The artistic and cultural works

* Nguyen Thi Dinh Memorial Park in Luong Hoa village, Giong Trom district, was the place where she was born. She was an elite woman, the first female general, an outstanding leader who devoted all her life to the liberation of the country.

* Hero Phan Van Tri Memorial Temple, located in Thanh Phu Dong village, Giong Trom district, Ben Tre province is 22km far away from Ben Tre city.

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*  Lieutenant General Dong Van Cong Memorial, located in Tan Hao village, Giong Trom district, was the place where he was born. He was an elite man, a hero of resistance against foreign invaders, an outstanding military leader who contributed his life to the liberation of the country, a hero of the armed forces.

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* Tan Ke Shrine located at My Chanh village, Ba Tri district, Ben Tre province is 35km far away from Ben Tre city.

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* Military governor Phan Cong Monument

Located in An Hiep village, Ba Tri district, Ben Tre province is 38km far away from Ben Tre city. Heaven and earth are yin and yang, man has virtue; man’s duty is first piety and loyalty; general’s morality first has humanity - mind – bravery;

“Up to now, change is common,

In sum, piety and loyalty are the best!”

Military governor and general Phan Ngoc Tong, born in An Binh Duong village, Bao An district, was well-educated, kept on studying, and once taught people in Ben Tre town.

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* Ben Tre Museum is located at 146 Hung Vuong Street, Ward 3, Ben Tre city. The museum was built in the French style in the early twentieth century, once a Palace by reference (French) and Province Chief Palace (the U.S.), with a 2 ha campus. Here they displayed artifacts, traditional historical documents of Ben Tre Revolution. The museum collects and displays historical artifacts and becomes important attractions for tourism of Ben Tre.

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* Dong Khoi Monument, is in Ward 4, Ben Tre city. This is a cultural work which was built and inaugurated on 17/01/1995.

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* Ton Co Tu Society in Quoi Son village, Chau Thanh district is the province's oldest temple, built from the time of Canh Hung (1740) and Monk Long Thien was the abbot. It was built 30 years after the earliest Buddhist temple built in the South.

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* Catholicism appeared in Ben Tre in the middle of the eighteenth century. Cai Bong Church is the oldest in Ben Tre and the largest and most beautiful ones are Ben Tre City Church in Ward 3 and Cai Mon Church in Cho Lach district.

Church in Ward

* Caodaism in Ben Tre includes four sects: the original, Tay Ninh, Tien Thien and Minh Chon Ly. Ben Tre has two holy sees: the Caodai Holy See in Ward 6, Ben Tre city and Tien Thien Holy See in Tien Thuy village, Chau Thanh district. This is the central government of Caodaism and in its great festivals, Caodaism believers from everywhere gather here.

The Caodai Holy See in Ward 6, Ben Tre city

The First 72 Hours - A Filmmaker's Perspective

“What are you doing next week?  Do you have a passport?!” 

It’s a rainy Tuesday morning in Vancouver, and I’m riding on a city bus on the way to shoot a video about seeing-eye dogs at a local animal shelter, when I get the most important phone call of my life.

“There’s a project going on in Vietnam, and they need a guy to come out and film what they’re doing.”

Trying to sound unfazed, I hide my obvious enthusiasm at the thought of simply packing up and heading around the world in under a week’s time as Bill Thumm, the director of the Bosa Center of Film & Animation, continues on.

“They can meet up on Thursday afternoon, will that work for you?”

And just like that, in two days time, on that Thursday afternoon meeting, my life was about to change forever.  I met the Chrises: Dr Chris Bottril, Dean of Capilano University’s Tourism program, and Chris Carnovale, the project’s logistics guy and resident ‘fixer’. 

The crash course interview, where only moments before meeting the pair did I finally get a chance to check out the CBT Vietnam website and get familiarized with who the Dao and Hmong peoples were and where they lived around Sapa, was a memorable one. 

As Chris Carnovale, or Carno - as we like to call him - asked me about my past travel experience, only to realize that apart from a few road trips and a couple all-inclusive escapes to Mexico and Cuba I was pretty green, I saw his face go sickly pale, and the stress levels go up.

