Ben Tre, Mekong Delta -

Monuments and Parks

Coming to Ben Tre, one should not bypass some of the most visible features of the land: parks and monuments present everywhere. These are all purported to retain memories of the once glorious time of the revolutionary struggles for freedom and independence.

The Province has two large parks and a lot of small ones. One of the large parks is the Monument Park located at the Township centre, midway of Dong Khoi Boulevard. The other is located along the Ben Tre River bank. These are considered as places for good leisure time, where local people as well as visitors can take a walk in the evening or just sit on the benches for a breezy wind. They are also common grounds for local residents to do exercise in the morning or evening.

Most notably are the many monuments scattering across the province. They are mostly built to memorize Ben Tre people's past victories during the wars against foreign invaders. Some of the most notable monuments include the Dong Khoi Monument in the Township central Monument Park; the victory monument in My Nhon, an Binh Tay, Ba Tri District; the monument in Gia The, Thanh Phu District; the monument in Lo Tho, Chau Thanh District, etc

The Tuyen Linh Pagoda

The Pagoda is located in Minh Duc Commune, Mo Cay District. It was built in 1861, once frequented by many patriotic intellectuals and artists in the 1920s. Later on, it became one of the revolutionary facilities throughout the two resisting wars. Especially, Tuyen Linh Pagoda was where Junior Doctor Nguyen Sinh Sac - the father of President Ho Chi Minh- stayed for a while, and here he met with local patriotic intellectuals.

Now Tuyen Linh Pagoda has been classified as national historic-cultural relic and becomes one of the attractions to visitors to Ben Tre Province.

The Coconut Cake of Giong Luong

Written by Nguyen Bay

Giong Luong formerly was the place name of a stretch of elevated land along the bank of Ham Luong River, Ben Tre Province. It had gone into the far back past for a long time, and now just exists in the memories of the people who have been living here for generations. Now it is called Dai Dien Commune, and life is just as miserable and hard as in the old time.

However, Giong Luong is not only a land of misery and hardship, it also has the long-favoured kind of cake called banh dua (coconut cake), locally made from boiled sticky rice mixed with black bean or adsuki and rolled in strips of nipa tender leaf. The real cake tastes wonderfully and has gone into locals' memory for as long as half a century. It is also a means of livelihood for poor villagers who do not have any rice paddies and have no jobs to do. It has now been considered a traditional foodstuff that needs to retain. And, along with the twists and turns of the cake are lots of ups and downs in the life of the cake makers.

"Secrets" of the cake

One of the most important secrets of banh dua is the choice of sticky rice as its main ingredient. Whether the material is properly chosen or not decides the quality of the cake. It is a belief among cake makers in Giong Luong that the sticky rice must be the species grown in Vinh Long rice paddies for it is truly sticky and fragrant. Formerly, the sticky rice from Tra Vinh rice paddies was the best choice, but this now has been degenerating coupled with the environmental impacts of the abuse of chemical fertilizers in farming practices.

For the cake to come into form, the cake makers have to go through painstaking jobs. First, they have to prepare the sticky rice by soaking it in cold water for several hours from midnight. Then they have to get up at around 4 o'clock in the morning to wash the rice carefully for several times (usually 6 or 7 times). This step is very important because if not done well or correctly, there may be some bran or impurities left mixed in the rice that may make the cake easy to get stale and the whole job may risk to be in vain. After washing, the rice will be put to dry for some time in the open air.

The next step is to prepare coconut extracted milk. Too ripe (dry) coconut is not preferred for they may cause unwanted oily smell in the cake. Niether is the unduly ripe coconut for it may have insufficient fatness. The best choice is the thick-mealed and golden-skinned coconut, that is the moderately ripe one.

The extracted coconut milk is filtered through a dense sieve (made from plastic cords) to screen off impurities. The coconut milk then is mixed in with sticky rice adding some salt and sugar to increase the taste. At this stage, all the materials is ready to put into the nipa wrappings.

The nipa wrappings is made from the tender leaf of nipa which has been peeled off from the sprout of the nipa. Cake makers take this leaf by splitting the sprout in halves, then stripping the young leaves one by one. After that, the leaves are rolled into spiral tubes with only one open end to cram the sticky rice and other additives in.

The art of making the nipa wrappings is also very hard and not everybody can do it. It requires true dexterity of the maker. That is why coconut cake making is the secret under control by a small number of people, and is passed from generation to generation. The wrappingss must be put in shadowy place because the nipa tender leaf may decolor and contract under effect of sunlight.

The cake being crammed to full will be fastened by strings also taken from the nipas. The fastening also requires very strict techniques. It is a failure to fasten the cake either too tight or too loose. All the job of putting the rice into nipa wrappings must be finished by 7 o'clock in the morning before the cake being boiled in 5 more hours.

