Mekong Delta Tour: Boat Rides & Local Villages

Boat through palm-lined waterways, then pedal through the villages where the coconut and honey come from

A full-day guided tour of the Mekong Delta takes you by bus from Ho Chi Minh City to My Tho and Ben Tre, where you board boats for rides through palm-lined creeks, cycle through coconut villages, visit a honey bee farm, and watch a traditional music performance. The tour includes lunch, hotel pickup, and an English-speaking guide. It runs 8 to 9 hours with about 3 hours of travel time each way. Children from age 5 are welcome, and infants sit on an adult's lap.

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Mekong Delta and local culture

• Travel by bus to Mekong Delta
• Visit Vinh Trang pagoda
• Boat trip to Unicorn and Coconut Island
• Enjoy traditional Vietnamese music performance
• Taste tropical fruit salad
• Ride sampan row boat on water palm creek
• Ride motorboat on water palm creek
• Ride buggy/golf cart/tuktuk in coconut village
• Bicycle ride on village beaten track
• Visit local family honey bee keeping
• Attend coconut candy workshop
• Return by bus to Sai Gon

The experience

The day starts with a 3-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City to the Mekong Delta. Once you arrive in My Tho, the bus gives way to the water: you board a motorboat that cuts through the palm-lined creeks of Ben Tre, passing the Unicorn and Coconut Islands. The waterways are narrow enough that you see the villages from the boat instead of passing through them as a blur, and the pace lets the guide point out how the delta works: the way the palms grow in the water, the channels that connect the islands, the rhythm of the place.

Back on land, the tour shifts to how locals move through the delta. You ride a sampan, a small wooden rowboat, through a narrower creek where the palms are so thick overhead the light filters green. Then a bicycle takes you onto the beaten tracks of the village itself, past the coconut trees and the houses built on stilts. A stop at a local honey bee farm shows you how that part of the delta economy works, and you taste the honey. Lunch arrives at a local family's table, and a traditional music performance with Vietnamese instruments plays while you eat tropical fruit salad and the day's main meal.

The tour also includes a buggy or golf cart ride through the coconut groves and a visit to a coconut candy workshop where you can watch or try making the sweets yourself. By the time you board the motorboat back to My Tho and settle in for the 3-hour return drive to Ho Chi Minh City, you've moved through the delta on five different kinds of transport: each one showing you a different angle of how the region works. The guide travels with you the whole way and speaks English.

What’s included

• Hotel pickup from Ho Chi Minh City.
• motorboat rides through the palm creeks of Ben Tre.
• sampan rowboat ride on a narrow waterway.
• bicycle ride through the village.
• buggy or golf cart ride through the coconut groves.
• visit to a local honey bee farm.
• coconut candy workshop.
• traditional Vietnamese music performance with instruments.
• lunch at a local family's table.
• tropical fruit salad.
• English-speaking guide for the full day.

Options for this experience

2 options

Full-day Mekong Delta tourGuide in English · 07:30Pickup is included

Small group tour, superiorGuide in English · 07:30Maximum 12 passengers, pickup is included

You see the exact price of each option when you check availability.See dates & prices

Before you book

Days and timesEvery dayDeparts at 07:30

AgesAdult (10 to 75 years) · Child (5 to 9 years) · Under 5: can't be included in the booking

GroupUp to 20

Live guideEnglish

Meeting point and pickupHotel pickup is optional; you can also go straight to the meeting point. Ends back at the starting point.

Cancellation and refundsFree cancellation up to 24 h before the start. After that, no refund.

Prices and times updated 4 days ago

Good to know

Moderate physical levelInfants must sit on laps

Operated by ACE TRAVELS

Is this one for you?Book this tour if you want to move through the delta on different kinds of transport (water, pedal, and foot) instead of watching it pass from a bus window. The mix of boat rides, village cycling, and stops at working farms and workshops means you're not just seeing the Mekong. You're seeing how people live and work there.

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Top questions

Can children come?

Yes. Ticket types: Child (5 to 9 years). Under 5: they can't be included in the booking.

What's the Mekong Delta like when you're actually on the water?

The motorboat rides take you through narrow palm-lined creeks where the trees grow right out of the water and the villages sit on the banks or on stilts in the channels. The sampan, a wooden rowboat, goes into even narrower waterways where the palms close overhead. You see the delta from the water instead of from a distance, and the pace is slow enough to notice how the region is built.

How much of the day is sitting on a bus?

About 3 hours each way between Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, so roughly 6 hours of the 8- to 9-hour tour is travel time. The rest is on the water, on a bicycle, in a buggy, or at stops in the villages and at the honey bee farm.

What do you actually do at the coconut candy workshop?

The tour includes a visit to a coconut candy workshop where you watch the process and can try making the sweets yourself if you want to. It's one of the stops that shows how the delta's coconut harvest becomes a finished product.

Does the tour include meals, or do you need to budget for lunch separately?

Lunch is included in the tour price and is served at a local family's table during the traditional music performance. Tropical fruit salad is part of the meal. You don't need to arrange or pay for lunch separately.