Discovered by Lord Nguyen around the 17th - 18th centuries, Dong Thap Vietnam also has a long-standing historical tradition with many historical, cultural, and revolutionary relics. Converging rich natural resources, this place is an attractive tourist destination, especially ecotourism with attractions such as Gao Giong tourist area, Tram Chim National Park, Sa Dec ornamental flower village.
I - Where is Dong Thap Province located?
Google map - Source: Phongnhaexplorer.com
Being a part of the Mekong Delta, this province has an area of 3283km2, surrounded by Tien River, Hau River, and an interlaced system of canals. It is located 140km from Ho Chi Minh City, bordering Tien Giang province and Long An province to the east, An Giang province to the west, Vinh Long province, and Can Tho city to the south.
Dong Thap Vietnam has a population of over 1.6 million people, including 3 cities: Cao Lanh (province capital), Hong Ngu, Sa Dec, and 9 districts: Cao Lanh, Hong Ngu, Chau Thanh, Lai Vung, Lap Vo, Tam Nong, Tan Hong, Thanh Binh, Thap Muoi. You may think that we have mistakenly repeated a few names, but the truth is that in this province, there are some cities and districts with the same name.
II - How is the weather in Dong Thap Province?
Located in the tropical climate zone, the weather here is divided into 2 distinct seasons: the rainy season (May to November) and the dry season (December to April next year), each of which has its own beauty. You can come here at any time due to the year-round warm sunshine, pleasant mild climate, no cold season, and very few storms. But if you want to enjoy all the beautiful scenery and specialties of the province, the best time to come here is in the floating season, from August to November of the lunar calendar.
II - #10 attractions in Dong Thap Province
1 - Tram Chim National Park
Nestled in the middle of the province, Tram Chim National Park covers an area of more than 73km2 with beautiful landscapes of countless lotus and water lilies ponds, grass and rice fields, and green Melaleuca forests. This is home to extremely diverse ecosystems, where you can easily spot numerous bird nests, the mother bird feeds and teaches her chicks to fly, under the sky filled with flocks of birds.
Tram Chim National Park is one of the best attractions in Dong Thap - Source: Nguyenkieuvietnhu.com
Coming here, you will have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the colorful natural ecological landscapes, and discover internationally rare birds such as pelicans, Javan geese, and red-crowned cranes. In addition, there are interesting activities such as kayaking to experience the life of the fishermen here and enjoying the rustic dishes with countryside flavor.
- Location: Hamlet 4, Tram Chim Town, Tam Nong District, Dong Thap Province
- Opening hours: 6am - 8pm
- Website: http://tramchim.net.vn
- Price list:
+ Entrance ticket: 20,000 VND / person ($0.88)
+ Sightseeing boat: 500,000 VND / 10 people ($22.1)
+ Kayak / water bike rental: 50,000 VND / person ($2.2)
+ Visit bird breeding grounds by boat (once a year): 270,000 VND / person ($11.94)
+ Farmer / fisherman learning experience: 200,000 VND / person ($8.84)
+ Overnight at Tram Chim: 150,000 VND / person ($6.63)
+ Tour guide: 100,000 VND / person ($4.42)
2 - Thap Muoi Lotus Field in Dong Thap
In recent years, the Thap Muoi ecotourism area has become a favorite destination for nature lovers, or those who simply want to get away from the hustle and bustle of urban life. This place has a poetic and charming landscape, a mellow and pure atmosphere from the aroma and color of the immense lotus fields stretching over an area of nearly 20 hectares.
Thap Muoi Lotus Field in Dong Thap Province - Source: Baodautu.vn
Coming here, you can enjoy watching lotus fields and lakes on the huts, take check-in photos and enjoy local dishes made from lotus such as lotus chicken summer rolls, lotus tea, lotus sweet soup, grilled snakehead fish with lotus leaves, etc. In addition, the 1-day experience as a farmer/fisherman will give you the opportunity to paddle your own canoe to pick lotuses and fish in the open space.
- Location: My Hoa Commune, Thap Muoi District - 40km from Cao Lanh City
- Opening hours: 7am - 5pm
- Prices:
+ Entrance ticket: 20,000 - 30,000 VND / person ($0.88 - 1.33)
+ Boat price: 100, 000 VND / boat ($4.42) & 30,000 VND / person ($1.33)
3 - Gao Giong Ecotourism Area
The Gao Giong eco-tourism area in Dong Thap Vietnam, formed and opened to welcome guests since 2003, is a peaceful stop to experience nature and relax after a busy time of life. This place has nearly 2000 hectares of Melaleuca forest, known as one of the largest stork gardens in the Mekong Delta, with more than 15 species of rare birds living, nesting, and laying eggs. Every time the water season rises, the fields in Gao Giong are filled with herds of storks creating an extremely beautiful natural scene.
