Vietnam travel destination 20:Chau Doc

One of the very beautiful place of the Mekong delta - Chau Doc, as close as you can get to Cambodia without being in it. The Bassac River flows through the town and is a border crossing for river borne traffic, and the small Sam Mountain has an excellent view of the flat plain on the other side. It’s an attractive, busy place with a good hotel and several interesting attractions.

 It became part of Vietnam in the middle of the 18th century as a gift, a reward for helping the Cambodian monarch to put down an insurrection. Unsurprisingly, it has a high proportion of ethnic Kh’mer people among the population here, easily identifiable by their darker skins and a chequered scarf instead of Vietnam ’s ubiquitous conical hat. There’s also a fair number of ethic Cham and Chinese people, and enough Christians to fill a local cathedral, making up a rare pot-pourri of cultures and religions.

There’s a large market selling local products and commodities. As might be expected, there’s also plenty of smuggled goods changing hands in both directions. Deep in the market, the Quan Cong (a Chinese character) Temple is a rewarding visit. It’s a flamboyant Taoist structure with good murals and effigies dominated by a ruddy-faced Quan Cong. Further along the riverfront there are several traditional stilt houses.

A short boat trip across the Bassac takes you to several floating fish farms and villages. They’re modified house-boats - a trap-door in the floor provides access to nets under the boat where the fish are grown. A little further takes you to the other bank and a Cham community. Once you’ve tip-toed across the stepping stones to avoid the mud, you walk through the stilt house village to the mosque.

Although sharing the same linguistic and historical tradition, the Cham are divided into two quite distinct religious communities, the Hindu Chams and the Cham Bani, or Muslims. The latter live mainly in the Chau Doc region and are easily distinguished by the men's preferred headgear - a crimson fez with a long golden tassel, or white Muslim prayer cap.

The Lady Temple ( Mieu Ba Chua Xu)

The Lady Temple is an important relic of An Giang Province. There was a legend about this lady and most of Vietnamese people believe that she has a great powerful that lured thousands of people came and prayed every year.
According to a story, around 200 years ago, the Lady ‘s statue was found by local people and was carried down by 9 virgin girls from the top of Sam Mountain to the current place.
There are many legends about the source of that statue but it still in secret.

Tay An Pagoda

Tay An or Nui Sam Pagoda or “Tay An Co Tu” is a located right in the bottom of Sam Mountain, Vinh Te Commune, Chau Doc Strict, An Giang Province, 5km from Chau Doc Town. Its architecture was the combination between India and Muslim and the old Vietnamese Pagoda style. The materials were bricks, tiles, cements…There are many statues of Buddha which were carved very fine that featured for the carving art of Viet Nam in the 19^thcentury.
This pagoda was named on national relics list.

Sam Mountain

Sam Mountain also called as “ Vinh Te Son” or “ Ngoc Lanh Son” with the height is around 284m above sea level. There was a time, Sam Mountain was covered by the flamboyance flowers in summer time that created a wonderful scene with the red color in all over the Sam Mountain. 

From the top of the mountain, people can observe the large area of the border from Chau Doc Town to Tinh Bien, there was a bastion of the Southern Army up there.

Vinh Te Canal

Vinh Te Canal is a famous canal in which is located between An Giang and Kien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta.
In 1816, under Gia Long King Dynasty, the King and his imperial recognized that Ha Tien and Chau Doc would be developed if they were connected. However, this area just was exploited and people were very poor that Gia Long King was delayed this project and started in 1819.
Vinh Te canal was completed in 1824 with 91km long, 25m wide and 3m depth. Around 80,000 persons were working for this project , a big part of them were Khmer people. Many people died because of the diseases, exhaustion and the wild animals.

Floating fishing village

One of the special features of Chau Doc is the floating fishing villages. People take advantage of the river to raise many kinds of fishes specially the cat fish that exported to some countries as Taiwan, China and even to America. Raising fishes on the water is very popular nowadays in Viet Nam. Chau Doc also well known about what Vietnamese called “ Mam” that made from fishes.

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