Ben Tre

Ben Tre

Area: 2.322 km2

Population: 1.401.600 people (2008)

Ben Tre is adjacent to East Sea, the coastline is 60 km. Tien Giang province is on the North, the West and Southwest border Vinh Long province, the South border Tra Vinh. Ben Tre is 85 km from Ho Chi Minh city.

Ben tre comprises 9 districts: Ben Tre town, Chau Thanh, Cho Lach, Mo Cay Bac, Mo Cay Nam, Giong Trom, Binh Dai, BaTri, Thanh Phu.

Ben Tre’s tourism strength is characterized by the natural scenery, the ecological environment, coconut groves, and vast orchards

Monuments – Landscapes

• Phung islet (Mr. Dao Dua islet): Tan Trach commune, Chau Thanh district, Con Phung tourist area is on the floating isle in the middle of Tien River. There is Dao Dua monument with unique architecture. The inhabitants in Con Phung do handicraft with the materials from coconut palms and farm fruit trees for their living.

• Oc Islet (Hung Phong Islet): Hung Phong Commune, Giong Trom District, there are many coconut grove and orchards.

• Tien Islet: Tien Phong commune, Chau Thanh district, is a long and beautiful beach. Every year on May 5 (lunar) thousands of people come here to entertain.

• Vam Ho Bird Yard: My Hoa and Tan Xuan commune, Ba Tri district, about 500000 stocks and many kinds of birds live here with date palm forest and abundant vegetation.

• Cai Mon Orchard: Vinh Thanh commune, Cho Lach district, famous for many kinds of fruit such as mangos teen, durian, rambutan…

Festivals

• Phu Le Communal House Festival: Phu Le communal house is in Phu Khuong village, Phu Le commune, Ba Tri district. This is a place for Thanh Hoang Bon Canh worship. Every year, this festival take place twice, Ky Yen ceremony on March 18 to 19 (lunar) to pray for rain and wind (or for peace) and Cau Bong ceremony on November 9 and 10 (lunar) to pray for good crop. The festivities include a procession and a prayer consecrated to the village spirit who taught the inhabitants how to grow useful plants. At night, there is Hat Boi (a form of traditional drama) and amateur singing.

• Nghinh Ong (Dolphin Greeting) Festival is the festival for coastal village which takes place on 15th and 16th days of the Sixth Lunar month in Binh Dai and Ba Tri District. During the festival all the fishing boats anchor to participate in this ceremony.

• Fruit Festival is taken place at Cho Lach commune very year on the fifth of May (lunar). This is the exhibition and contest of the delicious fruit in Ben Tre. Visitors can come and enjoydelicious fruit on this occasion.

Specialties

Some specialties of Ben Tre are coconut, coconut candy, My Long rice paper, Son Doc chips, Cai Mon mangosteen, Cai Mon flowers, Chin Hoa durian, Phu Le alcohol….

(Mekong Delta Tourist Portal) 

Don Ca Tai Tu (Amateur Music Performance)

Don Ca Tai Tu (Amateur Music performance), a genre of art is offered as a welcoming gift for most travelers to the Mekong Delta. Don ca tai tu came into being in the late 19th century and early 20th century in the South of Vietnam. Composers and royal musicians of the Nguyen dynasty as following phong trao Can Vuong (Royalist Movement) into the South brought Ca Hue (Hue traditional singing) on them. On their southward way, they stopped at Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Quang Nam provinces, from that time on, Hue’s singing and sound of musical instruments had mingled with some flavour of the Quang land. However, as soon as getting into the south, the sound of musical instruments of the central region had been undergone considerable alteration, even several songs of similar names quite differed in melody. The southerners’ liberal disposition and way of life have made Hue traditional songs non-identical to their former original ones. 

Musical instrument players and singers both did not want to follow what they were taught by Hue – originated composers but always made some embellishment, adding a bit of their own creativeness, making the songs more charming and meaningful. On the other hand, for composers always longed for their homeland, the tunes and singing of don ca tai tu all sound vaguely blue. 

