Hello Ben Tre!
Room with a view.
Just 85km from HCMC we arrived in Ben Tre, located at the end-stream of the Mekong River. Just 75km from the sea it has many mangrove forests with an abundance of plants. This incredibly fertile land is planted with 40% of Vietnam’s coconut trees. It looks like a green island rising out of the Mekong Delta. It’s very wet and very humid.
Ben Tre provides a large number of coconuts for exporting to countries like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India and China.
The ecolodge we are staying at provided us with a boat and guide, so off we chugged to explore the land of the coconuts.
All along the milky brown river you see coconut boats and coconut factories of various sizes.
We also spotted quite a few sinister, drab concrete buildings sprouting out amidst the coconut trees towering over the traditional low-rise builds. We wrongly assumed they were of military connection.
These buildings have no windows - instead they have many tiny holes. They are in fact birdhouses, well actually bird's nest factories. Using piped in bird song, attracting swallows inside to make their nests en masse creating a super expensive delicacy for the high-end Chinese market.
Market demand and price increases year after year have led to a huge increase in swallow houses being built. They are quite a blot on the landscape.
Still using traditional methods, coconuts are processed into various products such coconut soap, desiccated coconut, coconut oil, coconut mask and the apparent famous coconut candy.
Ben Tre people still take advantage of all the components of the coconut tree such as stems, bark, leaves, in fact everything single part is used in some way to make a lot of products which provides income to the villages of the area.
The coconut shelling industry is still strong in the Ben Tre province as demand for products made from coir fibre has apparently increased.
We saw the brushes that the shopkeepers and hotels use being made using the hand shredded coconut leaves bound by thread using their hands and feet.
Luckily, they had a small one that is coming home with me to add to my collection.
An inquisitive little girl appeared, initially not quite sure what to make of us, it wasn’t long before we were playing ball with her.
Turned out she’s only about 2 years old and she was left at the village Pagoda by her mum. The two brushmakers found her and they have decided to raise her.
The narrow lanes of the villages are only just wide enough for a tuk tuk. There aren’t really any cars here, the locals say only the rich have a car. Besides a boat, it’s walking, pedal bike or scooter for most.
Finally we jumped onto a sampan and were rowed down the strangely silent, hypnotic and serene canals, flanked by mangroves and water coconut trees.
Borrowing a bicycle was the perfect way to get to see our neighbours and the local community.
I reckon there’s about 40 or 50 woven baskets per doughnut and this one motorbike was carry 6 of them back to the warehouse.
After all the busyness of city life this was such an idyllic contrast.