Mekong Delta Day Trip from Ho Chi Minh City: My Tho and Ben Tre, or the Cai Rang Floating Market?
4 min read
The short answer
Most Mekong Delta tours from Ho Chi Minh City are nine-hour day trips to the My Tho and Ben Tre area, and for most visitors one of them is the right choice. The floating market at Cai Rang is a different trip: the most reviewed day tour from the city to Cai Rang takes 12 hours and picks you up at 5:00 AM, and there are two-day tours too. The most reviewed of the day trips is the Mekong Delta small-group tour with sampan ride and local lunch: €13.56 per person, 4.5 / 5 from 14,515 reviews.
The nine-hour day trips
Three tours follow nearly the same pattern. You leave around 7:00 to 8:00 AM, drive for roughly two hours (the My Tho tour says so; another page lists 110 minutes), ride a motorboat on the river, move to a smaller rowing boat on narrow canals, eat lunch and taste coconut candy and honey tea. You are back in the city at about 4:30 to 5:00 PM.
- The small-group tour with sampan ride starts with Vinh Trang Pagoda, then a motorboat, a sampan, lunch on Unicorn Islet (vegan options are mentioned) and a tuk-tuk and cycling stretch in a Ben Tre village. Small group up to 12 or standard group up to 30, depending on the option. Hotel pickup is listed for central District 1.
- The My Tho and Ben Tre coconut village tour names the Dragon, Phoenix and Turtle islands, a bee farm on Unicorn Island and a coconut candy workshop in Ben Tre. Private or small-group options; pickup from hotels in Districts 1, 3 and 4.
- The small-group day trip with Vinh Trang Pagoda offers three options: Premier Group (max 12), Luxury Limousine (max 7) or a fully private tour, with lunch in an orchard garden.
Prices today: €13.56, €15.17 and €22.61. The three stops overlap so much that group size, pickup area and price are the better tiebreakers than the itinerary. Tips and personal expenses are extra on all three pages. All three itineraries stop at Vinh Trang Pagoda, and one page says the pagoda has a strict dress code: shoulders and knees must be covered.
Cai Rang floating market
The Cai Rang floating market day tour (€62.80, 12 hours) leaves at 5:00 AM, reaches the market around 7:30 and returns about 6:00 PM. The page lists breakfast on the boat, a noodle workshop, Son Islet and a shared community-style lunch. It also says that around Lunar New Year, from 5 to 9 February 2027, many traders go home, the market becomes very quiet and the operator swaps in a My Tho and Ben Tre itinerary instead.
If 12 hours in one day sounds too much, the two-day Mekong Delta and Cai Rang tour (€60.10) is the alternative; its description mentions a sampan ride, a Mekong cruise and making Vietnamese pancakes. You spend the night in Can Tho, visit Cai Rang at 6:00 AM on day two and are back at about 4:30 to 5:00 PM; the page lists two lunches and one breakfast, with the hotel included only if you choose that option. A full-day speedboat tour (€113.04) leaves from a central pier and stops at a Cao Dai temple, workshops and a pagoda.
Our recommendation
Book one of the nine-hour trips, and take the small-group tour with sampan ride unless the group size or pickup area of another page suits you better. Choose Cai Rang only if the floating market is the reason you are going, and not in the Lunar New Year week. Want the tunnels too? See Cu Chi and the Mekong Delta in one day, or browse all 73 Mekong Delta tours, from €13.56.
