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Home›Tours›Mekong Delta, 3 days
Cycling · Mekong Delta

Three flat days on lanes a metre and a half wide

146 km of concrete dyke lanes, coconut groves, hand-pulled ferries and the Cai Rang floating market at six in the morning. The easiest riding in Vietnam.

See the price table
FromUSD 390per person, twin share
A narrow dirt path winds through dense coconut palms and tropical greenery in the Mekong Delta.

At a glance

Days
3 days, 2 nights
Ridden
146 km, under 200 m up
Group
2 to 12 riders
Start
Ho Chi Minh City
Finish
Can Tho
From
USD 390 per person
Ho Chi Minh City—transfer out at 07:30
→
Ben Tre1 nightriverside homestay, coconut country
→
Vinh Long—ferries and brick kilns
→
Can Tho1 nightfloating market at dawn

Who this route is for

This is the route to give somebody who has not ridden a bike since school, and also the route experienced riders are most surprised by. There is no climbing. There is no traffic beyond scooters and school children. And the riding surface is unlike anywhere else: a network of concrete lanes built along the tops of the canal dykes, a metre and a half wide, with water on both sides.

The lanes are what make it. They are too narrow for a car, so nothing overtakes you all day. They also demand attention — a wandering front wheel on a lane that width ends in the canal, which happens to somebody on roughly one trip in eight and is remembered fondly by everyone else.

Three days is right. Four or more and the landscape begins to repeat, because the delta is genuinely the same for 200 km in every direction, and that sameness is the point rather than a flaw.

Day by day

Day 1

Ho Chi Minh City to Ben Tre

The brick kilns at Mang Thit, still fired with rice husk

Collected at 07:30 and driven 85 km south-west to the edge of the delta, clearing the city traffic in about two hours. You ride from mid-morning.

44 km of lanes and one small ferry through coconut country to a homestay on a branch of the Ham Luong river. Afternoon is a sampan through the water coconut channels, which is a cliché and is also very good.

Ho Chi Minh City to Ben Tre
StayRiverside homestay, private rooms with fans and netsMealsLunch, dinnerTravel2 hours from the city
Day 2

Ben Tre to Vinh Long and on to Can Tho

The hand-pulled ferry at Cho Lach

The long day at 58 km, crossing three channels by ferry — one of them a hand-pulled sampan that takes four bikes at a time and costs about eight thousand dong.

The lanes run through fruit orchards for the middle 20 km, and the guide will stop at whichever smallholding has something ripe. Transfer for the last 45 km into Can Tho in the late afternoon.

Ben Tre to Vinh Long and on to Can Tho
StayRiverside hotel, Can Tho, 3-star, air conditionedMealsBreakfast, lunch, dinnerTravel1 hour into Can Tho
Day 3

Cai Rang floating market and the ride out

06:10 at Cai Rang, before the tourist boats

Boat at 05:30 to be at the Cai Rang wholesale market by 06:10, when it is still trading. By 08:00 it is mostly tourist boats, which is why the early start is not negotiable.

Back on the bikes for a last 44 km through rice country west of the city, then lunch and the transfer back to Ho Chi Minh City, arriving about 17:00, or a drop at Can Tho airport for a domestic flight.

Women in conical hats row wooden sampans through a canal at Phong Dien floating market in the Mekong Delta.
MealsBreakfast, lunchTravel3 hours 30 back to the city
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Prices

Party sizeHomestay and 3-starUpgraded rooms
2 riders, privateUSD 690USD 810
3 – 4 riders, privateUSD 510USD 610
5 – 8 riders, privateUSD 430USD 520
Set-departure groupUSD 390—
Per person, two sharing, land only, from and back to your Ho Chi Minh City hotel. Single room supplement USD 70.

What is included

What the price includes

  • 2 nights as described, one homestay and one hotel
  • Return transfer from your Ho Chi Minh City hotel with the bikes
  • Hybrid or gravel bike with 35 mm or wider tyres, fitted before you ride
  • English-speaking cycling guide and support vehicle on all three days
  • Sampan through the water coconut channels and the Cai Rang market boat
  • All breakfasts, three lunches and two dinners
  • All ferry crossings, which are frequent and small

What it does not include

  • Travel insurance covering cycling
  • Drinks, including the coconut you will be offered at every stop
  • Anything in Ho Chi Minh City
  • Tips for the guide, driver, boatman and homestay family

Photographs

A concrete bridge lined with palm trees crosses a muddy canal in the Mekong Delta.
A woman in a conical hat rows a small wooden boat carrying produce at a floating market in the Mekong Delta.
Boats loaded with fruit and vegetables crowd together at a bustling floating market in the Mekong Delta
Traditional beehive brick kilns with tall chimneys and stacked bricks at a factory in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.
A rustic bamboo monkey bridge crosses a muddy canal lined with trees in the Mekong Delta near My Tho.
A turquoise house sits among coconut palms along a muddy river bank in the Mekong Delta.

Who this tour is wrong for

  • Riders looking for a physical challenge. There is none. The hardest thing here is the heat, which is genuinely hard from March to May, and the concentration the narrow lanes demand.
  • Anyone unsteady at low speed. The lanes have no edge and the canals are on both sides. If you cannot ride in a straight line at 12 km/h, this route will frighten you rather than relax you.
  • People who need mountains and cool air. The delta is flat, hot, humid and at sea level. It is the opposite of the north in every respect.
  • Late sleepers. The 05:30 boat on day three is the whole point of day three. At 08:00 the market is a different and much worse thing.
  • Anyone travelling in late September or October in a wet year. The delta floods. Some lanes go under and the route is rerouted on the day.

Next steps

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Three days is easy to slot into a longer trip. Tell us your dates and we will fit it around the rest of your itinerary.

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See also the Mekong Delta as a place and the central coast route, which pairs with this one over a flight.

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Is three days enough in the Mekong Delta?

For cycling, yes. The delta is uniform: what you see on day one you also see on day five, and riders who book five days usually tell us afterwards that three would have been right.

If you want more delta, add a night in Chau Doc near the Cambodian border, which is a genuinely different corner with the Tra Su melaleuca forest and Cham villages. That makes it five days and we price it separately.

How hot does it get?

From November to February, 28 to 32 degrees and manageable. In March, April and May, 34 to 37 with humidity above 70 per cent, which is the practical limit for most visitors.

In those months we start at 06:00, take a two-hour break at midday, and the vehicle carries iced water and towels. Several riders on every hot-season departure use the van for the last hour of day two.

Are the floating markets still real?

Cai Rang is, at 06:00, and it is a wholesale market rather than a show — boats sell pineapples and pumpkins in quantity to other boats, with the produce tied to a pole so you can see it from a distance.

It is smaller than it was ten years ago because the roads and bridges have taken the freight. Cai Be, the other market on this route, is now mostly for visitors and we do not include it.

What happens if I fall in a canal?

You get out, the guide fishes the bike out, and you change into the spare clothes in the van. It happens perhaps once every eight trips and no one has been hurt beyond pride.

The water in the irrigation channels is not clean. We carry antiseptic and we will insist on cleaning any graze properly, which is a bigger deal here than it would be at home.

Related

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