Return the Southwest Viet Nam for visiting Hau Giang

The Southwest Vietnam is characterized by very far and long rivers and tottery foot bridges spanned across zigzag arroyoes. The Southwest Viet Nam – “silt love seems turbid but clear”. Please return the Southwest Viet Nam to visit Hau Giang land. The Southwest Viet Nam where you can wallow in beloved rivers. This makes you miss, miss the land forever and then return for a visit!

The feeling of Ms. Tran Thi Giao Thuy after the trip to the Southwest Viet Nam as follows:

Return the Southwest Viet Nam for visiting Hau Giang

The Southwest Viet Nam appears with two river-banks and simple metal roofing houses in close together built tottering on indigo or ciment concrete piles. On river wharf, the dirty black children thrash in the current of grey water, laugh and wave hello the tourists with the careless and cheerful smiles on their face.

On arrival at this land, the tourists will get on the boat and then graze rows of trees, trade villages and orchards. The tourists can stop in each place for a moment to enjoy the specialities of the Southwest Viet Nam with the hearty and warm welcome of the inhabitants.

Visiting trade villages, bakehouses and pottery-kilns is one of the pleasures on the Southwest Viet Nam tours. The paper-cake manufacturer of Ms. Nguyen Thi Ut is always crowded with the tourists’ visit. The pieces of hemispherical and yellowish paper-cake, pie and brownish yellow sweet potato cake beaded by sesames look attractively. Please try the pieces of cake which are still steaming hot, brittle and meltable quickly in your mouths with the sweet taste of refined sugar, the greasy taste of coconut milk and the pervasive aroma of vanilla and sesame still remain in your feeling.

The grilled rice house of Mr. Pham Van Ho is nearby. The group of tourists stood round a young worker named Ba to understand his job. With about two cans of sticky rice, after being roasted with hot sands, the sticky rice seeds will burst and create a basket of very white rice crispies. After the sands and the rice husks in the basket creened, the rice crispies will be mixed boiled sugar with coconut milk, and then moulded and cut into rectangle small pieces.

The coconut candy workshop of Mr. Tran Van Minh is located in the small branch of Tien river. Coconut milk is concentrated paste in big pans, and then it is put in trays for drying and cut into tablets and eventually packaged… The tourists looked at Ms. Vui, Mr. Minh’s wife, admiringly when she cut the candy bits into equilateral small tablets in a flash...

The melaleuca forest, the specific characteristic of the Southwest Viet Nam. Photo: Giao Thuy

The boat continued to move through the rows of aegiceras, corks, the orchards of longan laden with fruits and then moored in An Binh isle with the green orchards stretched as far as the eyes could see. We were absorbed in looking at bunches of red rambutans flickering behind green leaf canopies, and then asked Mr. Bay Rau, the host: “Why don’t you pick them? It seems a pity where they are too ripen and fallen!”. Mr. Bay smiled upright and shaked his head: “There’s no need for picking them! Let the tourists enjoy in comfort! It’s inappreciable!”. Behind the house, there was a dense durian orchard. The wind from the channel flow made the specific flavour of ripen fruits pervasive in space, which makes the tourists intoxicating.

A lunch prepared under the shadow of the rows of trees laden with fruits. There were only hick simple-mannered dishes: including green cabbage soup cooked with ginger, pseudapocryptes elongatus cooked in fish source, fried french bean, shrimp simmered until it is dry…But it was very nice! “Maybe thanks to raw and fresh materials “in site”, aren’t they?”, I said to Mr. Bay, and he nodded in agreement: “In the hick land, there is flood yearly. This makes us hard, but thanks to the flood, the level of the isle is raised by silt. So, trees grown here all give us sweet fruits!”.

