Where the trees wearing number places

Entering inner Tra Vinh town, the asphalted streets feature tiled sidewalks in the shape of squares and chessboards. They are lined with straight centuries-old trees. Though each street is given its specific name, the local people tend to name it after a tree species planted along pavements such as Hang Sao street, Hang Me street, Cay Dau Lon street… The town is home to 29 species of flora with millions of trees. Especially, there remain hundreds of sao (hopea odorata), dau (dipterocarpus alatus roxb), me (tamarind) trees of 80 to 100 years old.

It is not by nature that Tra Vinh has preserved such a vast number of perennial plants for hundreds of years. With ethnic Khmer people constituting two third of the population, most Tra Vinh residents are Buddhists. The town is circled by 141 Khmer pagodas, creating an ancient Khmer architectural belt. Leaning against the shadow of tower shaped pagodas is a looming forest that makes the manner of pagodas more ancient. The connection of pagodas and trees has deeply rooted in the people’s hearts and handed down through the generations. That has helped to create the habit of preserving, tending a cultivating plants as nowadays. 

Since the 17th century, the pagodas have come into being here. They are located on the high and dry grounds which are airy. Local Buddhists worship three patrons of tree, water and flame. Especially, the places where locate numerous trees are believed to house several of deities. They digger wells around their neighborhood for watering the trees, by the way for the whole village to access drinking water. They have gradually made a habit of growing shady trees along the paths leading to their villages. 

On the road to Luong Hoa commune on the outskirts of the town, remains the unique dau tree (dipterocarpus alatus roxb). The tree is so large that four persons putting their arms cannot embrace it. Its trunk is rough while its spiral grain projects in an oddly uneven way. The canopy of leaves stretches out like an umbrella shading a whole large area. It is locally called Dau Du tree. From 1998, the perennial trees have worn their own number plates which help the locals get to know their condition and inform the local tree management company when necessary. The company’s tree chart includes a system to keep track of the condition of each tree. The company also sets up a mail box and a hot line to get informed of tree conditions.

The present average density of trees in Tra Vinh town is 14.27m2 per capita, the highest among the Mekong Delta’s towns and cities.

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

Southern Cuisine - Rooting Taste

Exhaustedly nostalgic one may feel. It turns out that under the gorgeous cover of cuisine culture is the core of the Vietnamese’s affection and moral principles. The Southern food is special in the way it is made that bears its own nuance and distinctively sweet flavour from the smell of vast countryside soil, the sweetness of impetuous rivers and canals during flood seasons, the immense Southwestern nautical wind, and the somber solemnity of layers after layers of prime forests and mountainous areas. That is the initial “row material”, reserving only for this delta where becomes “dat lanh chim dau” (good land for birds to perch) with favorable weather and more and more prosperous as a saying: “Ruong dong mac suc chim bay/ Bien ho lai lang ma bay ca dua” (Paddy fields boundless for birds to fly/ Rivers and lakes profuse for flocks of fish to race). Therefore, one cannot fine “Cho Dao rice”; the salted fish hot pot in “magnificent Ha Noi” even made by a An Giang chef may not surpass “the original” in the Southern land…

Bánh khoai mì

It is remarked that the Southern land’s cuisine is likened to a countryside girl that is naturally beautiful despite not wearing her make-up. Once talking about the dish of ca ro kho tieu (anabas braised with fish sauce and black pepper), Son Nam, the famed culturist, described like this: “Anabas is the king of freshwater fish, fish sauce is the cream of the ocean, sprinkling with a little black pepper is to take mountainous flavours…” Just as a popular dish but it collects all the nature’s flavours and represents the culture of a country. On this southernmost land, people have made the best of the nature for creating unique specialties at will in order to express the manner and hallmark of those once reclaiming the region – that is pioneering, carefree, not finical and nor standing on ceremony in disposition.

