Mountain banana picking season

Binh Thuan: Wild bananas are in season. People in the highlands of My Thanh go up the mountains to find and pick ripe fruits, bring them home to dry and sell for income.

At around 6am, K'Lu, 19 years old, from the mountainous commune of My Thanh, Ham Thuan Nam district, invited his younger brother to go up Rua mountain to pick wild bananas. The mountain wind was still chilly, the two brothers carried their baskets and went upstream to Gia Pa O stream. The sound of birds chirping from the mountain mixed with the sound of the flowing stream.

Past the stream, looking up the mountain, K'Lu saw a patch of wild banana trees lying halfway up the slope, among the dense forest, about 300 meters away. The distance was not very far, but it took K'Lu and his brothers nearly 20 minutes to climb up to the top, because there were many vines and thorns along the way.

K'Lu and his younger brother went up the mountain to cut wild bananas. Video : Tu Huynh

When the two brothers arrived, there was a banana forest in front of them, bearing fruit. Many bunches of ripe fruit were golden yellow, falling down fragrantly. Some bunches had traces of monkeys, squirrels and wild birds eating them, leaving the leftovers at the base. Wild bananas grew in clusters, many bushes close together. The banana trunks were slender, 3-4 m high, the leaves were straight up, each bunch had 5-9 bunches, the fruit was small, 9-10 cm long, little flesh, but many black seeds.

In this forest, bananas were in full bloom, but the two brothers only chose bunches with ripe fruit and bunches to put into their baskets. After two hours of walking, their baskets were full and heavy with bananas. Before going down the mountain, each of them cut a few more bunches, tied them with vines and carried them down.

K'Lu said that old bananas are cut and kept in a cardboard box for 3-4 days to ripen. Ripe fruits are peeled, dried in the sun for about 5 days, and then sold to people in the lowlands. Because he doesn't have time to dry them, he often gives the bananas in bunches to people in the village to dry. On average, each day of picking wild bananas, K'Lu earns about 200,000 VND.

A patch of wild banana trees on Rua Mountain, My Thanh Commune, is bearing fruit in unison. Photo: Tu Huynh

Mr. Tran Van Ngo lives about a kilometer away, is one of the people who specializes in picking wild bananas in My Thanh commune. When he goes to pick, he rides his motorbike along the trail into the Rai Vo mountain area, more than ten kilometers from the village. When he gets there, he leaves his motorbike by the stream bank, walks a short distance to reach a banana forest that is an acre wide.

According to him, there are many wild bananas here but there are no professional purchasing and processing facilities. Therefore, he only goes into the forest to get bananas when there is a call to order. "I go out in the morning and bring back a full bag in the afternoon," said Mr. Ngo, adding that each time he sells bananas, he earns about 300,000 VND to buy rice, fish sauce, and salt to improve his life.

Mr. Nguyen Van Vuong, head of village 1, My Thanh commune, said that most of the ethnic minorities here only grow corn, cassava and other crops in the rainy season, and are idle in the dry season. Therefore, along with honey collection, picking wild bananas 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 sources or streams. Bananas bear fruit all year round, but usually bloom heavily after the rainy season 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.

Mr. Nguyen Van Vuong said My Thanh is a place with many wild bananas. Photo: Tu Huynh

Previously, the local people mainly took it for traditional medicine or soaked it in wine. Recently, the roads have become more convenient, many tourists from all over the world come to explore the beauty of My Thanh mountains and forests every holiday and weekend. Thanks to that, wild bananas as well as specialties such as bamboo shoots, lingzhi mushrooms... are consumed more.

The My Thanh highland, 45 km from Phan Thiet, is considered to have great potential for developing eco-tourism thanks to its rich, bio-diverse natural forests and many beautiful streams and waterfalls. "If tourism develops in the future, the wild banana specialty will help local people increase their income," said Mr. Vuong.

In addition to the My Thanh highlands, 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... After peeling and drying the bananas, they are sold at the source for 60,000-90,000 VND per kg, depending on the quality.

Wild bananas are often soaked in medicinal wine or crushed into seeds to make traditional Chinese medicine or boiled into water to drink. In oriental medicine, bananas have diuretic and kidney-tonifying effects, supporting the treatment of kidney stones, bladder stones, diabetes, etc.

Tu Huynh

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