When the flooding season comes to the Mekong Delta, many people move to higher ground but a lot of them stay put and feel blessed that the water brings together abundant fish and shrimp.
Many travel firms take the opportunity to offer tours for visitors to experience the flooding season. Tourists have the chance to drift on wooden boats to catch fish and then enjoy the spoils.
Coming to An Giang Province, drifting along Vinh Te Canal in Chau Doc Town is a good choice. Departing from the wharf at Ben Da Nui Sam tourist area, tourists will take 10 minutes to reach the location where local farmers lay fish traps at Vinh Te Canal. The whole area is a rice field but when the floods come from the seventh to tenth months of the lunar calendar, it is blanked under water and locals take advantage to grow vegetables and catch fish. Tourists will be transferred from larger boats to small wooden boats of fishermen to drift around the canal and witness the locals putting out traps called ‘don’ and catching fish. Fishermen expand hundreds of fishing nets to make a path for fish to go to the catch area where a bag awaits them. Bags are spaced 100 meters apart. To find a good place to put don and catching bags, people need to know the terrain very well, the stream and the deep places.