Lang Sen wetland: the Plain of Reeds inside Tay Ninh

Lang Sen is a wetland reserve in the Plain of Reeds, the low basin of the Mekong Delta that straddles the Cambodian border. Research began in 1998 and the reserve was created by government decision in 2004. The Ramsar Convention listed it as a wetland of international importance on 22 May 2015, with an area of 4,802 hectares. Provincial and national sources give the natural area as about 5,000 to 5,030 hectares, with a core of melaleuca forest of about 2,000 hectares.

The habitats are seasonally flooded grassland, open swamp, and riverine melaleuca and mixed forest, which the Ramsar listing describes as a rare remaining sample of natural riverine forest in the Mekong Delta. Sources count between 142 and 148 bird species and 87 fish species, 27 of them found only in the lower Mekong. The species that draw birdwatchers are the sarus crane, listed as vulnerable, and the greater adjutant, listed as endangered.

What a visitor actually does is quieter than those numbers suggest. You go out by motorboat along narrow canals to lotus lagoons and stretches of open marsh, watch birds lift off the fields, and walk or ride along paths under the melaleuca. There are displays of local animals and a staff tourism team, but this is a reserve, not a park with attractions.

The two goals pull in different directions. The national tourism authority recommends the flood season, from September to November, when the wetland is fully flooded and the lagoons and canals look their fullest. The Ramsar listing notes that more than 20,000 waterbirds are regularly recorded in the dry season, when water shrinks back to the core and birds concentrate.

The dry season also has a real downside. In 2016 a regional drought dried out the 200-hectare core of the reserve for the first time in decades; staff had to pump water around the clock to bring levels back to 50 centimetres, and the forest fire warning was raised to its highest level. In a dry year, the late dry season, March to April, can mean low water, shorter boat routes and fire restrictions.

There is no simple public transport to the reserve. The usual approach is by car or hired driver from Ho Chi Minh City or Tan An, through rice fields and melaleuca country, then by motorboat along a canal into the reserve. Roads in the Plain of Reeds are narrow and slow, and UK travel advice notes that the Mekong Delta floods in October and November, when some roads may be affected. Check the route and the reserve's boat arrangements before setting out.