Soc Trang, Khmer and Hoa on the Maspéro

Soc Trang is a busy market town, now formally a ward of Can Tho city. The former province counted about 362,000 Khmer at the 2019 census, and the town also has a Hoa (ethnic Chinese) community whose legacy shows in its bakeries. The Bat pagoda in particular draws visitors through the day. We arrive early, when it is quiet.

The town has two faces in the year. For most of it, Soc Trang is a place to see four or five pagodas over two days and eat well. At the full moon of the tenth lunar month it becomes the centre of Ok Om Bok: in 2025 the festival brought 60 men’s and women’s ghe Ngo teams to race on the Maspéro river in Soc Trang ward, with the moon-offering rite at Chùa Kh’leang. Expect full hotels and crowded river banks.

Chùa Dơi takes its name from the large fruit bats that hang in the trees of its four-hectare grounds. Its main hall burned in 2007 and was restored in 2009; it was listed as a national architectural and artistic relic in 1999. Sources disagree on its founding: Vietnamese Wikipedia gives 1569 as the start of construction, while a travel guide says “over 440 years”. We give the sixteenth century and leave the exact year open.

Kh’leang, near the centre, is dated to the mid-sixteenth century, with the main hall and sala rebuilt in 1918 and Khmer forms mixed with Kinh and Chinese motifs. Som Rong was founded in 1785; its giant reclining Buddha was begun in 2017, and travel sources give different sizes for it, so we do not repeat one. Sà Lôn, the “bowl-and-plate” pagoda on the national road at My Xuyen, was rebuilt in 1969 with walls covered in broken ceramics.

Two. Arrive in the afternoon for Kh’leang, spend the next morning at the Bat pagoda and Som Rong while it is cool, and go to Sà Lôn after lunch. The second evening is free for the market and the food.

With one night you can see two pagodas and leave; the Bat pagoda in the middle of the day is at its busiest. During Ok Om Bok, plan three nights so the race day is not also an arrival or departure day.

• From Ho Chi Minh City: about 227 km, four to five hours by private car on the expressway and through Can Tho.
• From Can Tho: about 63 km, an hour to an hour and a half. Can Tho airport (VCA) has domestic flights.
• From Tra Vinh: about 63 km by the road with a Hau River ferry, or about 143 km via the Can Tho bridge.
• From Chau Doc: about 190 km, three and a half to four hours.

• If you have already spent two nights in Tra Vinh and want a different community — go to Chau Doc instead
• During Ok Om Bok, if you dislike crowds and closed roads
• If you are looking for quiet countryside pagodas; Soc Trang’s well-known ones draw more visitors
• On a very tight schedule — it is off the main Can Tho–Chau Doc axis

Soc Trang fits on the Khmer Delta journey (two nights), the Four Cultures route (one night) and the Ok Om Bok version of the Festival Journey. Pair it with Tra Vinh.