“I don’t care what you’re doing on this trip.  I just need to know if you’re going to freak out because that can’t happen. And we won’t be able to wait around for you.” 

Chris Bottril, on the other hand, told me more about the project, about sustainable tourism and about what our goals were as well as ideas on how to get them across in the video.  I was immediately both interested and excited about the project, and given my experience working on film sets where a short day on set clocks in around 12 hours, and you routinely find yourself in uncomfortable situations, dealing with opposing personalities and sometimes polarizing team dynamics, I felt pretty confident that I’d be able to come in and get the job done.  Or at least show up and not freak out in the airport.

I felt that I’d be fine out there, but how do you really know?  Working and dealing with challenges and situations in a culture that is about as far removed as it can be from what we deem to be normal seemed to be a big question mark.  And then dealing with the pressures of shooting a documentary and playing the role of director, cameraman, and editor wouldn’t make the gig any easier.

A phone interview with team leader, Jen Reilly followed the conversation with the Chrises, and it became clear that I was going to be a part of this trip.  But it also became clear that I had under 72hrs to completely prep and organize a camera package to film a short documentary about a subject I had no idea or past knowledge about. 

In addition, it became clear that getting an extra round-trip ticket to Hanoi, an extra Vietnamese visa, four travel vaccination shots, passport photos, and all the other basic preparations you’d make for a trip across the globe had to now be dealt with in a compressed amount of time.

To say that everything that needed to happen for the film to be made was impossible, which at times I felt, would not be acceptable.  No couldn’t be an option. 

I had no way of testing a lot of the gear I’d be bringing over to Vietnam; an old Macbook G4 laptop, the only one available for us to use, for example, frequently crashed while we tried turning it on in the studio.  One of the hard drives that we’d copy media onto in the field was duct-taped together.  Another drive had a horrible buzzing noise when plugged in.  

The extra expense and stress that my surprise involvement automatically added to the not-for-profit-project certainly made the pressure on myself to be fully ready and able to film on day one in Vietnam all the more greater.  I took videotapes to record onto as a last resort if the laptop, hard drive or main camera failed - the equivalent of planning to record a symphony orchestra piece on an old cassette tape.

And as I continued sorting through and testing the equipment from the Bosa Centre for Film and Animationat Capilano University, Chris Bottril called to reveal to me that whatever this film that I was creating was - I still wasn’t completely sure myself - that it had to be completely finished and ready to be screened at the PATA Foundation Conference taking place in less than a week after we’d return.

Crazy? Sure. Impossible? Nope. By this point my flight with the team was scheduled, my Visa greased past Vietnamese immigration far quicker than the typical processing period, and I was able to get all my vaccines, malaria pills, and film equipment locked-down and ready for departure.

Planning ahead to cutting a video in 8 days?  Why not?  It’s not like it would be any crazier than everything that had come at me so far…

As the hours grew nearer to departing, with myself mentally going through what it was I was about to be getting myself into, I knew that without a doubt, my life would be changing as a result of being involved in this project.

And over a year after that first trip in March 2011, and the two project trips since, I know, without a doubt, that my life path has absolutely shifted gears.

The opportunity to spread a message, to share a story through video or new media is one that has the potential to emotionally engage and affect audiences in ways that simply cannot be expressed when written in articles, new stories, or books.

Having the opportunity to go in and film a story about the positive and negative impacts that tourism can have on sensitive ethnic communities was an eye-opening personal and professional experience. It was an incredible experience, one I’ll never forget; and it has since made me want to continue to search for stories that are important. Stories that are original.  Stories that are meaningful, and stories that are full of emotion.  

Stories that every writer, journalist, and filmmaker strives to find.  They are the stories that have the potential to make an impact to the world; they are the stories that have the potential to inspire.

Whether it be sharing to the world a remarkable individual’s unique accomplishment, an ordinary family’s daily life and routine, or a dying culture’s last chance to be heard by a wider audience, searching for and sharing stories that have the potential to make differences is something I would like to strive to achieve over the next few years. 

