Tourists can work as fishermen at My Khanh Tourist Village in Can Tho

On five hectares with more than 20 kinds of fruit trees, My Khanh Tourist Village offers something out of the ordinary for visitors to Can Tho City.

Established in 1996, My Khanh Tourist Village is a garden-type ecotourist site peculiar to the Mekong Delta and helps to give local and foreign visitors a better feel for the Can Tho area.

Visitors to the village can experience the old days of southern life by donning the garb of a rich landlord who lived in a big house. Wearing traditional clothes, you can enjoy fruit, hot tea and listen to music from a hand-operated gramophone made more than 300 years ago. The village tour also includes a visit to a rice field and a performance of traditional southern music. Costs vary depending on what you want to do and how long you want to stay - from VND150,000-800,000 (US$9-50).

If you are not interested in dressing as a wealthy landowner, you can try on the work clothes of a traditional farmer. Tourists wanting to get an inside look at a farmer’s life can put on an ao ba ba (traditional Vietnamese shirt), work and prepare meals as southern farmers did in the past.

Another thing that makes My Khanh Tourist Village special is the 100-year-old southern house that was moved piece by piece from Can Tho’s Binh Thuy Ward and reassembled.

The tour also includes folk games such as climbing arecas, breaking clay pots blindfolded, jumping in jute bags, and tugs of war which cost an additional VND50,000- 100,000 ($3-6).

The tourist village serves Mekong Delta specialties of baby rabbits, snakes, tortoises, bats, cuckoos and crocodiles also catered to groups from VND50,000-120,000 ($3-8) per person. The meals include regional fruits such as rambutans, durians, langsats, mangosteens, oranges, tangerines and pomeloes.

My Khanh Tourist Village provides accommodation with Central Highlands-style stilt houses - more than 300 well-furnished rooms in all. Rooms are VND150,000- 400,000 ($6-25) for two persons. Entertainment services include a swimming pool, fishing and boating on the river.

Reported by Diem Thu