Ben Tre is the capital city and municipality of Ben Tre Province and is located in the Mekong Delta area of southern Vietnam. It borders Tien Giang in the North, Vinh Long in the West and Southwest, Tra Vinh in the South and around 60km coast. It is around 85 km to the South of Saigon. The four main rivers are Tien Giang, Ba Lai, Ham Luong, and Co Chien. They create Bao, Minh, and An Hoa islets. The topography is flat with sand dunes and fields. Though rivers surround the province, water transportation are very available.
It is moon soon climate. The rainy season lasts from May to October. The dry season lasts from December to April next year. The annual average temperature varies between 26 and 27oC. The annual average rainfall is 1,250 mm – 1,500 mm.
Ben Tre and My Tho separated by Tien River and people were used the ferries to pass the river until 2009 when the Rach Mieu Bridge was completed.
The major economy of Ben Tre is agriculture. In the daily local life, people used coconut tree trunk to build their houses, the leaves for cooking, the flesh of coconut for making oil and etc. Today, coconut tree is the main material to make special handicraft products. By the skin of coconut, they make nice carpets. By the coconut’s shells, people make a lot of handicraft stuffs. Ben Tre coconut candies are famous in domestic and have been exported to many countries in the world.
Coconut Candies
Having complex network of rivers and canals, Ben Tre has advantage to develop ecotourism with many green fruit gardens. Ben Tre is the granary of Mekong Delta. There are agriculture productions such as rice, corn, pineapple, custard-apple, star apple, durian, mango, longan, and many more. Industrial trees are tobacco, sugar-cane, and cotton. Especially, Ben Tre is homeland of coconut. It is known with Ben Tre coconut candy, My Long Cai Mon Flower and ornamental plant. Ben Tre is well known as poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu’s motherland. Other popular places are My Hoa Bird Reserve, Con Phung (Hillock of the Coconut Religion), Vam Ho Bird Sanctuary, Vien Minh Pagoda.
Along with My Tho, Ben Tre is one of the attractive destinations. Tourists can take one day trip from Saigon to My Tho then Ben Tre. For tourist who loves nature and the countryside, Ben Tre will offer for staying and overnight at a home-stay. Tourists will have a chance to experience how the Southern people life is. Everything is very simple there. Especially, tourists are able to enjoy a boat trip on Tien River, sightseeing the floating fishing village, trying the horse –cart, learning how to make the coconut candy, rowing a small boat in a small branch of a river and admiring the beautiful view in countryside.
Coconut Handicraft Villages
Coconut Handicraft Villages - Making fine handicraft products is one of the characteristics of Ben Tre, because this is the home land of coconut, which is used as the only materials for this kind of handicraft products. In the hands of the dexterous worker-artists here, any single piece of coconut materials may turn into fine items with great charm and fantasy, such as animal statuettes, human face statuettes…
Coconut candy is another kind of Ben Tre specialty and a traditional product, which is sold both in domestic stores and exported to many countries around the world. Tourists can find these products mostly in Chau Thanh District (Con Phung, Con Quy, An Hoa) and Giong Trom District. For coconut candy, tourists can go straight to buy directly from the makers on Dong Khoi Boulevard in the Township downtown.
Rice Paper Cakes Villages
Rice Paper Cakes Fillages - The “Banh trang”, “Banh phong” - (rice paper cakes) in My Long and Son Doc, Giong Trom District are still well-known for their fine taste. Despite the main materials to make these cakes are husked rice and sticky rice, the makers of the cakes seem to hold their knowledge – how in secret and are very resolute to keep them from being leaked to outsiders. They are also keen to renovate such know-how secrets to produce finer and finer cakes to serve up to modern consumers. By the way, they not only sell the stuffs but also help spread their local identity out to other regions and the world.