And I hope that it's something we can continue to share to people all over the world with the CBT Vietnam project.

Kyle

www.kylesandilands.ca

To see the video's Kyle has shot for the Capilano University / PATA Foundation Vietnam Training Project you can check out the project's website or YouTube channel.

Group Interview for the next CBT Team!

This week  fifteen lucky students who were short-listed took part in the CBT Vietnam group interview. Thanks to all those who came out!

In November of 2010, I had to take part in the same process. I still remember my first interactions with what would be my future CBT team members: Louise, Kyla, and Jase. Louise was a quiet facilitator, Kyla brought charisma and charm, and Jase’s strong leadership qualities were apparent from the start. All turned out to be an incredible group of people to work with and get to know.

Last night, I got to be an observer as new team dynamics develop in these early stages of the application process. To watch the group interview from the other side last night was a great experience for me. I’m really excited about the group of applicants that joined us last night. It’s clear that we will have a strong team to take our project through the next stages.

Good Luck everyone,

Taryn

The national cultural historic relics

(1)* Nguyen Dinh Chieu’s historic grave and monument: The relic is in hamlet 3, An Duc village, Ba Tri district, which is 38km far away from Ben Tre city. Poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu was not born in Ben Tre, but he chose to live here, to open schools to teach, to write and prepare prescription for people and lived with poetry to the end of life. The relic includes a temple, a memorial and a tomb. The tomb contains his grave, his wife La Thi Dien’s grave, and the grave of his daughter, Mrs. Suong Nguyet Anh (the female newspaper editor, "Females in general").

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(2)* Dong Khoi historic relic in Dinh Thuy village, Mo Cay district is the place where the first shot of the Dong Khoi Movement in 1960 was outbroken, uprising in the province and then spread to the South.

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(3)* Tuyen Linh Pagoda, a historic relic in Minh Duc village, Mo Cay Nam district, was built in 1861. Great-grandfather Vice-doctor Nguyen Sinh Sac - President Ho Chi Minh’s father - once lived here, teaching, taking people’s pulse, writing and preparing prescription for people in the region. It was the basis of protecting, caring staff of the revolution against France and America in war years.

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(4)* The North - South end of the bridge to receive weapons, a historic relic: It includes such relics as Khau Bang Mouth of a river, Bung Islet, Loi Islet and Lon Islet. They are ranges of isles adjoining the East Sea in Thanh Phong village, Thanh Phu district. In the past, this place was the precarious harbor of the special shippings to provide weapons from North to South for battlefields in Ben Tre and provinces in Quarter 8. In 1946, at Khau Bang Mouth of a river, a small boat sailed for the first time, crossing the sea to the North to report to Uncle Ho, the Party Central Committee and asked the Committee to supply weapons, headed by Ms. Nguyen Thi Dinh. Now this place is deploying the investment for Cemetery Park project, Ho Chi Minh Street in the sea, with a total investment of the project is 1,500 USD billion, and this is the attractive place for a visit to the coast when the project is completed.

(5)* Y4 Revolution Base historic relic: The relic is located in 2 villages Tan Phu Tay and Thanh An, Mo Cay Bac district. It is a revolutionary base of the Saigon - Gia Dinh District Commission from 7/1969 to 10/1970 and from here, guidance for big battles on the enemy's head office in Saigon - Gia Dinh. The relic is being invested into restoration to become tourist attractions.

(6)* Great-grandfather Nguyen Van Cung's house historic relic and Cay da doi T-junction. This is the place of the establishment of the first Communist Party Branch in Ben Tre. At the end of 4/1930, the first communist party in the province of Ben Tre was established at Mr. Nguyen Van Cung’s house, comprising 10 members.