Banh u

Cá kho tộ

The fine cuisine of the Southern land (and Vietnam) implies the profound cultural strength which links not only space and time, tradition and modernity but human spirit and thought as well. In the framework of the program “Mekong River: Connecting cultures” organized in Washington D.C (USA) in 2007 by Smithsonian Institute, Artisan Nguyen Thi Xiem (67, from Tra Noc ward, Binh Thuy district – Can Tho) demonstrated the skill of making banh xeo (rice pancake folded in half filled with shrimp, meat and bean sprouts), banh tet (cylindrical sticky rice cake filled with green bean paste and fat pork), banh it tran (sticky rice patty)… which received great acclaim. Many audiences invited her to their houses, offered gifts… Not to mention the tastiness of the cakes she made, the fact she selected on her own the rice for grinding into flour, finding banana leaves for fastening cakes aroused the faded memory of Vietnamese overseas and revived their national love. Enjoying her cakes all of a sudden recalled them to the images of river and wharf in their childhood, their dedicated mother being wrapped up in cooking banh tet on the days approaching the lunar New Year, the fragrant smoke of burning rice straw spreading at sunset, the homeland flavour featuring cau khi (monkey bridge – a bridge make from a single tree trunk), pond unwavering, bunches of sweet carambola and storks gently gliding… 

Bánh ít trần

“Love towards the country is the longing and craving for the dishes fed by our parents when we were young”. As the time goes by, those plain foods and charming flavours sill imprint on their mind despite how far they may go. And strange as it is, the further one goes, the more anxiously.

Goi tep

Bánh chuối nướng

The program “Fine cuisine of South reclamation” has given rise to the trend towards origin cuisine of the former reclamation period amid the Vietnam integration into the world. Plain dishes such as ca loc nuong trui (grilled-straw snakehead fish), ran nuong leo (snake baked on the fire), mam kho (cooked salted fish), mam song (raw salted fish), chuot dong ro ti (roasted field mouse in coconut juice), luon hap trai bau (eel steamed with gourd), ech xao lan (frogs stir-fried with little or no water), ca ro kho to (anabas braised in earthenware pot), ca bong dua kho tieu (sand goby simmered in fish sauce with black pepper), canh chua ca loc (snake-head fish sour soup), hu tieu My Tho (My Tho – style thin rice noodle), tom lui Bac Lieu (Bac Lieu – style roasted shrimp sticks), nam tram Phu Quoc (Phu Quoc cajuput mushrooms)… still rise to fame as specialties which win the heart of diners right in prosperous urban areas. They also choose to enjoy those dishes in the most popular way possible. As for broiling, there are so many various ways: broil under burning charcoal, broil with a stick, plain broil, broil in jar, broil with straw, broil with clay cover, broil in bamboo tube…

Gỏi cá trê vàng

Bánh tét Trà Cuôn

For Chau Doc – style salted fish hot pot, it is fashionable for diners to consume with two dozens of rural herbs and vegetables like cu neo, tai tuong, cang cua, so dua flower, dien dien flower… The “Ca com de nhat name” (number one anchovy fermented roll) is typical for the delicacy of countryside dished. Fresh anchovy is washed off scales, and then soaked in salty water until their bodies are spliced. After taken out of the water, the fish is boned before steeped in fresh coconut juice for some time. Again get the fish out to dry and filter through a very thin cloth, squeeze dry then pounding them well with broiled garlic and many different spices (salt, sugar, fat, ground black pepper, galingale extract and powdered grilled rice…). After being rolled into galls, they are first wrapped in young leaves of chum ruot (a kind of fruit tree), then vong nem leaves and finally banana leaves, and stringed in the cruciform… The fine cuisine of Southern Vietnam is filled with the world of rural produce rich in materials, colors in harmony with the breath of expansive gardens and long rivers.

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

Mekong Delta

Mekong delta map

Situated in the lower section of the legendary Mekong River, the Mekong Delta (known as the Nine Dragon River Delta in Vietnam), Southern of Vietnam, covers 40,000 square kilometers and houses 17.5 million people. Embracing 13 provinces and cities, the Mekong Delta borders HCM City in the north, and the Gulf of Thailand and Cambodia in the west. The East, South and Southwest are encompassed by sea with a length of more than 700km.

Can Tho bridge is under construction

Floating market

The Mekong Delta has distinct advantages over other regions in Vietnam. That is mild weather (average 28 degrees Celsius), high sunshine intensity (2,226 – 2,709 hours of sunlight per year) and less vulnerability to natural disasters. The Mekong Delta currently is the colossal granary of all Vietnam, annually accounting for over 50% of the nation’s rice production, 90% rice export, 65% seafood production and 70% fruit production, making it one of the three largest economic areas of Vietnam. 

