Highlights: Ho Chi Minh City, boat cruises, bird watching, floating markets, the Mekong Delta ecosystems, Kh'mer architecture, and the ethnic minority Cham Muslim community.

Your tour begins with....
.... time to recover and a night in Ho Chi Minh City. Your guide will be with you throughout your tour of the Mekong Delta, so your ‘Welcome’ dinner will be an excellent opportunity to get to know each other and chat about your tour.

Guide/escort: transfer from the airport, and evening
Meals: one dinner

Five days driving deep into the Delta.
You'll be meeting the people and experiencing the unique culture, then turning north-west towards the border with Cambodia before returning to Ho Chi Minh City.

Your programme begins with urban sprawl and awful traffic, but the vista soon opens up as you pass My Tho on the edge of the Delta, very commercialised and as far as most tourists venture.

At Vinh Long, you’ll start to feel the laid-back pace of life, and take to the water to cruise the mighty Mekong River and the myriad of tiny drainage channels that crisscross between the ‘nine dragons’, the nine river outlets to the East China Sea. It’ll be a melee of floating markets, succulent tropical fruit orchards, cottage industries, trying the local confectionery and meeting the python and elephant fish in the bonsai garden.

After a night at Can Tho and another floating market – wholesale, this time, you’ll head southeast to Soc Trang and an authentic experience of a remote Mekong town. Unfortunately, it means a long return drive (there’s not many roads on the Delta), but the journey is interesting and Soc Trang has a lot to offer.

After another night in Can Tho, you'll follow the Bassac River north-west to Tam Nong. En-route, you’ll drop in at a forest that helped to win the war, and some houses with plenty of feathered lodgers. Eventually, you'll arrive at the Tam Nong National Park and Wetland Reserve with a night in the guesthouse in prospect. It’s hardly the Hilton, but it won’t bother you because you’ll probably be quite tired. In any case, you'll need an early night - you’ll be woken at an unearthly hour to join the dawn chorus of the park’s inhabitants. After a morning investigating the Reserve, you'll continue alongside the Bassac to Chau Doc and a comfortable night.

Chau Doc is as far as you can get without being in Cambodia, but you can have a look over the fence from the top of Sam Mountains. There are also pagodas and a mosque to visit, floating fish farms, and a grim memorial to the Kh’mer Rouge awaiting you.

The drive back to Ho Chi Minh City is lengthy, but you should arrive at your hotel with time for sightseeing and shopping if you have the energy and inclination.

Back to the normal world!
You’ll have a free morning until your car arrives to take you to Tan Son Nhat airport for your departure or transfer flight.

 

This tour is 8 days/7 nights It includes: All transfers and transport All accommodation Seven breakfasts, five lunches and three dinners A guide throughout your time in the Mekong until your return to Ho Chi Minh City

Price range for the this tour: US$ 736 (Mid-range) to US$ 796 (Superior) per person based upon two adults sharing a room. Full price list Accommodation Contact us for more information and/or a detailed programme