The fact that who invented the southern amateur music performance remains controversial. However, several studies have traced back to royal musician Nguyen Quang Dai (also known as Da Doi in the south) who was considered as the grandfather boasting a number of disciples well-known in this form of art. Then in the year of 1919, the song titled “Da Co Hoai Lang” (awaiting one’s husband) is seen as the precursor of modern Vong co (a song or more appropriately a cycle of patterns, performed in cai luong (renovated theater). It is the key among 20 original pieces of amateur music performance composed by talented musician Cao Van Lau in his home province of Bac Lieu (1919). These traditional songs have spread over the south and now become popular throughout the country which promoted don ca tai tu to a higher level. By the most flourishing time, amid the people’s increasing demand for art enjoyment, the southern don ca tai tu is seen as the groundwork for creating a new art genre that had been quickly taken shape and won the hearts of the folks in the south in specific and over the country in general. That is the theatrical art form called cai luong (reformed drama). Other genres of art normally tend to fade or to be splited into different forms after they reach their peak and especially there is a substitute. Meanwhile, the southern don ca tai tu is quite different. It has deliberately existed along the development of cai luong. Moreover, don ca tai tu itself has undergone incessant development and helped to enrich the theatrical art form of cai luong as well.

It is just its high adaptability as well as such a both scholarly and popular nature that make don ca tai tu always present in the southerners’ life and in non-stop development. The fact that Can Tho university has received a vast number of American and European students who came to learn the southern don ca tai tu and vong co proves the attraction of this musical genre. 

Once come here, please stay here! The following are excerpts of the two well-known songs of don ca tai tu. 

Dạ cổ hoài lang (tiền thân của vọng cổ ngày nay) – sáng tác: Cao Văn Lầu: 

Từ là từ phu tướng, 

Bảo kiếm sắc phong lên đàng. 

Vào ra luống trông tin chàng. 

Năm canh mơ màng. 

Em luống trông tin chàng, 

Ôi gan vàng quặn đau. 

Đường dù xa ong bướm, 

Xin đó đừng phụ nghĩa tào khang. 

Đêm luống trông tin chàng, 

Ngày mỏi mòn như đá Vọng phu. 

Vọng phu vọng luống trông tin chàng. 

Sao nỡ phũ phàng… 

Chàng là chàng có hay? 

Đêm thiếp nằm luống những sầu tây. 

Bao thuở đó đây sum vầy, 

Duyên sắc cầm lạt phai. 

Là nguyện cho chàng 

Hai chữ an bình an. 

Mau trở lại gia đàng, 

Cho én nhạn hiệp đôi. 

Tình anh bán chiếu – sáng tác: Cố soạn giả Viễn Châu 

Hò ơ… chiếu Cà Mau nhuộm màu tươi thắm 

Công tôi cực lắm mưa nắng dãi dầu 

Chiếu này tôi chẳng bán đâu 

Tìm cô không gặp 

Hò ơ… tìm cô không gặp, tôi gối đầu mỗi đêm 

Vọng cổ 

1. Ghe chiếu Cà Mau đã cắm sào bên bờ kinh Ngã Bảy, sao cô gái năm xưa chẳng thấy ra… chào. Cửa vườn cô đã khóa kín tự hôm nào. Tôi vác đôi chiếu bông từ dưới ghe lên xóm rẫy, chiếc sáo nhuộm bùn đã lấm tấm giọt mồ hôi. Nhà của cô sau trước – vắng tanh trong gió lạnh buổi chiều đông, bỗng có ai dạo lên tiếng nguyệt cầm như gieo vào lòng tôi một nỗi buồn thê thảm. 

2. Cô đã đặt đôi chiếu bông bề dài hai thước, có lẽ để điểm tô ở chốn loan phòng. Nhưng rồi hôm nay, cô đã quên tôi để cất bước theo chồng. Cô ơi! Đôi chiếu này tự tay tôi dệt lấy, tôi đã lựa từng cọng lác sợi gai. Nhưng khi tôi đến nơi thì cô đã rời bỏ quê nhà sang xứ khác, tôi đứng trước cổng vườn xưa với nỗi buồn man mác, còn đôi chiếu này tôi biết tặng cho ai? 