Cake boiling is a very hard job, and if not done correctly and carefully, it may erase all the cake maker's efforts. So when boiling, the cakes are fastened in clusters of 12 pieces each. Then clusters of cakes must be put in one after the other and only when the water is boiling up. The water in which to boil cakes also must be very clean and clear. Some alum is required in order to keep the cakes in good color, and the amount of alum may be decisive on the taste and the color of the cake, too.

The Khau Bang Mangrove Forest

Ben Tre is developing the natural mangrove forest reserve in Thanh Phu District. Khau Bang Mangrove Forest is among those in the plan. The Khau Bang Forest is valuable in that it helps reserve and protect the coastal ecosystem. It also is useful in environmental protection and increasing the aquatic resources. At the same time, this project also practically supports scientific research and development of eco-tourism in the region. Holidays and Cultural Events in Ben Tre

The Nghinh Ong (Dolphin Greeting) Festival is one of the largest festivals of BenTre's fishermen. It is held on the 16th Day of the 6th Lunar Month in coastal villages. During the festival, fishing boats are colorfully and beautifully decorated and anchored at big fishing harbours in the region for ceremonial rites and entertainment and folk-way game playing.

The annual Communal Houses worshiping ceremonies are held at each Communal House in villages throughout the province. They are also called the Ky Yen Holiday, that is "pray for peace". The Ky Yen ceremony at each Communal House is held at different hours during the festival day and depends on practices and traditions in each village. The local people hold the ceremony to worship and show their faith in their God. They also pray for "dreams". The best God that most villagers expect is the Thanh Hoang Bon Canh (Village God). Communal House ceremonies are also considered the cultural practices of local people.

The Dong Khoi Festival (on January 17 every year) is annually held at the last days of old Lunar year before greeting the Tet Holiday. There are interesting festive programs in this occasion to represent the past events during the Dong Khoi Movement in 1960. The centre of the festival is in Dinh Thuy Commune, Mo Cay District (about 20 km far from the Township).

And finally, there is the traditional festival to mark the birth of Teacher-poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu held in An Duc Commune, Ba Tri District, on July 1 every year. This is meant to memorize the patriotic poet who dedicated his life to the fighting against the French invaders using his poems as a form of weapons. His legacy left to the people of Ben Tre is invaluable.

The Handicraft Villages

Bee-keeping Villages

Favoured by good climate, with low rate of whirlwind and tropical typhoons, and all-year-round orchards, Ben Tre is considered quite appropriate to bee-keeping. Going on village paths in Chau Thanh, Giong Trom, Mo Cay and Cho Lach Districts, visitors can witness interesting scenes of honey vendors bustling and jostling along the way to invite visitors to buy or just taste their honey. This is a precious and meaningful gift that visitors can bring home to their friends and relatives after an interesting trip to Ben Tre.

Cononut 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, etc.

Coconut candy is another kind of Ben Tre speciality and a traditional product, which is sold both in domestic stores and exported to many countries around the world. Visitors can find these products mostly in Chau Thanh (Con Phung, Con Quy, An Hoa) and Giong Trom Districts. For coconut candy, visitors can go straight to buy directly from the makers on Dong Khoi Boulevard in the Township downtown.

Rice paper cake villages

For the moment, the banh trang, banh phong (rice paper cakes) in My Long and Son Doc, Giong Trom District, are still best known for their fine taste. Though the main materials to make these cakes are husked rice and sticky rice, the makers of the cakes seem to hold their know-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 this way, they not only sell the stuffs but also help spread their local identity out to other regions and the world.

How to get to Ben Tre There are two ways to reach Ben Tre by road. The first one is going from Ho Chi Minh City on the National Highway 1A to the Trung Luong T-junction in My Tho City, then turn right into the National Highway 60 to Rach Mieu Ferry (about 4 km from Trung Luong). The total length of this way is 86 km.

It takes each of the large ferry boats about 22 minutes or so to finish its journey to the Ben Tre side, while the small ones travel in only 15 minutes. The Ferry operates round the clock (24 hours a day). At the moment, there is an express ferry boat which crosses the river in a little more than 10 minutes. There is no peddling on the ferry boats, and Rach Mieu Ferry is considered the cleanest and best organized in the country.

The other way is to go from Can Tho City to Vinh Long province, then take the National Highway 57 after crossing the (small) Dinh Khao Ferry to Cho Lach District going on to Ben Tre Township. The length is 50.7 km.

Besides, visitors can also reach Ben Tre by boat on the Tien River, or take tourist ships traveling by sea and sailing up-stream the Tien River. However, this way is currently a bit inconvenient for there are no harhbours with enough capacity to receive large sea-borne ships.

There is no airport in Ben Tre province.