Visiting the Gao Giong eco-tourism area of Cao Lanh Dong Thap Vietnam, you can blend in with nature with activities such as floating on a dinghy through the canals, watching the bird sanctuary from the 18m observatory, cycling in the forest, relaxing in the locals’ huts and so on. You also shouldn’t miss the specialties of the floating season such as grilled snake, grilled snakehead fish with lotus leaves, sour fish cooked with water lily, and fermented rice,...
- Location: Hamlet 6, Gao Giong Commune, Cao Lanh District - 17km from Cao Lanh City
- Opening hours: 6am - 6pm
- Prices:
+ Entrance ticket: 10,000 VND / person ($0.44)
+ Canoe: 15,000 VND / person / 5-seat canoe ($0.66) & 50,000 VND / 3-seat canoe ($2.2)
4 - The famous Sa Dec Dong Thap Ornamental Flower Village
Sa Dec flower village - Source: Congtoai
Famous for hundreds of rare flowers and ornamental plants, Sa Dec flower village is a world of blooming flowers, bees, and butterflies fluttering with ecstatic fragrance. You can find here from dahlias, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, apricots, to beautiful plants from all over the world such as Japanese conifers, French marigolds, rare ornamental plants with a lifespan of hundreds of years, etc. In addition, with their talents, the artisans in Sa Dec Dong Thap flower village have transformed familiar plants such as star fruit, areca, apricot, and so on, into bonsai pots with unique shapes, surprising guests and making the Sa Dec flower picture even more attractive.
Going to Sa Dec ornamental flower village at any time you can see the flowers in full bloom, but the best time is around the Lunar New Year (December & January of the lunar calendar). This is the main harvest season of the year when the village is the most beautiful and vibrant, dyed and covered with all kinds of blooming flowers. Visiting the Sa Dec flower village of Dong Thap Province, in addition to sightseeing, immersing yourself in the space of trees and flowers, you can also buy them as gifts or home decorations and take check-in pictures.
- Location: Tan Quy Dong Commune, Sa Dec City - on the south bank of the Tien River
- Opening hours: 7am - 6pm
5 - Huynh Thuy Le ancient house - witness of a love story
This is the house of Mr. Huynh Thuy Le's family, with an architecture that harmoniously combines Eastern and Western styles, both traditional and sophisticated. Huynh Thuy Le’s ancient house in Dong Thap was built in 1895, in the form of a traditional Southern three-area house with the main material being rare and luxury wood. Then, in 1917, the house underwent a major overhaul - a brick structure built around and covered the wooden site inside, which has created an impressive architecture with unexpected beauty, attracting any guest that visited. Coming here, if you just observe from the outside, you will see that it resembles a French villa with the Roman architecture of the 17th-18th century, with the main white color and large stone columns showing the majesty of the house. But when stepping inside this Dong Thap attraction, it has traditional architecture, from wooden pillars to the mallet system equipped with sophisticated architecture and carved patterns, painted red and inlaid with gold.
After many ups and downs of history, up to now, the house is still quite intact and has become a symbol of a unique architecture from a hundred years ago. This place is also related to the love affair of a French female writer (Marguerite Duras) with Huynh Thuy Le, which has been written into a book and adapted into a movie called “The Lover”. This is definitely a place not to be missed in Dong Thap Vietnam for visitors who love to explore the history and ancient architecture.
- Location: No.255A Nguyen Hue Street, Ward 2, Sa Dec City
- Opening hours: 8:30am - 5:30pm
- Prices:
+ Tickets: 20,000 VND / person ($0.88)
+ Food: 100,000 VND / person ($4.42)
+ Room: 550,000 - 1,000,000 VND / night / four people ($24.32 - 44.2)
6 - Phuong Nam Cultural Tourist Area in Dong Thap Province
With an area of up to 17ha, this tourist area is a cultural-spiritual complex worshiping historical figures in the southern land, the ancestors of the Dang family, and of other families who discovered the land. In addition to visiting and offering incense, you can also buy specialties, souvenirs, enjoy food and participate in activities such as recreating wet-rice production, folk games.