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(7)* Military leader Nguyen Ngoc Thang temple and tomb historic relic: The relic is in My Thanh village, Giong Trom district. He served as a military leader in the army under the reign of Thieu Tri in 1848. On 27/6/1866 he was shot, killed in a fierce battle with the French. Emperor Tu Duc ordained him with clothes and a sword. Since 1984, local people have taken his ancestral tablet into the communal house in My Thanh village to worship as a god who devoted to the fight against invaders.

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(8)* Mr. Nguyen Van Trac’s house historic relic: This is the place where Mr. Le Duan worked from 11/1955 until 3/1956 in Hung Le village, Giong Trom district to direct the revolutionary movement in the South.

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(9)* The massacre monument in Cau Hoa, Phong Nam village, Giong Trom district: On 10/01/1947, two legion platoons commanded by Leon Leroy, a hybrid lieutenant commander, mopped it up because he suspected that Viet Minh was staying at Cau Hoa hamlet. After failing to find Viet Minh, they turned the fire on innocent people, killing 286 people, mostly women, children and old people, burned more than 100 houses. This is the biggest and most brutal massacre in Ben Tre during the war against France.

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(10)* Great-grandfather Vo Truong Toan’s tomb historic relic: Vo Truong Toan was from Binh Duong, Gia Dinh province. He was a smart learned man. He died on 27/07/1792. After three southeastern provinces fell to French invaders, some intellectuals in Gia Dinh did not want their beloved teacher left the bones in the place occupied by invaders, so they relocated his remains to Bao Thanh village, Ba Tri district.

(11)* Phu Le communal house is in Phu Khuong hamlet, Phu Le village, Ba Tri district. The house is 40 km far away from Ben Tre city, 4km far away from Ba Tri town. It was built in the 7th year of Minh Mang (1826). It is the largest and most beautiful among coastal villages of Ben Tre.

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(12)* Binh Hoa communal house is in Binh Hoa village, Giong Trom district. This old house is 200 years old. Decoration inside and outside the home combines elements of royal art and folk religion art. Today there are more than 100 things in nature of sharp delicate wood carving, including horizontal board pictures, pairs of parallel sentences which correspond to each other, etc. are stored.

(13)* Tan Thach communal house is in Tan Thach village, Chau Thanh district. Tan Thach house that has a Chinese-transcribed-Vietnamese name as Thach Ho Dinh was built in the years 1843-1844. The house has a Tam-shaped structure, iron wood pillars, a Chinese-tiled floor, surrounded around by walls. Currently the house still keeps many objects which are very valuable in art and history: 6 decrees (4 by King Thieu Tri and 2 by King Tu Duc), 4 brass bamboo-eyed censers, 7 brass sandalwood censers, candlesticks; glass lamps, etc. Also, inside the house was decorated with the horizontal board pictures, etc. and finely carved, painted and gilded splendorously.

(14)* The ancient monument Huynh Phu (Huong Liem) and tombs: Located in Dai Dien village, Thanh Phu district, Ben Tre province, the house was built in 1884 with an area of 500m2, rectangular style, three-door, two attics of three and two tureens. The house was decorated with skillfully carved patterns sculpted by hand from wood by skilled artists in Central and Northern parts at that time. This is a unique architecture, whose interior that is protected remains almost intact, and Ministry of Culture and Tourism Information recognized it as a national monument on 14/4/2011.

Coconut rice of Ben Tre

This article was sent to Tourism Information Promotion Center of Ben Tre from Tonnybao21 introduce new dishes of coconut Ben Tre "Coconut rice of Ben Tre". Invite you to "enjoy", please!:
Hello,
I would like to introduce a delicious food:
Coconut rice of Ben Tre

