DIY Trip to the Mekong Delta

The Mekong mean­ders 4,350km through six coun­tries from the Tibetan Plateau to the great Delta where it emp­ties into the sea. The riv­er brings fer­til­i­ty to the plains of South­ern Viet­nam and turns it into the country’s most pro­duc­tive region in agri- and aqua­cul­ture. A par­adise for bird watch­ers, nature enthu­si­ast and peo­ple who want to expe­ri­ence local life, the Mekong Delta is a must-see on every trip to the South of Viet­nam.
To ful­ly expe­ri­ence this unique area you should plan in at least two days, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it takes some time to get there.

Things To Do

Take a boat tour along the Mekong

Most def­i­nite­ly the main rea­son to vis­it the Mekong Delta is its vast net­work of wide rivers and tiny streams which can best be explored from the water. A boat tour brings you close into the heart of this unique ecosys­tem and lets you mar­vel at the stun­ning nature and serene atmos­phere.

Sail­ing along one of the dis­trib­u­taries of the Mekong sur­round­ed by dense jun­gle.

Most tours fol­low a sim­i­lar route:

• head to your boat in the ear­ly morn­ing hours when the city is already bustling with ear­ly ris­ing locals
• board your barge and set off into the light of the slow­ly ris­ing sun above the riv­er
• arrive at the Float­ing Mar­ket of Cai Rang and maneu­ver through the house boats of the locals, over­laden with all kinds of goods and get some fruit or ice cold cof­fee for your onward trav­el from one of the nice sales ladies
• con­tin­ue along the riv­er and stop at a local fac­to­ry on the way, depend­ing on your guide this could be a coconut can­dy, brick­work or rice noo­dle fac­to­ry (which we vis­it­ed)
• snack on some yum­my sticky rice cakes or spicy banana chips while you ship along the streams that become grad­u­al­ly nar­row­er
• have some deli­cious, home­made lunch some­where along the riv­er and take a nice walk around the area where you can see the local way of life
• get deep­er into the jun­gle and spot some wildlife here and there
• on the return trip to Can Tho lean back and enjoy a nice nap shield­ed from the mid­day sun under the boat’s canopy

We booked our tour with Can Tho Tourist and paid 900.000VND (35€, 31£, 40$) exclud­ing 20.000VND for cof­fee at the Float­ing Mar­ket and 200.000VND for the lunch (for us and our guide). All in all we thus paid around 21€ each which we thought was worth it since we’d had a great day.
How­ev­er, I’m sure you could get cheap­er than that if you were will­ing to share a boat with oth­ers or are sim­ply bet­ter at nego­ti­at­ing. (We had just arrived in Viet­nam two days ear­li­er and hadn’t yet got­ten used to hag­gling)

Experience local life through a homestay

Home­s­tays are always a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence no mat­ter where you are in the world. Espe­cial­ly in rur­al areas they give you a unique per­spec­tive on the local way of life and tra­di­tions and con­nects you to the peo­ple on a very familis­tic lev­el.

At this point how­ev­er I won’t just tell you to go and do a home­s­tay but will rather entrust a very spe­cif­ic one to you: Mr. Thai’s Home­s­tay near by Ben Tre.

Our small, cozy hut at Mr. Thai’s home­s­tay self-built almost entire­ly from nat­ur­al resources.

We had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to stay with the love­ly Mr. Thai and his fam­i­ly for two days and I am not exag­ger­at­ing when I say that this short stay was tru­ly life chang­ing. Mr. Thai is such a kind and wise old soul with many sto­ries to tell which were every­thing from inspir­ing to dev­as­tat­ing. His atti­tude to life made a last­ing impres­sion on me and made me real­ize once again how much you learn when you trav­el.

Mr. Thai lives in a small com­mu­ni­ty in a very rur­al area sur­round­ed by fruit orchards and rice pad­dies. Most peo­ple there still work in tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­ture and it was incred­i­bly inter­est­ing to explore the area by foot and by bike.

We stayed in a cozy lit­tle open hut that was built on stilts over the pond so we could hear the fish beneath us, the vivid yet silent sounds of nature at night and the cock­crow at the crack of dawn. The calm atmos­phere was per­fect to unwind for a bit, espe­cial­ly after the urban chaos of Ho-Chi-Minh-City.

