Can Tho Grand prison “played a big role” during the French and Vietnam wars, writes The Culture Trip. “This is where all the Vietnamese dissenters and revolutionaries were held in cruel conditions, tortured and executed.” And today you can see “eerie mannequins displayed around the premises,” depicting what life was like for them.
There are 21 detention rooms to explore, notes The Culture Trip as well as a kitchen, a church and a pagoda. Built by the French around 1886, the prison is “one of several French colonial era prisons found throughout Vietnam,” explains Travelfish. During the colonial period, prisons became “the convenient way” for the French (“and when they left, the South Vietnamese and Americans”) to deal with “resistors and revolutionaries.”