One weekend in early June, I and a group of friends had an extremely interesting day of “traveling” close to Ho Chi Minh City, it is fruit garden in Binh Loc commune, Long Khanh City, Dong Nai province.
I’ve heard about Long Khanh – the extremely famous “capital” of sweet rambutans for a long time, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I had the opportunity to explore this place. Meeting to discuss since the beginning of the week, and on Sunday, at 6 a.m., the group started from Thu Duc intersection, heading straight along the Hanoi highway towards Bien Hoa.
Most of our group were going for the first time, so everyone was extremely excited to follow the instructions of some friends who had been here before. The road from Ho Chi Minh City to the fruit gardens in Long Khanh is a distance of just over 50 km, and very easy to travel, so we only drove on motorbike for more than 1 hour.
From National Highway 1A (near the center of Long Khanh City), turning along the Le A Road for about 5 km, we began to reach the territory of Binh Loc commune with countless multi-species fruit gardens, always full of fragrant flowers and sweet fruits all year round.
We chose Cay Da hamlet, because according to the led the group who came here twice, this place has many beautiful, large gardens, diverse fruit trees and the very good service. The owners is enthusiastic and thoughtful.
From the main road, turning into the hamlet road, our group was all excited and extremely “eye-catching” when passing through gardens dense with fruits such as durian, mangosteen, guava, jackfruit, toadstool, longan… But perhaps the most enchanting are still the rambutan gardens laden with branches and red fruits, located close to both sides of the road in the middle of the harvest season.
Stopping at the tourist business link of Uncle Loc La garden, even though it was not yet 8:00 am, we saw quite a crowd of tourists from Saigon and other neighboring provinces coming to visit.
After buying tickets at the counter according to the combo of gardens with specific garden entry fees ranging from 100,000 VND to 190,000 VND, we were taken by a flat-top agricultural vehicle to visit the gardens one by one. With such a combo fee to visit the garden, guests will be able to eat as much as they want, get tired of picking…, but cannot bring it home, unless someone wants to buy it, then it will be weighed and calculated according to the selling price like in the market.
As far as I know, in recent years in Binh Loc commune, in addition to Uncle Loc La garden, there are many gardens associated with tourism business to serve customers such as: Aunt 2 Garden, Ut Tieu Garden, Tam Le Garden…
Entering the first rambutan garden, our whole group immersed ourselves in the hectares garden, hundreds of luxuriant rambutan trees with branches and leaves to pick fruit to eat. Everyone told each other to choose Thai-like rambutan and longan rambutan trees, “skip” some regular rambutan trees despite their beautiful bright appearance and large fruits but slightly sour taste.
Wandering in the rambutan garden for more than an hour, we witnessed dozens of tourist groups. And just like us, after eating to their heart’s content, almost everyone asks the garden owner for a large plastic bag so they can personally pick the ripest and most satisfactory rambutans and buy them as gifts for friends and relatives.
In my group, I bought the most, picking up to a dozen kilograms, VND 25,000/kg. Although the price was not much cheaper than buying in Saigon, I got the most “delightful” product that you choose and pick yourself…
After “bombarding” the rambutan garden, we were called by the garden owner to send a farm truck to take us to the green-skin grapefruit garden. In the garden, more than ten thousand square meters wide, every tree has large, hairy fruits that are very eye-catching. I observed that every visitor to the grapefruit garden took selfies with the grapefruits and laughed happily.
The small thatched-roof camps in the grapefruit garden are for tourists to rest, looking very poetic like a wind shop. There are plates of green-skinned grapefruit with fresh peach shrimp for guests to enjoy. However, our group could only eat a few segments because everyone was too full from eating a lot in the rambutan garden.
After finishing the grapefruit garden, our group went to the jackfruit garden, guava garden, and toad garden. Each garden brought us and the tourists different interesting and exciting things. Some other tourist business locations in Binh Loc commune, gardeners exploit tourism with gardens growing durian, mangosteen, longan and annona.
Each garden has its own unique beauty, and all are chosen by customers from the beginning to buy tickets. However, as I see it, usually visitors to fruit gardens in one day only choose tours from 3 to 5 types of gardens, which is just enough time…
When visiting the fruit gardens in Long Khanh, visitors do not necessarily have to buy combo tickets, but can choose to buy tickets to visit one or several gardens at their discretion.
In addition to being able to eat fruit as they please, buy fresh, clean, safe fruits picked by yourself, guests are also served a variety of dishes prepared in a rural style such as: Grilled chicken; Grilled snakehead fish rolled with rice paper; Free-range chicken cooked in porridge; rice and crab soup…
The price is also reasonable, not too expensive, depending on the dish, each guest only has to spend from VND 50,000 to VND 150,000 to have a delicious lunch under the romantic natural scenery.
With the time spent on weekends, I have previously been to many tourist destinations right next to Ho Chi Minh City in Binh Duong, Long An, Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh…, but this time I visited and explored the fruit garden in Long Khanh (Dong Nai), I found this place really interesting and attractive.
Coming here, visitors can not only enjoy sweet fruits picked by themselves and enjoy many culinary dishes with rustic country flavors, but each person can explore, experience and immerse themselves in the green nature.
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