Not only having fruit orchards laden with fruit, and unique eco-tourism sites, Vinh Long is also famous for the Red Kingdom located on romantic rivers. Each roof of the kiln, each row of bricks, and each shimmering image with the characteristic river and river scenery of the ceramic brick village is unmistakable.
Everyone knows that to build great works, the foundation is indispensable. But where bricks come from, and how to produce them is not well known. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to travel to the West, especially the provinces of Vinh Long, Ben Tre, etc., you will encounter the traditional pottery-making villages of the people located along the two banks of the river.
Separated from the main tributary of the Mekong, two tributaries of the Tien and Hau Rivers run throughout the South every year, bringing to this vast delta millions of cubic meters of fertile alluvium. This volume of alluvium is not only a source of nutrients for rice fields or gardens of four seasons of fruit but also forms precious primeval clay deposits.
This primeval clay mine is an excellent raw material to create products used in construction and decoration such as fired bricks, ceramics, etc. The rudimentary clay blocks through the talented hands of craftsmen become useful products. for the citizen.
When it comes to brick-making in the West, Vinh Long is the province with the largest number of craft villages and brick-producing households. The ceramic brick village stretches 30km in Vinh Long City, Long Ho district, and Mang Thit district. Which, Nhon Phu and My An communes, Mang Thit district, are the places where many brick production facilities are concentrated. Mang Thit brick and ceramic kiln is hundreds of years old, known as the most famous and largest producer of red bricks and ceramics in the Mekong Delta, exporting to many countries around the world. Folk often call this place “the kingdom of bricks/kilns”.
If you want to go to the brick village in Vinh Long, you follow Highway 53 and then turn into DT 903, run straight and meet the junction to DT 902 (along Co Chien River). Here, you can ask the locals for route directions.
From My Thuan Bridge where the Tien River splits into Co Chien River to Mang Thit River, along the riverside brick and ceramic kilns sprung up, stretching for tens of kilometers, looking far away like miniature castles glowing red in the sun, making visitors When you visit, you feel like you are lost in a fairy tale world.
In the past, when the traditional craft of brick making was still prosperous, each house owned several kilns. When in season, all of them emit white smoke in the sky. The brick kilns are located close to each other, looking from afar like a beautiful little kingdom with hundreds of small castles.
A brick kiln is usually about 12m high. It takes 5 days to load and unload bricks, 15 days to bake and 10 days to build the kiln door and wait for the bricks to cool. Bricks are fired with rice husks with a very careful fire watch and inspection process, to ensure that the bricks are ‘ripe’ just right. After about 1 month of firing, the finished product is about 120,000 standard au red bricks. Before, when traffic was not developed, bricks were transported throughout the South by river.
It used to be so prosperous, but now if you visit the red brick kingdom in Vinh Long, you will see that only a few of these brick kilns are on fire. When the modern kiln system prevailed, Vinh Long’s traditional brick kilns gradually ‘disappeared’ and eventually fell into the past.
From a traditional craft village, now Vinh Long brick kilns have become an attractive tourist destination for domestic and foreign tourists. Not to mention, there are many unique shooting angles here that you will definitely find it difficult to ignore.
Going along rivers like Cai Chien, Mang Thit, Cai Nhum, Thay Cai canal… you will still see hundreds of brick kilns lying there. But moss has grown, dust has attached, covering the ancient ‘burnt brick city’ of time.
Although born late, but Vinh Long pottery village has its own unique feature, which is unglazed pottery. Without the red color of bricks and tiles, Vinh Long pottery has a natural pink color, after heating the outer layer of white chalk like dew.
Not only impressed by the ceramic color, in Co Chien, Vinh Long also has a unique architectural work that is almost unique in Vietnam, which is a pottery house. Here you will witness the talented hands and elaborate and meticulous investment of the potters and choose for yourself the desired items for decoration or as a gift.
Although there are still many difficulties in developing and maintaining the red-ceramic brick-burning village of Mang Thit, Vinh Long, the brick kilns here are still burning red day and night to create beautiful, unique and quality products. . The workers are still engrossed in the craft of creating cultural features with Vietnamese soul values, Eastern culture, which exist over the years.
If you have the opportunity to travel to Vinh Long, do not miss the opportunity to check in at the ceramic brick kilns, bring back beautiful and quality photos of yourself.
