Japan’s cruise liner Pacific Venus carrying 550 tourists and crew docked at the Saigon Port on Feb. 3, the first day of the Lunar New Year, becoming the first foreign visitors to Ho Chi Minh City.

The tourists, mainly Japanese, are on a five-day trans-Vietnam tour from Jan. 31 arranged by Saigontourist travel agency. They visited Ha Long Bay, Da Nang central city, Hoi An ancient town and Hue imperial city.

In HCM City, they are scheduled to visit the Nguyen Hue flower street, learn about the Vietnamese traditional dress (Ao dai), watch a water puppet performance, make tours of the Cho Lon market, the Cu Chi tunnel and the Mekong delta city of My Tho .

The Pacific Venus liner will leave HCM City for Thailand on Feb. 4.

During the New Year festival, Saigontourist also accommodated the cruise liner Amdedea of Germany with 950 passengers and crew on board, mainly Germans. This was an adventure tour of Ho Chi Minh City-Binh Duong-My Tho from Jan. 31-Feb. 2.

The travel agency will welcome the Costa Classica cruise liner carrying 2,150 passengers and crew from China and Hong Kong to visit Ha Long Bay from Feb.7 and 8.

Also on the first day of the lunar New Year, the Bai Chay tourist port welcomed three delegations with nearly 100 tourists from the Republic of Korea, Japan and China to visit Ha Long Bay, becoming the first tourists in the Lunar New Year to Quang Ninh northern province.

The port planned to allow about 230 boats with a total of 2,300 tourists on board to visit Ha Long Bay on the same day.

Earlier on Feb. 1, the oceangoing liner Azamara Club Cruises carrying 600 passengers, mainly Americans, Britons and Germans, docked at the Cai Lan port to visit Ha Long Bay./.