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 Ben Tre is known as the coconut. Recently, on the table under the shadow coconut of this country has added a new dish is equally attractive: Coconut rice.
You want to eat coconut preset phone and looks like so far only floating restaurant in Ben Tre city serves this picky. Coconut cooking time consuming as long as 02 hours to a restaurant set 10 coconuts or more, less than this number ...not even receive!
Coconut rice, they use good rice, after washed by ... coconut water, let dry and put coconut cooking does not touch water. Coconut is used to cook “Xiem” coconut, after selection is satisfactory, they are not used to the inside of the coconut, they just peel coconuts with eye-catching appearance. Then, cut part on coconut to pour water out and used thast piece as a lid to cover the "Coconut rice cooker". Next chef will park the rice in coconut, then they pour the fresh coconut water just enough and then put a lid on it.
Cooking “coconut rice”, the most difficult thing have to watch the coconut water and rice evenly, if more water, less rice and back then coconut rice will be paste or rigid, destroy the taste. Coconut rice to eat while still hot, is delicious. If so long, ưhite rice will absorb more oil from the coconut will blaze of light yellow. Price of a coconut rice about 30,000 VND.
Coconut rice served with coconut fried shrimp. Land shrimp, vote shrimp, slang shrimp and crayfish left foot, clean and spicy sugar, salt, monosodium glutamate, for a while to soak. Coconut shrimp roasted with simple, after shrimp skip to roasting pan and for coconut milk into the pan to smolder. When infused coconut shrimp turn red is deemed to have completed the coconut fried shrimp dish. Now infused coconut shrimp meat will taste tough, brittle.
You do not use coconut rice and shrimp to Ben Tre is seen as a tourist to the coconut incomplete. If you have been in this country you eat a "fruit" coconut rice to add rich culinary treasures and more impressive on land called Ben Tre stance.

General information of transport

Bus lines in Ben Tre City
Each line separated by 15 - 20 minutes and vice versa
Starting point: bus Ben Tre

Bus Ben Tre

- Address: 739/1 Son Dong commune, Ben Tre City, Ben Tre Province
- Telephone: (84-75) 3822298
Route bus line number 01: Co Chien ferry (Mo Cay Nam district) - Ben Tre city - Tien Giang province
Route bus line number 02: Ben Tre city - Tiem Tom (An Thuy village - Ba Tri district)
Route bus line number 03: Ben Tre city - Tan Phu ferry (Chau Thanh district - Ben Tre province)
Route bus line number 04: Ben Tre city - Cau Van ferry (Thanh Phu district)
Route bus line number 05: Chau Thanh district (Ben Tre province) - Binh Dai district
Route bus line number 07: Ben Tre city - Tan Hao commune (Giong Trom district)
Route bus line number 08: Ben Tre city - Cho Lach district - Vinh Long province

Bus

Taxi and coach in Ben Tre city
Taxi

Taxi

 Happy taxi: (84-75) 3677777
Mai Linh taxi: (84-75) 3878787
Coach
Focus point from Ben Tre province to Ho Chi Minh city

Coach

Mai Linh: (84-75) 3510510
Thinh Phat: (84-75) 3561561 - 3829317
Thao Chau: (84-75) 3822802 - 3815565
Minh Tam: (84-75) 3833333 - 3813688
Bus Ben Tre: (84-75) 3828372

General information about the trade village in Ben Tre

* The bonsai village in Cho Lach: Apart from the famous delicious fruit species, Ben Tre is also known for crafts of producing seedlings, planting ornamental plants, mainly in villages like Vinh Thanh, Vinh Hoa, Phu Son and Long Thoi (in Cho Lach). Here we provide the majority of seed plants and bonsais for the nation. It is one of the key attractions of Ben Tre.

The bonsai village in Cho Lach

* The craft village of plain sticky rice dumpling pancake and rice roll "My Long Rice Roll, Son Doc Plain Sticky Rice Dumpling Pancake" in Giong Trom district, is not only popular in the province but also in the southern region. These two types of cakes have a long tradition of more than 100 years. People here have preserved and promoted Ben Tre’s secrets of producing the cakes, which we find nowhere else.

Making plain sticky rice dumpling pancake and rice roll

* The craft village producing handicrafts from coconut trees: Ben Tre people have taken advantages of all the components of the coconut tree like trunk, stem, bark, coconut shell, etc. to make many unique handicrafts, which are very much adored by visitors, and it becomes a featured craft of Ben Tre, concentrated in Phung Isle (in Chau Thanh district), Hung Phong (in Giong Trom district).

