ASIA TRAVEL BLOG

With the newly opened HCMC-Trung Luong expressway, Tien Giang Province is now just over 40 minutes drive from HCMC. Tourists who like eco-tourism will find many places in Tien Giang Province that will interest them, including the Cai Be floating market.

For anyone unfamiliar, the floating market is a strange concept. However, visitors will understand as soon as they see the boats filled with vegetables, fruit and various consumer goods running back and forth along the river that runs through Cai Be town to make sales transactions, from early morning until late in the evening.

Tourists can hire a powerboat to sail along the river to experience exactly how buoyant and animated a floating market is. Cai Be market begins from about 5 a.m. as merchandisers purchase their goods there and then sail to other provinces. It is currently one of the biggest wholesale markets in the Mekong Delta region.

The wooden boats sell flowers and agricultural products, domestic goods and food. On the deck of one boat, we can see a family and even some dogs, pigs and chickens as the boat is their mobile home. The boats can stop to bank at land whenever and wherever their drivers like.

Tourists can also enjoy their breakfast, a hot bowl of Hu tiu My Tho (My Tho-style noodle soup) with a dark coffee, on the boats.

The special market forms on the place that meets the river flows of Vinh Long, Tien Giang and Ben Tre and gathers hundreds of boats which carry goods, especially agricultural goods from other provinces, including Vinh Long sweet potatoes and Hau Giang pumpkins. Cai Be Town, where those rivers cross, is renowned for its fruit including the terracotta colored oranges, the sweet Hoa Loc mangoes or Xa Li guavas.

Tourists need not ask what each boat sells, as products are clearly visible, allowing customers to choose the boat they would like to see.

Alongside the floating markets are houses and construction sites built close to the river or even on the banks, as people there mostly earn their living by fishing or selling products on boats. At sunset, sailing along the river to contemplate the old and new buildings casting shadows on the water will give tourists unforgettable memories.

After sailing on the river for a while, tourists can drop by a farmer’s house to take a rest, spending the day in fruit farms, tasting local cuisine and produce, and listening to old stories.

For those who have a tight schedule, visiting Cai Be floating market or the fruit farms will only take one day.

ASW/SGT

Tan Quy Dong Flower Village, located in Sadec Town in the Mekong Delta’s Dong Thap Province, is busy in the peak flower-growing season to brace for the coming Tet holiday.

The village, watered by the silt rich Tien River and nourished by the southern sun, is home to hundreds of famous flowers and plants of the region. Considered one of the ornamental plant centers of the southern region, the village covers about 60 hectares with 600 families and nearly 3,600 gardeners.

When the swallows start mating in the spring air, the village is in its festive time with thousands of flowers blossoming and long lines of vehicles to collect ornamental plants to transport to HCMC and other provinces to beautify the traditional holiday.

If you plan to visit the Mekong Delta provinces of Long An and Tien Giang and the region in general, why not spend half an hour to travel about 21 kilometers from My Thuan Bridge to a famous flower village in Dong Thap Province’s Sadec Town.

Here lies a real regional floral paradise in the new spring season. The Tan Quy Dong Flower Village is busy now in the peak flower-growing season to be ready for the coming Tet holiday.

SGT

My Tho Town offers a welcome respite from the rough and tumble of Ho Chi Minh City.

After five days of shop-tillyou-drop in Ho Chi Minh City, a splendid place for such activity, we were sorely in need of another short holiday to recover from this one.

“Why don’t you travel to My Tho this weekend?” a Saigon friend of mine, suggested. She described the perfect antidote to our days in HCMC: “It’s a peaceful, riverside town hidden in lush orchards.”

A day trip to Tien Giang Province sounded like a great idea to us – me, this northern girl, and two friends of mine from Los Angeles.

On the road to this town, there was a curious sense of homecoming for me as my father used to work here as an engineer during the subsidy period.

My Tho is around 72 kilometers south of HCMC. Since the 17th century, the fertile land in the north of the Tien River has been reclaimed and developed by generations of inhabitants into an area lush and green with rice fields and orchards, and trade has thrived for centuries along its river banks.

As the road became broader and many small canals, green rice fields and orchards came into view, I knew we would be in My Tho before long.

In the town, we started to stroll aimlessly through peaceful lanes with no names, inhaling the fragrances of garden fruits carried by the breeze. Then we entered a small lane leading to one of the tributaries of the legendary Mekong River. It was noon and we could see the sun shining brightly and proudly on the magnificent river with many colorful boats sailing up and down.

Both banks of the river were bordered by water coconut groves and orchards. It was so peaceful it seemed that it was only yesterday I was walking with my father on the green banks of the river to the wooden wharf looking at pretty goby fishes swimming by.

“It’s so beautiful! I have seen this river in a film on old Indochina and I hope one day we can travel along this river up to Cambodia,” said my friend Robert Sheen.

Accepting our tour guide’s suggestion, we took a boat on the Mekong River and later moved to one steered by a woman in a conical leaf hat, through the red canals were shaded by water coconut trees. It was not difficult to blend into the surroundings with our silence broken only by the slapping sounds the boat made as it moved through the water.

“The water here is red because of the alluvial soil which creates fertile islands like Thoi Son, which we are going to visit now,” said Muoi, our tour guide.

On the island, sitting in the shade of the orchard, tasting its fruits plucked fresh off the trees, listening to don ca tai tu (amateur southern Vietnamese Opera) – it was exactly the experience we wanted. Then we walked around some gardens, listening to the crunch of dry leaves under our feet and watching, but not envying, the hard working tiny bees flying from one tree to another to make honey and pollinate flowers.

As the sky got darker, we had to travel back to HCMC. I was a bit jealous as I saw other relaxed tourists coming into the town. But I knew I would come back to My Tho to discover the place afresh, every time.

TN