Ben Tre is a rich land blessed by nature with a mild climate all year round and a system of rivers heavy with alluvium. With lush fruit orchards and vast green coconut gardens, Ben Tre has attracted a large number of tourists to experience the type of eco-tourism and river gardens imbued with the love of the people here. And Phung islet is one of the most famous Ben Tre tourist destinations.
General information about Phung islet
Phung Islet (Vietnamese: cồn Phụng; cồn means islet, Phụng means Phoenix) is a floating land in the middle of the Tien River. It is one of the famous of Four Holy Beasts land, the dragon (Long), the Qilin (Lân), the Turtle (Quy), and the Phoenix (Phụng) in Mekong Delta River. With an area of more than 50 ha, there are many interesting activities and services welcomes thousands of tourists to discover and experience here.
Location: Hamlet 10, Tan Thach commune, Chau Thanh district, Ben Tre province.
How to get here?
Phung islet tourist area is located in Ben Tre, about 80km from Ho Chi Minh. Usually, it takes about 2 hours of driving to get here. Currently you can go to Western Bus Station to catch bus to Ben Tre, ticket prices usually range from 100.000 VND/1 ticket. Currently there are many bus companies that you can choose from, you can tell the driver to let you go to Phung islet first when you book for a ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to Ben Tre, and here are some of bus companies: Futa, Thao Chau, Ben Tre Limousine, Tan Thanh Thuy…
Futa – one of the famous bus company to Ben Tre
In addition, you can travel to Con Phung tourist area by means of transportation such as motorbike. Just follow Ms.Google’s advice to National Highway 1A, go straight to Trung Luong roundabout, then enter National Highway 60, go straight across Rach Mieu bridge and you will see a sign to Phung islet.
Don’t forget about private car to Phung islet option, especially when you’re traveling with a group as the private car or bus can come to pick up, easy for sightseeing and stop on the way for you to relax.
Model of private car to Ben Tre
For tourists from far away, you can book a plane ticket to Saigon or a plane ticket to Can Tho, then continue moving to Phung islet by bus or car as there is no airport in Ben Tre province.
The best time to visit Phung islet
With warm and sunny weather all year round, tourists can visit Phung islet any time of the year. Especially, during the summer times (June, July, August), when the trees are green and lush, and the fruits are juicy on the trees, tourists coming to Phung islet will enjoy extremely delicious fruits such as mangosteen, durian, rambutan…
What to do in Phung islet?
Phung islet tourist area offers many interesting experiences for visitors, from Western-style entertainment activities to dozens of attractive Ben Tre specialties. This is definitely an address not to be missed when coming to the “coconut land”.
Visit Coconut Religion Relic area
The Coconut Religion was founded in 1963 by Nguyen Thanh Nam, also known as Coconut Monk. The name “Cồn Phụng” existed when he came here and built Nam Quoc Phat pagoda. This place has an area of 1,500 square meters and currently preserves many cultural and religious values of local people.
Some of the unique architectures such as: front yard with nine pillars, each of them carved a dragon skillfully; Hoa Binh tower where he sat and preached the Dharma; traditional room introducing the land and people of Ben Tre…
After 50 years of construction, the relic still retains its original beauty.
Visit the bee farm
At Phung islet today, there still exists a traditional profession, which is raising bees for honey. Coming here, it will not be difficult for you to visit a family doing beekeeping. The bees here mostly get honey from longan flowers.
The honey taste is very delicious and fragrant. Also, there are many products made from honey such as honey tea, pure bottled honey, honey candies, to beauty products extracted from honey… You can choose them as a gift to your loved ones. Don’t forget to experience the exciting work of collecting honey under the instructions of the farm owner.
Visit a coconut candy factory
Traveling to Ben Tre, coming to Con Phung, visitors can also witness the entire process of making these extremely delicious and flavorful Southwestern coconut candies: the stage of preparing ingredients, cooking candies, cutting candies, packaging. It is not difficult for you to ask a resident to practice some of the stages and enjoy samples here.
