Authentic cuisine, dancing, music and many more typical Vietnamese traits are available for visitors to experience on board the three-deck wooden boat Vietcruiser that travels along the Saigon River every Saturday, with chartered voyages six days a week.
The journey to experience Vietnamese specialties begins when guests step aboard Vietcruiser, as local girls in traditional attire, including ao dai, treat you with cakes and fruit of different regions and seasons.
On the bamboo trays are banh tet (cylindrical glutinous rice cake filled with green bean paste and pork), banh pia (flour cake with salty yolk, durian, green bean paste and taro), and many other sweet and salty cakes made from rice powder and other ingredients. Litchi, chom chom (rambutan), Vietnamese tea and other seasonal fruit on offer will add some flavor before the trip starts.
A buffet dinner begins once the 39-meter-long, 8.5-meter-wide Vietcruiser departs Nha Rong Wharf in downtown HCMC at around 7:15 p.m. During the cruise on the Saigon River at night to Thanh Da in Binh Thanh District and back to base, guests can walk around the serving counters on the ground floors to select goi (mixed salad), goi cuon (spring roll), grilled squid and shrimp, and other dishes featuring flavors of different localities in Vietnam.
Music and dances depicting cultural and historical glimpses of Vietnam are on show throughout the voyage that ends around 9:30 p.m. The melodious sounds of dan tranh and dan bau and other Vietnamese musical instruments will relax guests on board. Craftsmen are also a fixture on the Vietcruiser to make to he (toy figurine), which is made into toys for children to play at traditional festivals in the country from a mixture of glutinous and ordinary rice powder. With this material, the craftsman can shape animals, flowers or characters from folk stories and also do requests for guests. When dinner is over, a good idea for passengers is to sit and relax at their seats or go to the upper deck to view HCMC at night.
Tickets are priced from VND390,000 and allow guests to enjoy a wide selection of Vietnamese food specialties as well as music and dancing shows during the weekend voyage on the 256-seat boat. For the ticket price you also get some free drinks.
Note this is a special promotion price until the end of October.
More information is available at www.vietcruiser.com.