Hau Giang tourism "O la la"

09/03/2023
At Lung Ngoc Hoang, guests kept saying "O la la" repeatedly. "Lung", Southern dialect, is a low land; not in Vietnamese dictionary. Only Hau Giang has the God Lung. It surprises guests to call Lung Ngoc Hoang the capital of the Japanese Blueberry trees. On both sides of the road to the conservation area, the trees are lined with cool green shade. Along the canals, the Japanese Blueberry trees are overwhelming compared to the pond apple, water coconuts, bamboo, polybody sprouts, etc.

I have some young friends in Hanoi. Although they travel secretly, I know that they have traveled a lot and known a lot. I invited them to visit Hau Giang, they said “We've come, nothing. Hotel is not like a hotel. The famous Phung Hiep floating market is nostalgic now. There is only Xa No canal, but the concrete embankment is boring and so on”.

I try to keep calm and honestly invite again. I responded that "Come to Hau Giang, I would be your tour guide, you would not be disappointed". Although they know that I always have many new destinations, they half believe and half doubt but still join. The tour has not been thought of by anyone, including Hau Giang people. Flying from Hanoi to Can Tho, the car takes them to Hau Giang, wandering for 4 days with a commitment of "not satisfied, refund".

The 61C National Highway connects Can Tho to Hau Giang; The two sides of the road are golden rice fields. The team leader blurts out “O la la” and then spontaneously reads a loud Yen Thao’ poetry. It means “I have a beautiful young wife like the poem. She is in her twenties, our wedding is at the flag ceremony. She has soft white cheeks, fragrant with the smell of ripe rice” . Only 41 km but there are several dozen straight canals with interesting names, from One Thousand to Fourteen Thousand.

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The way to Hau Giang. Photo: Ly Anh Lam.

Every 500 - 1,000m, there is a canal. There are towns and markets with the same names One Thousand and Seven Thousand. This land is called Miet Thousand as in the song "Up Thousand" (Hoang Viet). The Vietnamese dictionary does not have the word Miet Ngan. The guest said, "O la la...". "Thousands" the North is mountains and forests so we say "Crossing streams and thousands of miles", "Great thousand stones…".

Hau Giang (Hau River), Khmer people call Bassac, tributary of Mekong River, originating from the intersection of Four Faces River (Chaktomuk), in front of the Royal Palace of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. As a low-land area in the Mekong Delta, the density of canals is the largest in the Southwest region (1.5km/1km2). Hau Giang has not yet been named on the domestic and international tourist map.

Guests can check in at the Hau Giang SOJO Hotel. It launched at the end of 2022 and is the first hotel in the South of SOJO Group's convenient hotel chain. The decoration is young and eye-catching with a simple and modern front desk; Customers are self booking, check in, check out and make electronic payment. There is a free storage room, waiting room, and gym. Laundry service is at a reasonable price. There is iron so guests can use it for self-iron.

The lobby has a breakfast umbrella and some fancy folk games. Guests can bring food or use the kitchen facility to cook or there is staff helping. Every room has glass walls and a city view. Guests again say "O la la", unexpectedly, in Hau Giang, there is a genuine hotel with true utilities. People change their minds about Hau Giang tourism and eagerly await new experiences.

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Hau Giang SOJO Hotel Space.

At 4 am, guests are awakened. The discomfort disappeared when listening to the sounds and street life. The villagers in groups called each other going to the market by all means such as walking, cycling and driving motorbikes as the festival. The market has no stalls. Sellers and buyers crouch, freely ask for prices, ask all kinds of things without fear of anger or burning paper in front of seller’s stalls. Village products are fresh. There are many strange things such as yam and giant suckermouth catfish. About 7 am, when the sun rises, the market finishes, guests again say "O la la" in regret.

Visiting Long My town, guests say "O la la" because the flowers along the roadside are naturally more beautiful than 3D paintings. Most of them are the ixora flower. There are five-color ixora, 3-story fences (triple levels) and there are competitions on the most beautiful flower street and the most impressive home garden. It's great for taking photos. Long My district has an agricultural fairy tale, which is "The pond apple root blossoms Soursop fruit". 

The pond apple, in the same family as the soursop, is considered an invasive plant that thrives in brackish swamps, salt-tolerant, and very fruity. The fruit is yellow when ripe, looks delicious but not delicious to eat. Soursop is a fruit tree, high economic value but picky about soil. Since 1978, when I was in the citadel, I heard stories of Saigon children making small plans, forcing the pond apple tree to blossom soursop fruit by grafting branches.

Long My farmers made a big plan, grafting about dozens of hectares of soursop on the roots of the pond apple trees, like "Soursop soul, pond apple skin". Both are in harmony, producing plenty of fruits helping people to overcome poverty and get rich righteously. Soursop fruits are sold fresh, jam, honey, wine. or as the OCOP products. In particular, soursop tea, high quality functional foods, could not be produced enough for orders. The guests again say "Oh, la la", do not expect wild plants to be tamed magically.

