Contrary to our expectations, the Mekong Delta is huge in itself! It includes a total of 11 Vietnamese provinces with over 14 million inhabitants (as of 2020). From this it can be drawn that we do not recognize all the peculiarities of the Mekong Delta on our 2-day excursion and certainly do not see all the sights.

Against our rather moderate experience with guided tours, we book a two-day tour for the visit of the Mekong Delta. A guided tour makes a lot of sense, because the tour operator is able to set the right focus within the many possible activities and we think through that we can get a good impression of this region in the short time.

In the following report we take you with us on our Mekong Delta 2-day tour, tell you about our highlights and why the tour was worthwhile for us despite a very touristy program.

The two-day adventure starts unspectacular by bus transfer

We start in the morning at 8.00 o’clock, thus with obligatory delay at 8.30 o’clock, and drive first of all 3h to the south. Already during the drive we realize that this tour has a pretty packed program and accordingly a very strict schedule. However, our guide is wonderfully sarcastic, which makes the whole thing a lot more fun. Our tour guide speaks very good English and has many interesting insights ready for us.

Buddhist temple complex near My Tho

After seeing many impressive Buddhist temples as well as pagodas in Thailand, we do not experience the same Buddhist intensity here as in other countries. Possibly this stop is also a gap filler – we don’t know for sure. However, we do learn the difference between temples and pagodas: Buddhist temples are used to worship Buddha while pagodas are used to worship real people who lived in the past.

River crossing and island visit

In My Tho we board a boat which takes us to a river island in the Mekong. The river delta consists of many wide and small river arms. In between there are long islands, on one of them we stand after the crossing. We are greeted with fruit and a performance by various singers who introduce us to traditional music. We stay for a moment under simple roof constructions made of natural materials before we go for a walk.

On the way our guide explains us the surroundings. The most interesting thing for us is probably that there are two different types of coconut palms. One is the tall palm, with the coconuts on it, as we know it, the other is the water coconut palm. This variety is much smaller, grows in or right by the water and has virtually no trunk, the huge palm fronds all grow directly from the base. While you can easily cut the fronds off the water coconut palm and it will simply produce new ones, the great coconut palm will die if you prune it. These fronds are still used here for covering most roofs.

Traditional canoe trip

After the short walk the next surprise is waiting for us. We are sailed through the water palms in a traditional canoe by two Vietnamese. The perspective shows how close to and on the water the traditional way of life is rooted in the Mekong Delta. Accordingly, the finely branched network of canals is also used as a means of transportation on the islands. Today less used, but in very rural regions, we believe it can still occur in everyday life. The experience would have been even better if there was some more space in between the many tourist filled canoes, but we guess that’s sort of the tradeoff of a guided tour.

Honey candy factory

Unfortunately, we don’t see too much of the production process at the honey candy factory, as there is not much going on today. We are allowed to taste the different products and try different honey candies, dried honey bananas and other sweets.

Pony carriage ride & Coco Candy Factory

After lunch, the whole group is met by several pony carriage teams. We ride in a carriage pulled by a pony across the island to the next stop: the Coco Candy Factory. A factory on this sightseeing tour is of course not a fully automated assembly line but a large bamboo shelter under which several women produce the candy mass, pour it into molds and pack it by hand after cutting. Coconut candy is called coconut candy because coconut shavings are processed over a fire into a creamy, sticky mass. The raw mass of the coco candy.

End of the first day & moving into the homestay

From the island we take a boat to the shore and from there travel to Can Tho by long-distance bus. We are especially excited about a highlight which we have booked with full anticipation and a bit of uncertainty: A Vietnamese homestay. The first great surprise is that while the hotel guests (another overnight option on the tour) are unloaded directly at the hotel, we once again board a small boat with a gasoline “stick blender” engine, which is more suitable for everyday use compared to the canoes seen in the morning. It stops directly at the river bank of the Homestay. We climb up the short path and we can move into our simple room for the night.

But the real added value was the dinner cooking together with the homestay family. We get insights into the Vietnamese everyday life by narratives of the English speaking son of the house.

Floating Market

On the second day of the tour we have to get up early, because we want to go to the floating market. A floating market is a market that tends to focus on food, but is by no means limited to food. It is quite possible that other parts of the country also have such floating markets for other products. So, it is a market made of many boats anchored at a certain place in the Mekong River. The traders bring fresh goods daily by boat. This seems to be a very good idea, thus eliminating the unloading at a central place and distributing the goods. Only the accessibility is usually limited for us tourists, because we would not get far here without a boat.  There are so many different offers to see, we almost can’t get enough of the extraordinary scenery.

An exciting side note for us: Have you wondered how the merchants present their goods and how the market visitors find their way around? On the pictures you can see many long sticks with fruits or other objects on them. For example, one merchant states that he has fresh pineapple for sale when the fruit is skewered on the pole. In general, there is a colorful hustle and bustle between the larger traders / merchandise boats and the smaller boats of the buyers, which maneuver in droves on the narrowest space on the flowing Mekong usually without colliding.  This is our personal highlight of the whole tour, even if we have not quite reached the end of the travelogue.

Vietnamese rice noodle factory

The tour of the factory includes a showcase of the individual manufacturing steps, which are specially demonstrated to us by factory employees. This is interesting, we are also surprised how much manual work there is still in the final product. Next door, production in one of the phases shown is really comparable to the showcase. That surprises us. After the noodle production we also see the large area where many kilograms of rice noodles hang in the open air to be packed after complete drying.

Two day tour Mekong Delta – Our conclusion

The tour was quite touristy and had a very strict schedule. Still, we think we saw a lot for the $25 per person for the two days including accommodation and food. We had a fun guide and the group was also pleasant. We could have done the whole thing on our own, but it would probably have been very tedious to locate the spots and then also to organize the transportation. All in all, an enriching change with interesting impressions. We would book the tour again!