And surely everyone who comes to these coconut candy factories will bring themselves a few bags of sweet gifts from this land.
Explore the islet on a horse carriage, cycling or rowing sampan
Thanks to the nature bestowed cool and fresh air, visitors should explore the islet by bicycles or horse carriage.
horse carriage in Phung islet
Passing the green coconut-shaded road, cool rows of roadside shrubs, and enjoy the peaceful of the delta are amazing things. If you want to deeply explore the small canals in Phung islet, a sampan will be a great choice.
A group of tourist enjoy rowing sampan
A local people will take you on their sampan, rowing by hand through small canals with both sides full of water coconut trees and cork trees with romantic white flowers.
Visit Ben Tre Coconut Museum
Certainly when mentioning Ben Tre, coconut trees are the first images that appear. Coconut is present in war, economy, culture, cuisine… to create Ben Tre’s appearance. Therefore, a coconut museum was built at Phung islet tourist area.
From lifeless coconut logs, artisans have created hundreds of sophisticated, eye-catching handicraft products with rich artistic value. Coming here, visitors will have to “take home” something as a gift for relatives to remember Ben Tre.
Listen to Don Ca Tai Tu
Have you ever experienced ‘Don ca tai tu’ – a Vietnamese folk music? At Phung islet tourist area, visitors will experience this famous specialty in authentic Mekong thatched-roof houses.
While enjoying the music, you will also be served many specialty fruit dishes such as longan, rambutan, papaya, melon, guava,… Too interesting, isn’t it!
Participate folk games
Experiencing the feeling of adventure, thrill, heart-pounding, requiring courage is also something that visitors to Phung islet in Ben Tre are especially impressed with, bringing joy and relaxing moments when participating in folk games such as cycling across a plank bridge, Zipline across a pound, cable-stayed bridge, balancing bridge….
And especially, catching fish – an extremely interesting activity that many tourists love at Phung islet tourist area.
Imagine, you will play the role of a farmer with a local shirt, jump into the pond and compete to catch snakehead fish, whoever catches more will win. I’m sure everyone will be covered in mud after playing, but it’s a lot of fun.
Enjoy local speciality
Coming to Phung islet, visitors not only immerse themselves in the charming river nature, but also enjoy rustic dishes of Mekong Delta River made from available fresh ingredients at a small restaurant, designed in open architectural style.
Most of dishes cooked and performed meticulously by traditional methods, along with fresh material available, ensuring freshness, delicious, and highly nutritious criteria. Some of the specialties of the region such as:
Phung islet fried sticky rice: fried sticky rice here is cooked from fragrant sticky rice, then ground into fine powder, then soaked with sugar and cooking oil. Continue to add grease to the pan, then a tool to press the sticky rice so that it puffs up nicely. Fried sticky rice is often great when eaten with chicken or spring rolls.
Deep-frying elephant ear fish: Phung islet is also a famous place for giant giant fish. The giant fish will be fried until golden brown, rolled with rice paper and dipped in dipping sauce.
Snakehead fish sour soup: another Western specialty dish for you to enjoy. Sour soup uses fresh snakehead fish cooked with a variety of vegetables and bean sprouts. The taste is sweet and sour, very stimulating.
Crispy Vietnamese pancakes: this dish is so famous in Vietnam! The crispy pancakes are usually large in size, moderately fried, filled with meat, shrimp, bean sprouts, etc. When eaten rolled with green vegetables and dipped in fish sauce, it is super delicious.
If you want to have a true trip to explore Ben Tre, fully explore the beauty of this land, don’t forget to contact with Vietdreamtravel to receive the most attentive service. We’re offering the best deal on daily tours and package tours to Ben Tre. During our trip, you will not only visit Phung islet but also explore famous tourist attractions such as: Thoi Son islet, Vinh Trang Pagoda.
Source: collected by An