Originating in snow-capped mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, the 4,200 km-long Mekong River has two tributaries running through the Southern plains which are called Tien River and Hau River. The lower Mekong River region belonging to Vietnam has more than 1,200 species of fish, including over 60 species with economic value focusing on the carp family (Cyprinidae) and the giant catfish family (Pangasiidae), with an estimated output of 2 million tons/year. The Mekong River annually discharges into the region over 460 billion cubic meters of water, carrying some 150 – 200 million tons of silt which are 7 – 8 times than that of Hong River in the North. That makes this delta more fertile and affluent. 

The Mekong Delta is famous for its boundless rivers and interlacing canals. Over 700 km of seashores, some 28,000 km of rivers, thousands of km of canals, hundreds of green islets floating on the water and nine estuaries like nine mouths of the dragon keeping on impetuously pouring water into the sea make it convenient for rowboat-combined-with-pleasure boat tours penetrating deep to the canals system… 

Floating market (namely Nga Bay, Phung Hiep – Hau Giang, Cai Rang, Phong Dien – Can Tho, Cai Be – Tien Giang…) that have come into being for a hundred years are regarded as “the spiritual element”, the advancement of the Southern river civilization. A lively atmosphere is created by convoys of boats fully loaded with countryside products gathering in one locality, thousands of “bẹo” (a long bamboo pole set up on the boat used to hang up samples of what it sells) dangled high above the boat bow, inviting fellow traders even before the sun has emerged. Both buyers and sellers move by boat in the middle of the immense river. That countryside life picture is so specific to the South of Vietnam. There is even a “boat culture” diversified with sampans, wooden barges, junks and many kinds of fishing boats in different sizes and shapes. 

The Mekong River Delta becomes more pristine, natural and lively at the arrival of flood season. The first spell of the flood occurs around June to July, the crest of flood comes in September or October but flood waters gradually rise. The flood season arrives. Stretching as far as the eye can see, submerged rice paddies look dazzling white against brilliant yellow of blossoming “điên điển” flowers. From the distance appear fishmen on small boats placidly dropping their lines, casting their nets… 

The Mekong River Delta’s countryside and its horticulture methods have been evidenced by more than 2.000 rice species. Over 130 year ago, Go Cong round grain rice or Vinh Long long grain had represented Vietnam’s rices to become the first one exported to the West. Cai Mon, Cho Lach situated in the three large islands called An, Bao, Minh of Ben Tre province have been noted for fruit – tree grafting. Bonsai gardens and especially fantastic ornamental plants grown in the shape of animal designations associated with lunar years like rat, ox, tiger, dragon… are regarded as one of the special creations of the delta’s countryside. The artists develop their own grafting and shaping techniques which are distinguished from those of the Chinese, the Midland or the North. 

The Mekong Delta boats the land of biodiversity and rich produce. Taking a boat ride throughout the 700,000-ha Dong Thap Muoi, one will discover the wildly inundated low-lying area or explore Ca Mau mangrove forests which ecological system is similar to that of the Amazon estuary, and extensive U Minh cajeput forest. Being “Dat lanh chim dau” (good earth, bird land), the Mekong Delta is home to a great number of bird species, particularly migrating ones. 7 large breeding sanctuaries of herons, striped storks, egrets and bitterns have been discovered. Phuong Dong red-beaked cranes get together in Tam Nong – Dong Thap. Tram Chim Reserve has 92 known species of birds while U Minh forest is home to 81 species and dozens of bird sanctuaries where thousands of birds glide through a blue sky as the sunset comes. 

Ba Dong Sea (Tra Vinh), Khai Long Sea (Ca Mau)… which boast magnificient natural beauty are flooded with sunlight all year round. Ha Tien sea, especially Phu Quoc (Kien Giang), the Vietnam’s largest island sited in the Gulf of Thailand are a special favour which the Creator specifically dedicates for the heavily silted Mekong delta.  

The Mekong Delta is a place of converging and exchanging cultures of 4 ethnic groups: Viet, Khmer, Chinese and Cham, taking the place of the vanished Oc Eo culture as well as bearing the hallmark of the ancient Kingdom of Funan (Phu Nam in Vietnamese) which was once celebrated. Therefore, it is fascinating to arrange culture, custom, belief exploring tours. The life of local people is not confined to their village’s bamboo hedges but a wide open space, stretching along rivers and canals. That helps create their nature which is honest, open-minded, moral, hospitable, “tu hai giai huynh de” (within the four seas all men are brothers). 

