Published:  21:20 Sunday - March 23, 2014

“Being a fisherman at Vam Sat for one day” is the name of an eco-tour that gives travellers interesting experiences on their visit to Can Gio District, HCM City. The tour is served by Vam Sat Ecological Resort.

Located by the East Sea coast and 50 kilometres southeast of the downtown of Ho Chi Minh City, Can Gio District has many things for tourists to discover, from rivers to mangrove forests and the life of locals, especially fishermen.

To visit Can Gio from the city center, tourists can choose to take either a car or a speedboat at Bach Dang Quay in District 1. If they go by car, they will stop to take a speedboat at the quay at Dan Xay Bridge. The speedboat will bring them to sightsee the riverscape, the typical flora of salinity-intruded forests and to study fishing methods of Can Gio fishermen. During the tour, visitors will have opportunities to discover diverse things and participate in different activities of locals.

 

First, travelers together with local fishermen will row a boat to place traps under the water for catching sea-crabs. While waiting to collect the traps, they will row a smaller boat around in the mangrove forest to visit Doi Nghe Conservation Park and return to the former place to collect the traps after 30 minutes. Local fishermen will show tourists how to choose crabs with good flesh and tell them about the world of crabs. Tourists can grill the crabs to eat on the spot or enjoy dishes from these crabs at lunch.

To continue the journey, tourists must get on board a wooden boat to go for studying how fishermen of Vam Sat, an area in Can Gio, dive to catch oysters. Diving to catch oysters is among the characteristic fishing methods of local fishermen. Tourists will also see how oysters are raised, catch and grill oysters to eat on the spot. They can of course join the farmers to catch the oysters.

Emptying a pond to catch fish by draining its water is also an interesting activity for tourists to experience. To join the work, they are provided a set of bà ba (a traditional southern-style costume) and a nm (a fishing instrument made of bamboo). They step down into the pond and use a tin can to empty the water before catching the fish.
Another way of catching fish is to cover an area with nets. About four people walk into a pond, use a net to surround an area with fish, and pull the net ashore to catch the fish.

Tourists can also join local people in producing salt from seawater. They can roll up their trousers and step into the salt field to rake the salt and shoulder the salt to cottages on the shore. In addition, tourists can join in planting mangroves to expand the coverage for forests. Employees of Vam Sat Ecological Resort will instruct tourists how to plant the trees.

To experience strong sensations, vacationers can feed crocodiles in challenge. They fix a bait to the fishing line and stand on the boat in midstream to hold the rod and “fish” crocodiles. If they stay overnight at the resort, they can join local people to hunt for ba khia (a species of crab with three stripes on their back), grill fish to eat and sing songs by a camp fire.