Gao Giong Eco Park

Gáo Giồng began as a failure. This wetland in Đồng Tháp was once heavily affected by acid soil. It was hard to farm, and few people wanted to live there.

Then people set about repairing it. They planted trees, raised banks and led water in. The troubled ground became a protection forest, and from 2003 an ecotourism site.

One news report calls Gáo Giồng a small Đồng Tháp Mười. That name does more than describe the scenery. It describes the history.

The ecotourism area lies in Phong Mỹ commune, which belongs to Đồng Tháp Province. It is about 17 kilometers from the center of Cao Lãnh city.

The provincial tourism portal gives the whole area as 1,670 hectares. Of that, 250 hectares are primary forest. Within the area, the bird sanctuary covers more than 36 hectares. A 2025 update from a Đồng Tháp newspaper says the tràm forest covers more than 1,500 hectares. It puts the bird sanctuary at about 40 hectares and counts about 100 kinds of birds, cò included.

The figures differ by source and survey year. They agree on one thing. This is a large ecosystem, not a leisure park.

Most visits begin at the observation tower, 18 meters high. From the top, the shape of the tràm forest shows itself. Green canopies run together, canals thread between the trees, and the bird sanctuary forms a patch of its own. Tens of thousands of waterbirds live there by season.

Among them is cò ốc, a bird listed in the Red Book of Vietnam. In winter it can number from 50,000 to 70,000 here. That is a remarkable count for a threatened species.

The boat route into the bird sanctuary is the most important part of the visit. The boat slips along the canals and slowly enters the area where the birds live. Waterbirds are very sensitive to noise. Inside the sanctuary it feels like wandering into another world: a sky white with cò wings, the rush of beating wings, and the smell of mud and plants blended together.

A newer sight is the Gáo Giồng bamboo road. A Đồng Tháp newspaper describes it as about seven kilometers long, running through the tràm forest. Bamboo also lines the dike for about 20 kilometers.

The bamboo conservation area covers 66 hectares. In 2022 it held more than 1,000 clumps of more than 93 kinds of bamboo, Vietnamese and foreign. This is a handsome road for photographs, and it is also a living bamboo conservation project, joined with ecotourism.

The park also has a dining area. A Đồng Tháp newspaper once named dishes such as cá lóc nướng trui, chuột đồng quay lu and canh chua cá linh, typical of the river country of the south.

Gáo Giồng teaches a lesson about policy and patience. Land with acid soil, if it is cared for properly over many years, can become a home for a hundred kinds of birds and thousands of bamboo plants. What is most precious here is not the scenery. It is the proof that recovery is possible.