The craft village of artful handicrafts and knitting

The natural tourist sites

* Phung Islet has an area of 52 ha in Tan Thach village, Chau Thanh district, which is 12 km far away from the city center. Tourists come here to enjoy the orchards laden with branches, cool climate, clean ecological environment, and visiting the architectural Coconut Religion, village of handicrafts from coconut trees.

Tourists visit Phung Islet

* Quy Islet is in Tan Thạch and Quoi Son villages, Chau Thanh district, with an area of 40 ha;
* Oc Islet is in Hung Phong village, Giong Trom district, with an area of 1284 on the Ham Luong River, which is about 10 km far away from Ben Tre town to the east. Oc Islet is famous for coconut gardens with many varieties of coconut, such as Siamese coconut, pineapple coconut, strawberry coconut, etc. mixed with orchards. The people are friendly and live peaceful. Visitors coming here seem to be away from the noisy world, mix in the cool fresh air of the water areas;           
* Noi Islet is in Thanh Tan village, Mo Cay Bac district, with an area of 30 ha which Thu Thiem Company is investing and exploiting;
* Phu Binh Islet is in Vinh Binh village, Cho Lach district, with an area of 35.9 ha. The Cuu Long Investment and Construction Corporation Branch built ecotourism spots of fruit tree areas and bonsais well known throughout the nation;
* Phu Da Islet (in Cho Lach district), a rice snail conservation area, is the place to exploit rice snails. Visitors coming here will enjoy rice snails, oyster pancakes, fruit, etc.

 * Forever green Resort of Ben Tre is the ideal resting place of the river delta, promoting the advantages of ecotourism, with a distinctive and unique aspect built by foreign architects; one of the major works by the Lo Hoi Trade Ltd Company belonging to Lien Hoa Group located in Phu Tuc village, Chau Thanh district, Ben Tre province as an investor. It has a total area of the project of 21ha with total project investment capital of $50 million.
Forever green Resort consists of:

• 5-star hotel for tourists in and out of the country;
• The superior resort has 60 4-star rooms, 10 Japanese-style rooms to serve such services as massage, makeup, skin care, fitness, etc. In addition, it has a swimming pool, a garden cafe, Vietnamese traditional amateur music, a 250-seat restaurant serving Vietnam and Asian traditional dishes, children play grounds, flower gardens, ornamental gardens, etc.
• A sightseeing zone, a mini-Disneyland, superior family houses along Tien River including 250 5-star Japanese-style independent houses, which serves boating, fishing and the game Jet skis in the river, etc.

* The eco-tourism beauty spot of Vam Ho in Tan My village, Ba Tri district, which is about 25 km far away from Ben Tre city, located in Vam Ho Bird Garden conservation area of 67 ha, is the unique ecosystem of coastal estuaries, represents salty forests under water. With natural conditions and suitable environment, thousands of birds, storks, many valuable types of wildlife and aquatic organisms gather and live naturally there.

Vam Ho Bird Garden (photo collection)

* The 8-village tourist region along the river of Chau Thanh district with the hick tourism destination serve tourists with such things as eating fruit, listening to amateur music, watching fireflies at night, riding horses, paddling canoes, visiting the water rice farm model, the cocoa plantation model, producing coconut candies, cooking wine, keeping bees, manufacturing hand embroidery, artful handmade goods made from materials of coconut trees, etc. In particular, visitors are immersed in the lives of people here and always welcomed with enthusiasm, friendliness and hospitality.

Taking a rowing boat

Riding a horse on the country road

* Thua Duc beach in Dinh Trung hamlet, Thua Duc village, Binh Dai province with an area of 6.3 ha is a coastal resort, a place for eating seafood.

Thua Duc beach (photo collection)

* Thoi Thuan beach in Thoi Thuan village, Binh Dai district is expected to develop superior marine tourism, seafood cuisine, senior recreation, visiting the salt-overflooded forests.
* Ho Islet tourist area in Thuy An village, Ba Tri district, with more than 200 ha is urging investors to build beach resorts.