wooden racks next to the rice fields, placed there to take advantage of the extra humidity, as well as the villagers working hard to arrange the flowers and bring them to different regions to sell. Every house in every street will be decked out with fresh flowers when spring arrives.
Because tourists will be traveling on the very days of Tet, they will have little opportunity to see the bustling preparations as women arrange the flowers, put flowers in pots or tie them up in bundles while men carry the flowers from the fields to trucks waiting along the roads to transport them to HCMC and other regions.
However, tourists can walk around one kilometer of gardens, see the most beautiful flowers, and buy some of them at low prices to bring to their homes.
As well as spending half a day exploring Tan Qui Dong, Ben Thanh Tourist will also take tourists to Huynh Thuy Le old house, Kien An Cung pagoda, a pottery village, and the Vinh Sang Farm in Vinh Long, where they can become amateur farmers or catch fish for their lunch, among other activities.
The tour costs approximately VND1mil per guest for a group of 8 to 11 people, VND895,000 per guest for a group of 12-15 people or VND795,000 per guest for a group of 16-23 people.
Tourists who are traveling in a group may ask the tour operator if alternate dates for the tour can be arranged.
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