Coconut floating market: A beautiful tourist destination on the Thom River

The Thom River is a historic river that has been embedded in the memory of many generations of people in Ben Tre. From a small canal, the Thom River today has gradually changed its look with the busy trading scene of coconut products on the river; the two riversides are villages processing coconut fiber stretching over 3 km. Since then, the Coconut floating market on the Thom River is like a unique tourism brand of Ben Tre that is different from any other floating markets in the Mekong Delta provinces and the whole country. The operation of the Coconut floating market helps local people develop not only the economy and trade but also the field of tourism.

During the French colonial period, the French dug Thom canal in Mo Cay district to connect the Ham Luong river with Co Chien river for colonial exploitation. In the two wars of resistance to liberate the people from oppressive foreign reign, the Thom River was a place which marked many victories of our army and people, also attached to the childhood of many generations of people in this Land of Coconuts.

Coconut Floating market on Thom River (image from public source)

For a long time, the Coconut floating market on the Thom River has been dubbed it a unique floating market of the West because of its main products such as coconut and other products from coconut. Floating markets are a cultural beauty in the Southwestern region because it is the gift of nature with a system of rivers and canals, so the scene of trading and exchanging goods often takes place on the boat and thrills tourists to enjoy and want to experience it. If Can Tho city has Cai Rang floating market, Tien Giang has Cai Be floating market, Hau Giang used to have Nga Bay floating market, An Giang has Long Xuyen floating market... then Ben Tre has its Coconut floating market on Thom river as a pride of the people of Mo Cay Nam in particular and of Ben Tre in general.

The Coconut floating market originates from the Thom river connecting the Co Chien and Ham Luong rivers, which is the central waterway of Cu Lao Minh coconut forest. Many coconut processing enterprises have been built with a lot of buyers and sellers exchanging and trading, the area has gradually became what is now known as "the floating Coconut market". Every day, there are hundreds of boats from both inside and outside the province (Soc Trang, Vinh Long, Tra Vinh, and neighboring districts in the province) flocking there to buy and sell coconuts. Visitors will have the opportunity to see for themselves: the workers work from early in the morning to the evening doing familiar jobs such as peeling coconut, making coconut meat, separating and drying coconut fiber... Thereby, visitors can empathize with the hard work in the lives of the people here, with the joy and smiles that are always radiant on their faces. It is because coconut, which is the typical tree of the homeland, has been attached to generations so the works which related to planting, exploiting and processing coconut in Ben Tre have always been a beautiful characteristic that needs to be preserved and promoted.

Currently, on the two banks of the Thom River, there are many establishments operating overnight to promptly supply goods to businesses in the province in order to make various unique products from coconut such as dried powder coconut, coconut fiber, coconut charcoal, clean coconut soil, coconut oil, coconut candy, coconut fiber nets, coconut handicraft products... Notably, craft villages along the Thom River in An Thanh commune, Mo Cay Nam district, Khanh Thanh commune Tan, Mo Cay Bac district... have created jobs for thousands of workers, helped local people to settle down and be a part of this unique tourism brand in Ben Tre.

The tourism industry will become a key economic sector of Ben Tre province in the future, be characterized by thousands of coconut forests, lush orchards, and many tourist products from this Land of Coconuts. The brand of "Land of Coconuts’ River Ecotourism" has been promoted more and more recently. Capturing the potential and beauty in tourism at the Coconut floating market on the Thom river, in recent years, many travels and tour companies have included this product in tours and routes to offer tourists visiting the Coconut floating market, combined with many other tourism products of Ben Tre and other provinces in Viet Nam.

From Ben Tre city, visitors can walk to the town of Mo Cay Nam and take boat, along the Thom River or travel from the piers in the center of Ben Tre city to Ham Luong River, connecting to the Thom river. Currently, Ben Tre has many ecotour programs for visitors to freely explore this floating market from tourist agencies in Ben Tre.

Tourist visitors visit the Thome River by boat (image from C2T tourism)

When experiencing this river in the Land of Coconuts, visitors will be seated on a boat and listened to information from the tourist guide and enjoyed the poetic scenery of the rows of coconut trees on the banks of the Thom River. After that, the tour guide will take tourists to visit craft villages so that they can learn about the work of the local people such as peeling coconut, making coconut meat, making coconut candy... and take souvenir photos. Next, visitors will move to Thanh Long island to visit the extremely sacred Thuy Tuong temple and dine at local’s houses with many rustic dishes such as sour snakehead fish soup, coconut fried shrimp, chicken porridge. In addition, this 1-day journey also takes visitors to Ben Tre special national historical sites, Dong Khoi Movement to study about the historic years of heroic resistance war in the Dong Khoi movement in 1960 in Mo Cay Nam district...

Having experienced many ups and downs of history, the Thom River that has become a legendary river and the Coconut floating market on it always brings an extremely simple, rustic cultural beauty and is one of the hidden charms with a lot of potential for the tourism industry in the Land of Coconuts. Hopefully, in the near future, tours, trips, and experiences in Ben Tre will be increasingly promoted so that domestic and foreign tourists and they have the opportunity to experience interesting and unique activities at the Coconut floating market on the Thom river./.

Author: Tường Vi

Translator: Phương Thy