Travel In Vietnam - Sa Dec Flower Village In Spring Blossoms
Such scenes can be seen in Sa Dec, a renowned flower village in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap, about 140 kilometers from Saigon, in the run up to the Tet.
Phuong says that her family takes care of some 3,000 pots of flowers, mostly chrysanthemum and daisy, which they will sell to flower wholesalers more than one week ahead of the biggest holiday in Vietnam.
Elsewhere in the more than 100-year-old flower village farmers are busy pruning and watering pots of apricot, rose, marigold, dahlia, cockscomb, hollyhock and nearly 1,000 other kinds of flowers.
Phuong says most households or more than 1,500 families in the village grow flowers on over 250 hectares in the village to sell before Tet, which falls on January 26.
Typically farmers grow the flowers in bamboo pots which are filled with soil and burnt rice husk and hung on supports above their flooded fields. Every day, they have to wade into the water to pull weeds from the pots, put fertilizer in the pots and watch these plants develop and blossom.
Phuong says farmers in Sa Dec usually sow flower seeds in pots from three to six months before Tet and that it requires great effort and good weather for the plants to flower just in time so that they can be used for decoration during this special occasion. The laborious work will finally bear fruits.
Sharing Phuong's view, Luom says he will certainly earn profits from growing flowers, even more than growing rice given good weather as well as careful care and grooming.
Luom says his family expects a net profit of VND15-20 million from selling the 5,000 pots of flowers that they have grown over the past months.
To see Sa Dec Flower Village and chat with growers, you can book tours at travel companies in HCMC including Saigontourist Travel Service Co. and Vietmark, or buy tickets at Mailinh Express and other coach operators to arrange trips by yourself.
Sa Dec Flower Village is easily accessible by road. From HCM City, you should take a coach to Cao Lanh City of Dong Thap and then Cao Lanh Ferry. Turn left into National Road 80 after crossing the river by ferry and continue traveling about 20 minutes until you see gardens of flowers along the road.
You can visit the flower village now but the best time to go there is about 10 days ahead of Tet when the flowers in beautiful blossom are trucked or loaded on boats to flowers markets in HCM City and other parts of the country.
Locals and wholesalers bargain over flower purchases and sales as well as exchange merry chats, awakening the village that is mainly quiet at the rest of the year.
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