Rice Paper Making
Rice Paper Making
Rice Paper Making
Vam Ho Bird Sanctuary
Van Ho Bird Sanctuary is a submerged region in Ba Tri, Ben Tre, which is located 52 km east of Ben Tre City and 120 km from South of Saigon. This spectacular place contains many wild forests with a great variety of trees including water coconut, mangrove, reed and Avicenna. Vam Ho becomes a favorite destination for many animals, especially birds, to which the region is dedicated. There are about 84 species of birds in 35 classes, including 500,000 storks. From April to October is the best time to see the storks, as this is the time when they take refuge in Vam Ho Garden to produce and raise their young.
The birds can be seen during the day, but early evening after 5:00 PM is the most exciting time to watch them. At sunset, great flocks of storks fly over the Ba Lai River to turn around under a glowing sky and land within the green forest. The sound of thousands of birds mixing and playing, dancing and whooping becomes the enchanting song of the jungle.
Inside the Vam Ho Bird Sanctuary, visitors have a chance to travel around by boat, penetrate the submerged forest and walk along narrow bamboo bridges to fill their chests with the purified air of a well-preserved wetland. Also, travelers can rest under the shadow of the forest or visit relics of resistance from the Vietnamese – American War.
Brick Factory
Brick Factory is one of the popular industries in Mekong Delta. In the past, Vietnamese used many natural materials for building house such as clay mud, timber and water palm leaves. Especially, Mekong Delta got a friendly weather all year round and it had strong storm or typhoon, so people tended to make their house simple and temporary. Till the late of nineteen century, French Governors built palaces and houses which were more solid and stronger, and used to be made by cement and brick. Vietnamese quickly learnt from French techniques and gained more skills to make brick. With large of clay resources around Mekong Delta and full of natural fuel such as rice husk, char coal and mud coal, local people have fulfilled demand of brick in constructions
There are many brick factories in Mekong in general and Ben Tre in particular. During state economic system, brick factories belonged to government but since 1990, most of brick factories are private. There are 15 workers working in here and capacity of each kiln from 8,000 to 12,000 bricks. For the worker, there are 3 types of workers, from simple work to complicated work. Simple worker will carry brick for drying, loading and unloading brick before and after heating. They also move brick from factory to truck and they are paid by per day work. Skilled workers are people operating cutting machine and looking after kiln during heating time. Brick is used for popular construction works such as building house, building, pavement and even house for animal for pig, chicken or cow.
There are two popular types of brick. The first type is called “Gach The” – solid block about 20 cm x 10 cm x 5 cm. Another type is “Gach Ong” with 4 holes for air-ventilation. This type is used for wall built because the brick is thick and good for sound proof and temperature roof. From here, there are also 3 categories of quality for each type of brick depending on the colour of brick.
Gach Ong
Gach The
Coconut Workshop
Coconut Workshop - Ben Tre is well-known as a coconut island because it has a largest coconut growing area in Mekong Delta. A thousand of people are living on 40,000 hectares of coconut tree. The farmers have lands and grow coconut trees. Then they sell coconut fruit to middle man. Coconut workshop where we visit now, people separate coconut flesh from coconut and sell them to manufacturer. Coconut candy, most of processes are making by hand so it requires number of workers. Ben Tre has not got a fertile land as other prince of Mekong Delta. Soil is not good if famer grows other fruit trees such as mango or orange. That is why, hundred years ago, farmer grows coconut for many generations, and therefore they have most experience in growing this type of tree. Coconut tree grows up to 3 years before having fruits, so local cannot grow other type of tree. However, coconut fruit can be harvested all year. From flowering time to fruit time, it takes about 30 days and only some coconuts of one bunch could be picked at a time, people have to climb up the tree and pick by hand or they uses a long bamboo stick to pick coconut. Locals also use a string put around their legs so they can climb up easily but require strength. Coconuts when they are still green, the juice is sweet and refreshable and it has very high nutrition and it is better than energy drink you have at home. When coconuts become brown or lighter called “dry coconut”, they will be thicker, harder and the juice is sour, we should not drink the coconut at this age, instead that we should use the flesh to make coconut milk, coconut jelly, cooking oil, candy, and perfume.
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