Deep South: Saigon to Chau Doc in 8 Days

Every part can be changed to suit your group.

1. Day 1 Arrival in Saigon

   We meet you at Tan Son Nhat airport and take you to your hotel in the city centre. In the late afternoon, when the heat softens, your guide walks with you into the small alleys just behind the main streets, where families cook, children play and neighbours sit outside their homes. We stop for a coffee in a hidden cafe and finish with dinner at a busy local street food stall. This first walk is a gentle introduction to the city and to the way we travel: slowly, with time to look, ask questions and take photos. Your guide also gives you a short briefing about the days ahead in the Mekong Delta and answers any questions about the trip.

   
2. Day 2 Saigon’s Hidden Neighbourhoods

   A full day exploring Saigon beyond the landmarks. We start early at a neighbourhood market, then visit small temples and an old pagoda before crossing to the quiet Thanh Da peninsula, where rice fields and fish ponds sit only a few kilometres from the city centre. After lunch we head to Cho Lon, Saigon’s Chinatown, to walk its busy streets, herbal medicine shops and incense-filled temples, with plenty of time for photos. Thanh Da is one of the few places in Saigon where you can still see traditional houses, small gardens and fishermen on the river. In Chinatown, your guide shares the history of the Chinese community and how they shaped Saigon’s trade. Dinner is free so you can explore on your own.

   
3. Day 3 Ben Tre Coconut Country

   We leave Saigon in the morning and drive south to Ben Tre, the coconut province of the Mekong Delta. We cycle small roads through coconut groves and villages, visiting family workshops making coconut candy and sleeping mats. After a countryside lunch, a sampan takes us quietly through narrow water coconut canals. We spend the night at a riverside lodge. The riverside lodge is a peaceful place with gardens and simple, comfortable rooms. Ben Tre is known as the land of coconuts, and you will see how almost every part of the tree is used, from the fruit and the oil to the leaves for roofs and the shells for handicrafts.

   
4. Day 4 Vinh Long River Island

   A boat takes us across the river to an island in Vinh Long, where families grow fruit and make bricks and pottery in large riverside kilns. We walk and cycle through the orchards, stopping to taste whatever fruit is in season, and spend the night in a family homestay, helping our hosts cook dinner. The kilns of Vinh Long have been producing red bricks and pottery for generations, and their tall domes along the river are one of the most beautiful sights in the delta. In the evening, the island is quiet and dark, with only the sounds of frogs, boats and insects.

   
5. Day 5 Cai Rang Floating Market and Can Tho

   An early boat brings us to the Cai Rang floating market, where farmers sell fruit and vegetables from their boats, hanging samples on tall poles. We explore the small canals around Can Tho by boat and on foot and visit a family rice noodle workshop. The afternoon is free in the city. Can Tho is the largest city of the Mekong Delta and has a lively riverside promenade and night market. In the afternoon you can rest at the hotel, walk along the river or visit the Ong pagoda and the old market. Dinner is free to try one of the many local restaurants.

   
6. Day 6 Can Tho to Long Xuyen

   We drive to Long Xuyen and take a boat along the river to see floating houses and fish farms, where families raise fish in cages below their homes. We cycle or walk around an island village, home to Cham Muslim and Vietnamese communities, visiting a mosque and a weaving family. The fish farms of Long Xuyen raise catfish and other freshwater fish, much of which is exported. The Cham community has lived along these rivers for centuries, and their villages, mosques and weaving traditions are a surprising part of the delta. Overnight at a hotel in Long Xuyen.

   
7. Day 7 Chau Doc and the Tra Su Forest

   We continue to Chau Doc and visit the Tra Su flooded forest, rowing through green channels covered in water plants and full of birds. In the afternoon we visit a Cham village and its floating fish farms, then climb Sam Mountain for sunset over the rice plains that stretch to the Cambodian border. The Tra Su forest is best between August and November, when the water is high, but it is beautiful all year round. The Cham village of Chau Giang has wooden stilt houses and a beautiful mosque, and families still weave cloth on traditional looms. Sam Mountain gives a wide view of the plains and rice fields stretching into Cambodia.

   
8. Day 8 Chau Doc to Saigon

   After a slow breakfast by the river, we drive back to Saigon through the delta, arriving in the late afternoon. If you are continuing to Cambodia, you can take the speedboat from Chau Doc to Phnom Penh instead. On the way back, we can stop at a local market or a rice mill if time allows. Your guide shares the last stories of the trip, and we drop you at your hotel or the airport in Saigon. If you are continuing to Cambodia, the speedboat leaves early in the morning and arrives in Phnom Penh around lunchtime.