Croc Fishing

Travelling by boat to Vam Sat Ecological Tourist Area in the Can Gio Mangrove Forest in Ho Chi Minh City to go crocodile fishing is what Saigontourist Travel Service Co. offers. But fishing for these animals is not the only excitement on the trip.

In downtown Ho Chi Minh City, tour-takers board the Dong Duong, a modern boat that used to be a restaurant, docking at Bach Dang Wharf.

The two-floor boat still has a nice restaurant on the first floor with good food and service.

Its clear, big glass windows provide a fine view and can be opened to let in some fresh air once the boat leaves the polluted inner city.

The boat, going at 20 kilometres an hour, is slower than the high-speed boats so that tourists can take their time to admire the beautiful scenery, enjoy the dishes, chat and even sing fun songs.

When the boat arrives at the Can Gio ecotourism area, tourists can see first-hand the rich vegetation to understand why the area is referred to as the green lungs of the city.

Unesco recognized Can Gio Mangrove Forest as a biosphere reserve in 2001. Two years later the World Tourism Organization recognized the Vam Sat ecotourism site in the forest as one of the world’s 65 sustainable sites.

The tour’s first destination is Tang Bong Tower. You can climb up to the top of the 50-metre-high tower to get a great view over river and mangrove forest.

Then tourists visit the crocodile farm. A plastic boat surrounded by a metal net takes tourists around the farm so that they can try fishing for crocodiles, which would be a dangerous sport if not for the net around you.

You can also fish for smaller animals, namely crabs, or explore the fauna and flora in the surrounding forest.

Dam Doi is an area in the forest, famous for bats. Tourists take a small wooden boat to go through tranquil and green Dam Doi.

From afar, the roots of the old big mangrove trees look like miniature rock mountains. In Dam Doi, tourists can see huge bats, whose wingspan can be as much as one metre.

And for those who haven’t gone swimming, or better said, floating in the salty Dead Sea between Jordan, Israel and the West Bank as yet, here is their chance to have a similar experience.

Vam sat has pools with water so salty that people, no matter how heavy they are, will float on the surface. So don’t forget to take a newspaper so that you can read while swimming like in the famous image of the original Dead Sea.

In the afternoon, tourists return to Ho Chi Minh City with all their new impressions of the outlying district. (SGT)