After lunch, we had a rest on hammocks in the orchard. Sway while listening to the birdsong is also an unusual pleasure in the urban. The noise of spotted doves echoed back somewhere. The familiar noise took me back my childhood. At that time, I and kids regularly waded across the small river in front of my house to the other side for picking “sim” fruits in edd tide season. “Sim” fruits were ripen juicy, shiny black, very tasty…

Living in the city, I haven’t heard the noise of spotted doves for a very long time. “Sim” fruits and the wadi river with the current of limpid water flowing wanderingly, and sweeping very white gravels in the bed back, are always attached to my memory of the memorable land. It is strange because I am having returned my childhood with the lively coo in the remote land of the Southwest Viet Nam.

The boat continued to worm way into the animated villages which are farming fishes under the craft-houses on Hau river. Each craft-house is a small world of living activities including: eating and drinking, taking shower, studying, loving and generating…

Coming in Mr. Hung’s house, the group of tourists clustered together to look at the shoals of pangasius, red african carps, african carps… fighting over baits. Under sunlight, the scales of these fishes were shining as the fireworks at festival night. Never would I see this rare scene if I didn’t come the Southwest Viet Nam.

The brocade textile industry in Cham village where is also an interesting destination. The tourists can not only select several things among brocade types as souvenirs but also look at charming Cham girls by looms and hear the pleasant clatter of the shuttles.

Can Tho city, the capital of the Southwest Viet Nam, where is the most animated place in the Mekong Delta, spreads about 65km by the bank of legendary Mekong river. Staying at “Tay Đo” for one night, I wandered through the city by Mr. Sau Tho’s a bicycle pedicab which is one of the specific characteristics in the Southwest Viet Nam. And I could feel the security here without snatching crime at night, which is different from other big cities.

On arrival at Ninh Kieu Quay, a landscape in Can Tho, Mr. Sau pointed at the river and said: “In further time, the embankment with 10km in length along two sides of the river will be built and connected with Ninh Kieu Quay”. He said with his proud tone: “The investments is up 575 billion VND!”. I was a little surprised because Mr. Sau was a common inhabitant but how can he be very knowledgeable about this planning project?

On the third day, the boat grazed on masses of very green water hyacinth drifting dully, and besides dense indigo forests, junks which filled with fruits in all colours and fresh vegetables in all types forged ahead on the river. And on sampans, the girls craned their body and tried to control oars …, towards Cai Rang floating market.

Trading on the river in Cai Rang floating market, Can Tho. Photo: Giao Thuy

On mid-market-time, there were boats, junks in all types close together with original product introduction: a pole (announcement long stick) carrying goods pitched in front of the prow. Please look at the “announcement long stick”, and then you will know what the goods on a certain junk is: gourd, watermelon, spring inion bulb, water cassava, manioc, sweet potato, ... Besides, in the market there were service junks as mobile shops to serve the demands of the tourists: including food, drink, cigarette,…, and even the demands of beauty salon such as haircut, hair washing, massage, sauna, point accupuncture,…

Without snatching, inviting with insistence or any hampering action to the tourists, and they themselves could select, feel and be interested in the goods by their special ways. With simple action and speech as well as hearty reception, the inhabitants in this river region made a strong impression on the tourists’ heart.

All those images will still pull us to return this beloved land one more … I said good-bye to Hau Giang, dear Can Tho city, and the Southwest Viet Nam, but the lyric songs on the Southwest Viet Nam of musician Tran Long An have still remained in my mind forever with a lots intermixture feelings.

“Return the Southwest Viet Nam for visiting Hau Giang.
Love the lyric songs as long-standing lullabies.
Love the rice growing quickly following people.
Expose to the sun and rain for the green of the fields”.
The happy life, and the current of water going down.
Silt love seems turbit but clear.
Look at the current of water flowing glacially.
Love nine branches of river in our homeland.
Can Tho with white rice and clear water is here”

(The passage from “Hau Giang flock of magpies” of musician Tran Long An)

Tran Thi Giao Thuy

For showing your love of the Southwest Viet Nam, land and people in Hau Giang as well as Vietnamese Rice Festival, please contact with us by email address: nttloan@haugiang.gov.vn. Tel.: 07113.500009. Mobile number: 0987888826.