Nha Mat Beach

Water slaps, children laugh, and the sea wind moves through a row of coconut palms. This is the Nhà Mát tourist area, on the coast of the old Bạc Liêu province, now part of Cà Mau. It is a place families come to for fun and for no other reason.

A company built the area and runs it. Work began in 2010. The first stage opened on December 20, 2015, and the company carried on with a second stage.

Under the national tourism plan, Nhà Mát is listed as a combined tourist area with three zones. One is for games and services, one is a park, and one is a resort with a shopping center. Together they cover more than 20 hectares.

The biggest attraction of Nhà Mát is its artificial sea for swimming. The Vietnam Tourism Association recognizes it as a unique tourism product of the Mekong Delta. Here a family can bathe in the sea without worrying about big waves or strong currents. Small children have a swimming area of their own, sized to suit them.

Beyond the water there are rides on dry land. There is a carousel, a roller coaster, a flying space ride, a mystery cave, a dinosaur cave, and a house of laughs. Many families have so much fun that they forget about lunch.

After swimming and playing, families often wander through the seafood eating area and the food street. A market of live fresh seafood sits right beside it, along with shops selling dried seafood to carry home as gifts for relatives.

The grounds also hold the Dragon Park, with Lạc Long Quân Mountain and Cửu Long Lake. Lạc Long Quân is a sea dragon lord of Vietnamese legend. The park was built to tell the legend of the Dragon and the Fairy, and to suggest the image of nine dragons tied to the Mekong Delta. It is a modern work, an unusual corner with a character of its own among the seaside fun.

Nhà Mát has no long history and no wild natural ecosystem. It has something else. There is the laughter of children bathing in the sea for the first time without fear of waves, a meal of fresh seafood right afterward, and a gentle afternoon wind on the shore of the Mekong Delta. It is that simple, and it stays with families for a long time.