Sleep­ing in our spa­cious, open hut we could hear the sounds of nature at night.

Mrs. Thai is a superb cook and spoiled us with lus­cious home­made dish­es com­posed of fish from their pond, rice from their fields and fresh fruit from their trees.

On one day we got to meet Mr. Thai’s 79-year-old neigh­bour Mr. Hu who took us on a bike tour around the area stop­ping at points of inter­est and explain­ing to us about the flo­ra and fau­na, his­to­ry and lifestyle of the peo­ple. He even invit­ed us to his home where he gave us a small Viet­namese lan­guage les­son for he had been a teacher in his younger days.

Over­all the time we spent at Mr. Thai’s home­s­tay was one of the best expe­ri­ences on our Viet­nam trip and I will whole­heart­ed­ly rec­om­mend this to you. For more infor­ma­tion see my accom­mo­da­tion rec­om­men­da­tions at the end of this post.

Explore Can Tho

I wouldn’t say Can Tho is worth a trip to the south itself but while you are in the area it is a great home base for day trips to the area and nice for a half-day explo­ration.

Def­i­nite­ly plan a trip to the prom­e­nade in the evening where you can enjoy some touristy action with many bars and restau­rant look­ing out over the water where the par­ty ships put out to sea, their glim­mer­ing lights reflect­ing on the water. Stop by the huge gold­en Ho Chi Minh stat­ue and enjoy the gen­er­al cheer­ful atmos­phere while munch­ing on some deli­cious food.

If you have some more time to spare you can also rent a motor­bike and explore the sur­round­ings. Dri­ve along one of the pompous and com­plete­ly emp­ty avenues that are used exclu­sive­ly by farm­ers dry­ing their har­vest on the street and find your­self in a rur­al area with buf­fa­los and cows graz­ing on the fields with­in fif­teen min­utes.

On our way back we acci­den­tal­ly took some wrong turns and end­ed up in the city cen­tre but after a momen­tary adren­a­line rush we enjoyed it immense­ly. So if you want to try motor­bik­ing in a city, do it here — it’s still thrilling enough but not quite as dan­ger­ous as dri­ving in Ho-Chi-Minh-City.

How To Get There

The best way to get to the Mekong Delta is from Ho-Chi-Minh-City. The infra­struc­ture in the south of the coun­try is prob­a­bly the worst devel­oped one you will encounter in Viet­nam but you will still get any­where you want to go.

Since there are no trains you will have to take a bus from Ho-Chi-Minh-City which takes sup­pos­ed­ly 4 hours (we did man­age this on the way there) but can take suf­fi­cient­ly longer, like twice as long. So plan enough time for your arrival and depar­ture and be pre­pared for a long trip.

I rec­om­mend you go with Futabus, one of the lead­ing bus com­pa­nies in Viet­nam. We booked our bus tick­ets with this com­pa­ny on many trips through­out the coun­try and were almost always punc­tu­al, with friend­ly ser­vice and mod­ern bus­es (air-con­di­tioned, free WIFI and water). I would rec­om­mend you book a sleep­er bus as they are much more com­fort­able on longer trips  and are also equipped with a toi­let, but they do have Seater bus­es avail­able as well.

Bus­es run 4 times an hour between 8am and 7pm and once every hour dur­ing the night. Tick­ets are only around 100.000VND (4€) and you can get tick­ets online, at the bus sta­tion or any tick­et office in Ho-Chi-Minh-City or some­where along the way.

Pro Tip: Take a Grab taxi to the tick­et sta­tion or walk there. If you buy a bus tick­et there it includes the trans­fer to the main bus sta­tion out­side the city and is much cheap­er than get­ting there your­self (FUTA Tick­et Office: 272 Đề Thám, Phạm Ngũ Lão, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh or ask your hotel recep­tion)

Where To Stay

Have you been to the Mekong Delta before? Did you book a tour or did you go by your­self? What did you like best about the Mekong Delta? I’d love to hear about your expe­ri­ence!