Phuong Nam Cultural Tourist Area in Dong Thap from above - Source: Tuan An Ho – Alibaba Studio
Here there are 5 main sites: Nam Phuong Linh Tu, Dang Clan Temple, Museum of the Dang family, Nam Phuong Museum, and the surrounding long corridor of more than 675m long and 240 columns. With an area of 509m², Nam Phuong Linh Tu site is a place to honor 125 historical figures who took part in the process of discovering, preserving, and glorifying the Southern land-owning 3 Vietnamese records, making it one of the best places to visit in Dong Thap province: This is the first temple to worship famous people who are closely related to the foundation of Southern land; the temple has the most bronze statues of the biggest celebrities in Southern land’s history and has the largest wooden drum in Vietnam. The tourist area also has 4 lakes for cultivating plants and aquatic species (representing 4 seas), 63 pots of yellow apricot (63 provinces & cities of Vietnam), and 54 species of ornamental flowers and trees (54 ethnic groups in Vietnam).
- Location: Long Hung A Commune, Lap Vo District, Dong Thap province
- Opening hours: 7:30am - 5:30pm
- Prices:
+ Entrance ticket: 30,000 - 50,000 VND / person ($1.33 - 2.2)
+ Tram ticket: 10,000 VND / person ($0.44)
+ Buffet ticket: 100,000 - 150,000 VND / person ($4.42 - 6.63)
7 - Xeo Quyt Melaleuca Forest ecotourism area in Dong Thap Vietnam
Xeo Quyt Melaleuca Forest ecotourism area is about 50 hectares wide, used to be a prominent anti-American resistance base of Vietnam in 1960 - 1975, covered by 20ha of primeval Melaleuca forest. Under the canopy and tangerine vines, there are historical sites and relics such as Fortifications, Mine fences, Secret tunnels, Office areas, and Radio stations of the Provincial Party Committee,... which have now been restored and preserved.
Tourists at Xeo Quyt Melaleuca Forest ecotourism area - Source: VHTT & DL Dong Thap
From a military base area, Xeo Quyt has become a famous tourist area with cool green Melaleuca forests and fresh air, nestled with reeds, lotus flowers, water lilies, and vines bearing the characteristics of the Dong Thap area. There are more than 170 species of plants, 200 wild species including frogs, and reptiles, ... with especially 13 species of rare animals listed in the Vietnam Red Book such as python, buffalo cobra, broad-billed lemongrass bird, and so on.
Xeo Quyt is one of the unique tourist attractions, combining sightseeing activities to immerse yourself in nature with visiting relics to discover Vietnamese history. Here, you have the opportunity to walk along the trails under the canopy of melaleuca trees, which look like a painting and feel the beautiful natural scenery. Especially, visiting Dong Thap Vietnam and the Xeo Quyt ecotourism area in the flood season, you can sit on a dinghy weaving through the canals to enter the historical sites hidden in the melaleuca forest, rowed by guerillas wearing Ba Ba shirts, bandanas, and bucket hats.
After a time of sightseeing, going to Xeo Quyt food court and restaurant to enjoy typical Southern dishes and sip a few glasses of wine will be an experience you should not miss in Dong Thap. These dishes are all made from field fish and vegetables such as grilled snakehead fish with lotus, grilled hamster, sour cooked field eel, grilled frog, Linh fish hot pot… There is nothing more interesting than having rice in the fresh air of a quiet and poetic space, enjoying folk music, recreational fishing, or lying in a hammock under the canopy of the smooth green Melaleuca forest.
- Location: 2 communes of My Long and My Hiep, Cao Lanh District, Dong Thap Province - more than 30km from Cao Lanh City
- Opening hours: 7:30am - 6pm
- Prices:
+ Entrance ticket: 10,000 VND / person ($0.44)
+ Dinghy: 15,000 VND / person ($0.66)
+ Bicycle rental: 30,000 VND / 30 minutes ($1.33)
8 - Kien An Cung Pagoda
Also known as Ong Quach Pagoda, Kien An Cung Pagoda was originally built (1924 - 1927) to worship ancestors and teach descendants by a group of Chinese who settled in Sa Dec. This is a cultural work that was recognized by the Vietnam Ministry of Culture and Information (now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) as a national historical relic in 1990.
Kien An Cung pagoda - an attractive place in Dong Thap - Source: Phongnhaexplorer.com
Like many other China-origin pagodas, Kien An Cung Pagoda has bold Chinese architecture, carved with flowers, birds, and animals, splendid and solemn. The pagoda faces the Cai Son canal, built with 3 compartments, of which the widest one is the shrine. In front of the gate of the main hall, there are two delicately carved giant stone unicorns, each of their mouths holding a gem, while on the left and right are two gods of Good and Evil. Stepping inside is a small open-air courtyard that is used as a place of worship according to ancient customs.