Hau Giang has some points of circular agriculture such as Hai Yen private enterprise. First raised cows, mainly using manure as "house and food" to raise earthworms. Worms are the main food for raising semi-natural eels with several hectares of grass-covered fields. Eel mother, depending on weight, lays from a few hundred to 1,000 eggs, tiny, forming white foam. Eel eggs are collected in a "house" for special care and nutrition.

Newly hatched baby eel is like a tiny string about 1cm long. Adults eels weigh about a kilogram. Enterprises take advantage of the land to raise earthworms to grow melons and raise honey bees to help pollinate flowers. The old melon wires make organic composts or cow food according to a circle process. All stages are calculated reasonably and economically to achieve the highest efficiency. A farm looks like a park. The guests said "O la la".

Đến Lung Ngọc Hoàng, khách liên tục “Ố là là” như cà lăm. “Lung”, phương ngữ Nam bộ, là vùng đất trũng; chưa có trong từ điển tiếng Việt. Chỉ Hậu Giang mới có Lung Ông Trời. Khách ngỡ ngàng gọi Lung Ngọc Hoàng là thủ phủ cây cà na. Hai bên đường vào khu bảo tồn, cà na rợp bóng xanh mát nao lòng. Dọc các bờ kênh, cà na áp đảo so với bình bát, dừa nước, tre, đọt choại…

At Lung Ngoc Hoang, guests kept saying "O la la" repeatedly. "Lung", Southern dialect, is a low land; not in Vietnamese dictionary. Only Hau Giang has the God Lung. It surprises guests to call Lung Ngoc Hoang the capital of the Japanese Blueberry trees. On both sides of the road to the conservation area, the trees are lined with cool green shade. Along the canals, the Japanese Blueberry trees are overwhelming compared to the pond apple, water coconuts, bamboo, polybody sprouts, etc.

Animals have 206 species. Birds: lesser whistling duck, white stork, Parus major; Amaurornis phoenicurus, Anastomus oscitans; Mycteria leucocephala; Mycteria cinerea; Pica pica. Animals are Arctictis binturong, foxes, cats, Aonyx cinereus, dog bats. There are 77 species of aquatic animals such as anabas, snakehead, bronze featherback, white catfish... and many rare species such as golden turtle, nail crab, Heosemys annandalii, worm frog, Notopterus chitala...Lutra sumatrana, Cuora amboinensis, Naja naja... are rare amphibians. Lung Ngoc Hoang was known as the "snake storage" of the Southwest.

The reserve is still wild and has not been destroyed. The watchtower is nearly 20 m high, strong, and can set up tents and hang hammocks for a few dozen people camping overnight. In ASEAN, there is no more ideal place to be in harmony with real nature. Visitors can walk, take pictures, bathe in the forest (Japanese-style of shinrin yoku), catch fish, pick vegetables and cook. Visitors can also sleep on carpets of white melaleuca flowers, floating like clouds, fragrant, shining with golden moon, it is said "O la la" all night.

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Lung Ngoc Hoang Nature Reserve. Photo: Trung Quan.

Guests also say "O la la'' with the ancient church of Vi Hung (Vi Thanh), the tiled roof proudly reflects the legendary Xa No canal (Khmer means Common sesban tree). The ancient Gia Lam pagoda (Con Ngua Pagoda, Nga Bay), there is a statue of Xich Tho of Quan Cong, carved in 1964, priced at 50 taels of gold at that time. The statue is more vivid than the real horse, the eyes seem to speak. The pagoda has 145 exquisite statues and only the abbot has no disciples. In the evening, when going to the Park of Ancient Wonders of Light, guests are free to check-in, and always say "O la la".

Hau Giang cuisine is "O la la''. Cau Duc pineapple tubers are used to cook pancakes, duck cooks with bamboo shoots. There are chicken hot pot, mixed salad and mixed fried. They are all delicious. Dishes made from suckermouth catfish, polybody sprouts,  gynura divaricata, bronze featherback without bone; yam. They are all delicious and cheap. Young melon dishes, six color-mixed pancakes, bee pancakes, and Japanese katuk soup. They are delicious and there are many unique OCOP products.

Four days in Hau Giang are just like riding a horse to see flowers. There are many interesting destinations such as the capital of Vietnamese betel in Vi Thuy, a relic of the Joint Committee for the Southern Armistice and Nga Bay weaving village, famous Cau Duc pineapple garden, historical sites, and global gap organic orchards. Tourists spend almost a week but there are still many things left behind. The province is trying to restore the Nga Bay Phung Hiep floating market, making a map of Vietnam and a heart with rice in the middle of the fields.

According to a group of "O la la" guests, Hau Giang tourism just lacks an effective way to explore. It seems that Hau Giang people do not love their homeland enough and seem to be self-conscious about the potential of Miet Ngan tourism?

NGUYEN VAN MY

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