BINH THUAN – Wild bananas are in full season, people in the My Thanh highlands go to the mountains to find and pick ripe fruits to bring back to dry and sell for income.
At around 6 a.m., K’Lu, 19 years old, in My Thanh highland commune, Ham Thuan Nam district invited his younger brother to go to Rua mountain to pick wild bananas. The mountain wind was still cold, the two brothers carried baskets up the Gia Pa O stream. The sound of wild birds singing from the mountains mixed with the sound of flowing streams.
Crossing the stream, looking up at the top of the mountain, K’Lu saw a wild banana patch lying halfway up the slope amidst the dense forest about 300 meters away. The distance was not very far, but it took nearly 20 minutes for the K’Lu brothers to climb to the top, because there were many vines and thorns along the road.
When the two brothers arrived, there was a banana forest in front of them that was yielding fruit. Many fruit chambers ripen to a golden yellow, falling down and smelling delicious. Some chambers have traces of monkeys, squirrels and wild birds eating, leaving the leftovers at the base. Wild bananas grow in clusters, with many bushes close together. Banana stem is slim, 3-4 m high, leaves are straight up, each chamber has 5-9 bunches, small fruit, 9-10 cm long, little rice, but many black seeds.
In this forest, many bananas grow in bunches, but the two brothers only choose the bunches with evenly grown fruits that are old enough to cut them into baskets. After two hours of walking, two baskets were full of bananas and heavy. Before going down the mountain, each person cut down a few more chambers and tied a rope to carry them down.
K’Lu said that old bananas are chopped and incubated in a cardboard box for 3-4 days to ripen. Ripe fruits are peeled, dried in the sun for about 5 days to dry, and saved to sell to lowland people. Because he doesn’t have time to dry them, he often sells bananas in bulk to people in the village to dry. On average, every day picking wild bananas, K’Lu earns about 200,000 VND.
Mr. Tran Van Ngo lives about a kilometer away and is one of the people who specializes in collecting wild bananas in My Thanh commune. When picking, he rides his motorbike along the trail into the Rai Vo mountain area, more than ten kilometers from the village. When he got there, he left his motorbike on the bank of the stream and walked a short distance until he reached the acre-wide banana forest.
According to him, there are many wild bananas here but there is no professional purchasing and processing facility. So he only went to the forest to get bananas when a contact called to place an order. “I go in the morning and bring back a full bag in the afternoon,” Mr. Ngo said, adding that every time he sells bananas, he earns about 300,000 VND to buy rice, salt and fish sauce, and improve his life.
Mr. Nguyen Van Vuong, head of village 1, My Thanh commune, said most ethnic minorities here only grow corn, noodles and cash crops in the rainy season, and are very idle in the dry season. Therefore, along with honey collection, wild banana picking is one of the jobs that helps people earn extra income.
According to Mr. Vuong, wild bananas grow in cool forests all year round, especially near water or stream banks. Bananas bear fruit all year round, but usually after the rainy season they flower profusely and ripen at the end of the year. This is also the time when wild banana seeds have the best quality because they contain many nutrients.
In the past, indigenous people mainly used it to make traditional medicine or soak it in wine. Recently, the roads are more convenient, many tourists come to explore the beauty of My Thanh mountains and forests every holiday and weekend. Thanks to that, wild bananas as well as specialty bamboo shoots, lingzhi mushrooms… are consumed more.
My Thanh highland, 45 km from Phan Thiet, is considered to have great potential for developing ecotourism thanks to rich natural forests, biodiversity, and many beautiful streams and waterfalls inside. “Here, if tourism develops, wild banana specialties will help local people increase their income,” Mr. Vuong said.
In addition to the My Thanh highland, some other areas in Binh Thuan province are famous for having many wild bananas such as: Ta Pao, La Ngau, La Da, Da Mi, Gia Bac… Bananas, after peeling and drying, are sold at Original price 60,000-90,000 VND per kg, depending on quality.
Wild bananas are often soaked in medicinal wine or crushed to make herbal medicine and decoction for drinking. In oriental medicine, bananas have diuretic effects, nourish the kidneys, and support the treatment of kidney stones, bladder, diabetes…
($1~24,000 VND)
Photo,Video: Internet (Vinlove.net)