- Location: No.39 Phan Boi Chau Street, Ward 1, Sa Dec District, Dong Thap Province
- Opening hours: 6am - 12pm and 2pm - 6pm
9 - Lai Vung Fruit Garden
This region is blessed with alluvium deposited by two big rivers, Tien and Hau, creating delicious fruit gardens famous all over Vietnam such as the longan of Chau Thanh, mango of Cao Lanh Dong Thap Vietnam,… In which, Lai Vung fruit granary is the convergence of large and famous fruit gardens, especially the famous pink mandarin - large, golden, succulent, and sweet-tasting fruit. On the days leading up to the Vietnamese Tet, you should not miss visiting Lai Vung. It is like wearing a new shirt made from ripe and fruit-laden tangerine gardens. You have the opportunity to experience the feeling of being a farmer harvesting tangerines, to freely eat ripe and sweet tangerines...
- Location: Lai Vung District - southern region of Dong Thap Province
- Opening hours: 6am - 7pm
- Prices: 20,000 - 50,000 VND / person / time ($0.88 - 2.2)
10 - Phuoc Kien Pagoda
Phuoc Kien pagoda - Source: Flc.vn
Despite not having ancient architecture and exceptional scenery, Phuoc Kien Pagoda is still visited by many tourists and Buddhists because of its special lotus ponds. This temple was bombed during the war, so there were many bomb craters, which were renovated by the temple into lakes to grow water lilies and lotuses, especially the giant type (A special thing that makes this pagoda a must-visited site in Dong Thap Vietnam). Its leaf has a diameter of 1.5 - 2m, thick with large veins and 4-5cm high edge, making the leaves look like a fancy dish. An average leaf can hold a mass of 80kg - 150kg, equivalent to one person, resulting in it being able to lift a person above the water without causing great vibrations on the surface. The flood season in Dong Thap (September - October) is when the lotus grows and the leaves are the biggest and firmest, so visitors from all over the world flock to this Giant Lotus Temple to take pictures. You can stand or sit on the lotus leaf, which has an aluminum plate inside to prevent tearing.
- Location: Hoa Tan Commune, Chau Thanh District
III - How to travel around in Dong Thap Province?
1 - Taxi
This is one of the provinces with many tourist attractions, densely populated, so traveling by taxi is very suitable. You can call Dong Thap Taxi Switchboard with number: 1900 6236, or call the taxi companies below:
Taxi Mai Linh
- Contact: 02 773 68 68 68
- Website: https://mailinh.vn/
Taxi Sen Hong (Pink Lotus)
- Contact: 02 773 99 55 77
- Website: https://taxisenhongdongthap.com/
Taxi VinaSun
- Contact: 02 773 82 72 72
- Website: http://www.vinasuntaxi.com/
2 - Motorbike rental shops in Dong Thap Province
Source: Dantri.vn
You can refer to the following motorbike rental shops:
Chi Lan's (Lan Sis)
- Address: No.34/1 Nguyen Van Troi Street, Ward 2, Cao Lanh City
- Prices: 100,000 - 150,000 VND / motorbike / day ($4.42 - 6.63)
- Contact: 0918 750 016
Loi The's
- Address: No.205 Cach Mang Thang 8 Street, Ward 3, Cao Lanh City, Dong Thap Vietnam
- Prices: 100,000 - 150,000 VND / motorbike / day ($4.42 - 6.63)
- Contact: 0939 726 017
Minh Chanh’s
- Address: No.6 Nguyen Chi Thanh Street, Tan Thanh Hamlet, Tan Quy Tay Commune, Sa Dec City
- Prices: 100,000 - 200,000 VND / motorbike / day ($4.42 - 8.84)
- Contact: 0793 979 789 - 0796 262 623
Phuong Nam’s
- Address: No.384A Nguyen Sinh Sac Street, Ward 1, Sa Dec City, Dong Thap Province
- Prices: 100,000 - 200,000 VND / motorbike / day ($4.42 - 8.84)
- Contact: 02273 867 867
Bao Tram’s
- Address: No.209 Mai Van Khai Street, My Tan Ward, Cao Lanh City
- Prices: 100,000 - 170,000 VND / motorbike / day ($4.42 - 8.84)
- Contact: 091 875 00 16
With its immense lotus fields, peaceful countryside scenery, and attractive eco-tourism areas, Dong Thap province is an interesting destination for those who love discovery and enjoy natural experiences. This is an ideal place in Vietnam if you want to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city, and enjoy the peaceful scenery and rustic rural life with a variety of delicious specialties of the Dong Thap river region.
