From 91 National Highway, crossing Thuan Hung boat,  the Tan Loc island will appear in your eyes with the green color of fruit gardens, peaceful villages and gentle breeze, bringing visitors feeling of relaxing.

The Tan Loc island is located in the boundary of the three provinces: Dong Thap, An Giang and Can Tho. It is a strip of land rising in the middle of Hau river and is raised by sand and alluvium from the upper source of the Mekong Delta, so it is also called “Sa Chau” (Sand Island). In the beginning, the island had only reed, people here mainly lived by catching cockles, snails and “bung bung chang chang” (a kind of mussel and is considered as specialty of the island). The island also had many other names associated with each development process. In the years from 1970 to 1980, this place was popular for growing sugar canes and making sugar. Once musician Pham Tuyen wrote the song namely “Quê ta có hòn đảo ngọt” (Our hometown has a sweet island) when he paid a visit in Tan Loc island, so the island was called “The Sweet Island” from that. Then, the inhabitants changed their career, they raised fish in boat houses and the island had a new name: “The Fish Village”. Nowadays, the Tan Loc island, with the area of more than 3.200 hectares land of alluvium, has developed many orchards combining with tourism.  

One of the tourism sites that cannot be ignored when coming to the island is guava garden of Miss Le Hong Diep with an area of about 4.000 square meters. Guava is grown under clean technology, so the fruits are big, showy and very sweet. Following the small path, visitors can pick up guava and taste immediately. Miss Diep said, “The fruits are wrapped when they are very small, so it is very safe for guests to remove the cover and eat right at the garden because I do not use chemicals, I grow them on traditional method” Most gardeners on the island carefully wrap their fruits. Thank to the alluvium, the fruits are delicious and very sweet. A few kilometers away from Miss Diep’s house is Mr. Do Trung Ngon’s garden, he has just put his garden into doing tourism since last April. With the area of 3 hectares, Mr. Ngon’s garden has grown oranges, rambutants, berries, and so on. Especially, he has many large ponds for visitors to go fishing or to row boats along the garden. With rambutant is the main fruit, Mr. Do Trung Ngon’s rambutant orchard is ripening in a riot of red in May and June, right on the occasion of The Tan Loc Fruit Festival. At present, visitors can visit orange orchard, go fishing, row boats or feed fish, ect.  Meanwhile, the coconut garden of Mr. Le Tan Nhuong makes visitors have the feeling of visiting Ben Tre with coconut trees arranged in straight lines and be outlined against the canal. The coconut garden has got an area of 7.5 hectares with 550 different types of coconut trees, such as red coconut, pandanus coconut and so on. After going around the island, visitors can stop here, lie down in hammocks to relax, get the fresh air and enjoy sweet coconut juice in this garden. Also, visitors can do sightseeing and take photos when rowing boats on small canals along the garden.

Visitors row boats in Mr. Le Tan Nhuong’s coconut garden. Photo: Ai Lam

Another fascinating experience in the island is exploring the ancient houses. The Tan Loc island has 12 ancient houses but a few of them are undamaged. The house of Mr. Tran Ba The (also called Mr. Six The) is the most outstanding among them. This house was constructed by Mr. Tran Thien Thoai (Long Xuyen province), Mr. Tran Ba The’s father, and finished the construction in 1935. Through many generations, the house still keeps its origin with the architecture combining between the East and West, square in shape with 3 large blocks and 2 small ones. The whole walls of the house were built with 2 layers of small bricks to create a cool space in every season of the year. The front of the house was built in Western style with lots of columns carved with sophisticated patterns to support the roof. His house is considered as a “Museum of Antiques” miniature with many antiques, such as: wooden lanterns in Chinese style of around the late nineteenth century hanging in the ceiling, incandescent gas lamp,  oil lamp from the United States of the early twentieth and tables, dishes and vases which were carved very sophisticated. When going to the yard, visitors will see the beauty of garden with many ancient trees, such as: over 200-year-old Anogeissus acuminata, over 50-year-old star fruit trees and so on. In the back of the house, there is a large lake, suitable for visitors relax and go fishing.

  Besides the ancient house of Sau The, Tan Loc has many other ones like Nguyen Van Ti’s, Huynh Quang Que’s and so on. Every house has its unique feature, visitors will experience all the ancient features and architectural beauty of these works when seeing them with the own eyes. Through the story of the owners, visitors will understand more about the culture and lifestyles of people in the South of Viet Nam in the past.

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Coming to the island, especially in fruit seasons, visitors can enjoy peaceful space in the village with fresh air and various kinds of special fruits such as mango, plum, rambutan, longan, guava, ect. It is easy for visitors to pick up fruits with an arm length above their head and enjoy the peaceful environment of the countryside.