Ox race «Hội đua bò Bảy Núi» (Bảy Núi ox racing festival, 31st edition)

   Two oxen, a wooden harrow and a driver standing on it, with a flooded rice paddy instead of a track. The Khmer ox races of Bảy Núi have run in An Giang for more than thirty years, and on 10 October the thirty-first edition takes place.

   The opening and the races start at 07:30 on Saturday 10 October (the first day of the ninth lunar month) at the ox racing ground in An Cư commune, next to Thơ Mít pagoda. No entry terms were set out: the field is open and spectators line the track. Around sixty pairs of oxen from communes and wards across the province will compete.

   What happens around the racing:

   — on the evening of 9 October the An Giang Khmer Art Troupe performs at Thơ Mít pagoda, and again at the opening on the morning of the 10th;
   — the An Cư commune committee runs a programme of Khmer culture;
   — a display of provincial products: OCOP goods, farm produce and Bảy Núi handicrafts;
   — food rows, folk games and a cultural exchange area;
   — on 6 October at 09:00 the draw and race numbers are handed out; entries close on 30 September.

   This is worth seeing at least once. The oxen run in pairs across the wet field, water flies in a wall, and the driver balances on the harrow behind them — it is short, loud and nothing like a horse race. The best spots are along the track, which is also where you will be soaked; locals turn up prepared.

   The races are tied to Sene Dolta, the Khmer festival of remembrance for ancestors and the most important date in the community's calendar. Bảy Núi — seven hills on the Cambodian border — is historically Khmer land, and these races are not a tourist attraction here but part of a holiday kept in families and pagodas.

   The organiser is the An Giang provincial people's committee; the competition runs for the An Giang Television (ATV) cup under plan 496/KH-UBND. The province is inviting tour operators and hotels to build programmes around these dates, so transfer options will most likely appear closer to October.

   One day, sixty pairs of oxen and a festival the delta keeps for itself rather than for visitors. If you are in the south in early October, get up early — it all starts at half past seven.