(Mekong Delta Tourism Guidbook – VCCI Can Tho – www.vccimekong.com.vn)

Discover The Islet's Land

Ben Tre is made up of three islets: Minh, Bao, An Hoa which are separated by four branches of Tien river (My Tho river, Ba Lai river, Ham Luong river and Co Chien river). As a product of Ben Tre Travel Joint Stock Co., the Mekong tour allows tourists to discover the beauty of rivers, canals and lush orchards on An Hoa islet. Joining this tour, visitors gather in Phong Phu tourist site located 14km north of Ben Tre town. After getting ashore from a Rach Mieu ferry, make a right turn and go for some 300m, one will see Phong Phu. 

Boarding the motor boat, go along Mieu Nho canal about 100m, one will catch sight of vast Tien river. Across the river is My Tho city (Tien Giang province). The boat quietly breaks waves on the river, east bound for Quoi An – a tourist site lying in the longan orchard of An Hoa islet. All houses here are roofed with nipa palm leaves while their walls, doors, windows, ridge beams, purlins, battens, and even rain gutters are all make out of coconut wood. 

This house displays many alien coconut species, tools for harvesting coconut fruits and around 200 products made of coconut wood. Next to it is the house of hand embroidery, covering 120m2 too, which is built in the shape of J (ding, 4th heavenly stem) character and included the main and secondary compartments. It was known that making this house required up to twenty over 30-year-old coconut trees with straight, smooth trunks and 12 meters in height of which 8 meters of their stumps were used for not being termite or worm-eaten. This house is mainly used for presenting Ben Tre’s hand embroidery products and selling coconut made handicrafts. 

Walking on the gravel path through the luxuriant orchard for about 150m, visitors set foot on the village path where 13 carriages are available. This kind of vehicle with plastic wheels was formerly used as a means to transport local agricultural products to the town market for sale. Today, they have been transformed in to “tourist vehicles” which are favorites of both domestic and foreign travelers. Such a ride costs 20,000 VND. 

Ben Truc tourist site, which is also located on An Hoa islet, has a band of amateur singers available performing several genres of southern traditional music for visitors. Under thatched camps, the sweet singing (of the amateur performers) penetrating into the hearts plus the sweet smelling of baby bananas, rambutans, green dragon fruits, pineapples with a cup of steaming hot honey tea make visitors feel more relaxed, almost carefree. Ben Truc also has twenty hand-rowing sampans which each is capable to carry 4-5 passengers. Both home and international tourists find it pleased to be served by a pretty girl rowing the sampan in ao ba ba (southern women’s traditional shirt that is long-sleeved, button-down, split at the sides of the waist forming two flaps and has two pockets at the very bottom of the front) with non la (palm-leaf conical hat) on the head. The boat cleaves through the water, making its way between two lines of verdant nipa palms showing off their brown globular seed clusters. The boat fee is 1,500 VND per person for groups and 3,000 VND for a single visitor. 

Tourists board back to Hao Ai restaurant. As coming near it, one will feel a bit puckish because of mouthwatering cooking aroma. As sitting at the table, on is served with ca tai tuong chien xu (giant gouramy deep-fried over high heat) with rice papers and green fresh vegetables, lau ca hu (mixed vegetables and pangasius conchophilus – a kind of catfish – hot pot), ca hu kho to (pangasius conchophilus braised in earthenware pot). These specialties are so tooth some that one may feel bewitched! After the meal, if you wish, you can rent a bicycle for a ride on the stone path under the shady trees. 

The restaurant has 30 mountain bikes for rent with 1 USD per ride. You can ride anywhere you like till the time to leave back.

(Mekong Delta Tourism Guidbook – VCCI Can Tho – www.vccimekong.com.vn)