The picturesque little province of Ben Tre, just south of My Tho,
consists of several large1 islands in the mouth of the Mekong River.
The area gets few visitors because it's off the main highways. The
provincial capital is also called Ben Tre and is a friendly sort of
place with a few old buildings near the banks of the Mekong.
Ben Tre is a good place lor boat trips and, unlike My Tho, Vinh Long and Can Tho, the People's Committee doesn't have a monopoly on the boat tour business so prices have remained low.
Ben Tre is famous for coconut candy (keo dua). Many local women work in small factories making coconut sweets, spending their days boiling large cauldrons of sticky mixture, before rolling it out and cutting sections off into squares and wrapping them into paper for sale.
