Mentioning Ben Tre, everyone is instantly reminded of coconut, a specialty fruit of the South region in Vietnam. Just come to Cai Mon Orchard to be amazed at more special fruit trees and flowers with different styles available here.
Here’s your chance to contemplate a beautiful flower farm near the Mekong Delta river, like orchids for instances. Aside from that, there are many lively blooming gardens of flowers and fruits that can vanish all of your tiredness. So waste no time but reach this kingdom of bonsai in Vietnam as soon as possible! It’s the home to lush orchards and a hundred-year-old ornamental trees.
Cai Mon Orchard Overview
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The name of Cai Mon
Reaching Cai Mon Orchard village, a lot of visitors wonder about what the name “Cai Mon” means. And according to the researchers, they trust that in this word, “Cai” refers to the small irrigation canal while “Mon” is about bee honey (Cambodian language).
Interestingly, a writer named Son Nam concentrates on writing about the culture of the South of Vietnam trusts that once upon a time, there used to be lush fruit trees on the banks of Cai Mon canal with flowers blooming all years round. Bees come a lot because of this. And the name of Cai Mon was born since then.
Besides, we’ve got another explanation about this name. While every river and canal flows in one direction, Cai Mon canal’s tide starts from the head and end. And the meeting point is known “ron rong” (the navel of a dragon). This part is bigger with calmer tides creating one of the prettiest floating markets of the delta.
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The location of Cai Mon orchard village
Cai Mon Orchard lies in Vinh Thanh Village, Cho Lach District, Ben Tre Province. It’s about 40 km from Ben Tre City Center. Here, you get to pass Ham Luong Bridge before following the Highway 60 more 11 km to reach Mo Cay Nam Town. Next, you can ask locals about Cai Mon Orchard Village, a popular tourist site of the delta.
Top things to see and do in Cai Mon orchard
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Enjoy your bonsai visit
Cai Mon orchard offers plenty of resting and entertainment sites following the garden tourism style. Thus, visitors can freely choose their favorite areas to go, from planting to manipulating bonsai places.
Better than that, you’ll be able to see thousands of households that specialize in growing flowers like carnation, dahlia, and marigold for example. Especially, the orchard has countless rose species for you to enjoy such as yellow rose, Korokit rose, velvety rose, and more.
And visitors can also witness many hundred-year-old ornamental trees, including areca, fig, apricot, and carambola. Most of them look like the artworks thanks to the skillful hands of the local artisans. They create many fascinating shapes for these trees, like the phoenix, deer, or dragon.
Each year, Cai Mon orchard offers hundreds of decorative trees and amazing flower styles to the country as well as exports them to different countries in the world (Japan, Korea, and Singapore).
Taste tropical fruits in the orchard
After encountering many nice-looking bonsai trees, you can stop over the lush orchards of Cai Mon to enjoy tasty fruits like durian, langsat, mangosteen, etc. Strolling along the winding roads surrounding the green gardens, you will feel like getting lost in the royal gardens.
Here, there are red rambutan, violet mangosteen, bonbon, green strawberry gardens with lush fruit bunches from head to end. Also, everyone will see many pomelos, citrus, and longan trees along every path.
You are allowed to get into the gardens to pluck fruits and taste the fragrant ripe ones. Then follow the steps of these gardeners, you’re probably instructed how to take good care of each type of tree for great crops.
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See the sunset and enjoy don ca tai tu
Or you can choose to view the beautiful sunset right on the rope bridges and taste many specialties of Ben Tre Province in little restaurants. These usually have coconut roof on the bank of Cai Mon canal or lies among the exotic orchards. And don’t miss the traditional tune from “don ca tai tu” show during this visit.
How to get there?
Starting from My Tho City in Tien Giang Province, tourists can go across Rach Mieu Bridge and then move along the provincial road No.884 to arrive at Tien Thuy Market of Chau Thanh District, Ben Tre. Here, take high-speed boats to reach Cai Mon Canal for one hour only.
Mekong Delta is known as the rice bowl of Vietnam Nam thanks to its big production of rice crops. So no wonder why exotic fruits and veggies are quite prominent in Cai Mon orchard village. The only way to see and understand that is driving here and cruising on the sampan under the shadow of the water coconut trees along the canals.
