Upon arriving in Cà Mau, tourists board small motorized boats (vỏ lãi) and glide along the Trèm Trẹm River, Cái Tàu River, and Đốc River to explore the U Minh Hạ Melaleuca Forest.
The U Minh Hạ Melaleuca Forest borders the U Minh Thượng Melaleuca Forest (in Kiên Giang Province) and covers a total area of approximately 35,000 hectares. Of this, 8,256 hectares have been recognized as U Minh Hạ National Park.
Here, U Minh Hạ National Park is one of the three core zones of the World Biosphere Reserve. Cape Cà Mau’s mission is to conserve and regenerate the values of natural landscapes, ecological environment, and biodiversity of the unique wetland ecosystem and melaleuca forest on peat soil; to preserve and develop the gene pool of rare flora and fauna species, cultural and spiritual values, historical relics; and to support scientific research, tourism, and visitation.
The U Minh Hạ Forest is overwhelmingly dominated by melaleuca trees. It is home to many animal species such as deer, wild boar, monkeys, civets, pythons, snakes, turtles, pangolins… and about 60 species of freshwater and brackish-water fish that live and take refuge here.
Particularly under the forest canopy, throughout the year, diligent honeybees collect nectar from the melaleuca blossoms to build their hives, yielding large annual harvests. During the bee-eating season, visitors can follow the beekeepers of the Phong Ngạn group into the forest to eat bee larvae and harvest honey. Here, tourists get to taste freshly cut young bee larvae dipped in the pure forest honey from U Minh melaleuca—sweet and refreshing to the tip of the tongue. Visitors can also purchase pure U Minh melaleuca forest honey to use as medicine or as a thoughtful gift for loved ones.
After traversing the forest, tourists can watch or join in pond draining (tát đìa), cast nets, fish with hooks, gather wild vegetables, pick water lilies… Then enjoy many unique specialties of the U Minh melaleuca forest region that are hard to find elsewhere, such as grilled whole snakehead fish (cá lóc nướng trui), clay-pot snakehead fish with fermented fish hotpot (cá lóc nấu lẩu mắm), eel stewed with noni leaves (lươn um lá nhàu), cobra snake porridge with mung beans (rắn hổ hành nấu cháo đậu xanh), lemongrass-stewed snake (hầm sả), grilled field mouse (trích nướng mọi), fried field mouse, and many other rustic dishes.
When visiting U Minh Hạ Melaleuca Forest, tourists can go to the homeland of Uncle Ba Phi. At night, visitors can participate in đờn ca tài tử (Southern Vietnamese traditional music), go night fishing with lights, set fish traps, catch field mice, or net birds in the U Minh forest area.
According to camaugov