Vong co (a special style of singing using the whole breath without any break), cai luong (reformed drama) are unique traditional art forms which are so specific and only exist in the South of Vietnam. Despite over 80 years passed, the song entitled “Da co hoai lang” (yearning for one’s husband upon hearing midnight drumbeats) still win the audience’s heart because of its noble humane nature: “Tu la tu phu tuong/ Bao kiem sac phong len dang/ Vao ra luong trong tin chang/ Nam canh mo mang/ Em luong trong tin chang/ Oi gan vang quan dau” (Ever since you received the call/ Took on your duty in war/ I keep walking back and forth, awaiting your news/ Staying awake throughout the night/ I have been longed for your news/ How painfully my heart throbs). 

A long with ancient Vietnamese communal houses are Chinese temples and pagodas. The magnificent Islamic mosque (known as Mubarak mosque) for the Cham minority community with its graceful onion-shaped dome stands reposefully along the Chau Giang River. The theravada-Khmer pagoda roofs are colorfully striking and sharp-pointed curved with images of the Krud Garuda mythical bird and the Naga snake engraved in a highly sophisticated way. Con Phung (Phoenix islet) in Ben Tre is the “holy land” of Dao Dua (Coconuts) featuring a court decorated with 9 dragon-carved pillars and a tower; Tay An ancient pagoda situated in the mysterious That Son mountain range (An Giang) is a worship place of the founder of Buu Son Ky Huong religion… Noted among hundreds of ancient houses standing along the Mekong is a 130-year-old house with five compartments and two rooves in Binh Thuy (Can Tho). 

The Mekong Delta is the land of festival as well. Thanh Minh (grave-sweeping) festival, in which people pays respects at their ancestors’ tombs, entices both the Vietnamese and Chinese. Cham people are proud of Hadji Festival, Ramadan. The Khmer community is jubilant with fine-toned music during festivals of Chol Chnam Thmay (New year), Dolta (Amnesty for the dead), Ok Om bok (Moon Prayer). There are also Via Ba Chua Xu (the birth anniversary of the local tutelary goddess) festival, Bay Nui (seven mountains) ox racing festival (An Giang), Nghi Ong (welcoming the whale) festival in coastal areas… The ancestors’ cultural identity has been preserved by hundreds of craft villages. An Giang has the brocade weaving village of Cham and Khmer people, the 100-year-old floating house village. Phu Quoc is most celebrated with nuoc mam (fish sauce) made with anchovies, peppers. Soc Trang boasts its mat craft. Go Den – Long An alcohol made with sticky rice has been renowned nationwide. There are also rice papers of Luong Hoa (Tra Vinh), the boat building village of Nga Bay (Hau Giang), the fishing net hamlet of Thom Rom, the bamboo fish trap of Thoi Long (Can Tho)… 

It was used to be a famous place

Lau mam (salted fish hot pot) of Chau Doc, the fascinating delicacy of the Southern land, cannot be called excellent if not accompanied by two dozens of several fresh vegetables and aromatic herbs like cu neo, tai tuong, cang cua, so dua flower, dien dien flower,… Thit kho nuoc dua (braised pork in coconut juice), can chua ca loc (snake head sour soup), ca loc nuong trui (grilled-straw snakehead fish), ran nuong leo (plain baked snake), mam kho (preserved salted fish stew), chuot dong ro ti (roasted field mouse in coconut juice), luon hap trai bau (eel steamed with gourd), ca ro kho to (anabas braised in bowl), ca bong dua kho tieu (sand goby simmered in pepper sauce), hu tieu My Tho (My Tho – styled noodle soup), tom lui Bac Lieu (Bac Lieu – styled shrimps roasted in stick), nam tram (boletus) Phu Quoc, Tunglomo (beef sausage blended with cold rice), Hapaychal pastry (Khmer people), canh Sim lo (banana flower soup cooked with fried salted fish), bun nuoc leo (rice noodle in snakehead fish, shrimp, pork, lemon grass broth), mam (salted fish) Prahoc (Khmer people)… and many other delicacies make the delta’s beauty more charming, pervasive, and unforgettable to tourists. 

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