If you are heading to Ho Chi Minh City for a holiday there are a handful of must see attractions. And one of them is an amazing Mekong Delta Tour at Ben Tre Vietnam. We’ll show you how to find this 1 day Mekong Delta tour, and what you will see.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy for more information.

Where is the Mekong Delta and Ben Tre Vietnam?

Ben Tre is a coastal province in Vietnam, just to the south of the capital Ho Chi Minh City. Actually Ben Tre is connected to the mainland by a bridge at the busy market town of My Tho. Ben Tre is at the heart of the Mekong Delta.

To get to the island of Ben Tre, it’s about a 70 km / 1.5 hour drive south from Ho Chi Minh City. When you get to My Tho you can either drive across the bridge, or stop at the ferry terminal to catch a ferry across. The majority of tours will catch the ferry across to Ben Tre Island.

How to Get to the Mekong Delta and Ben Tre

The simplest way to get to Ben Tre is to take an organised tour. This is one of the most popular Mekong Delta tours from Ho Chi Minh City. Virtually every tour booking agency or hotel booking desk can book this tour for you.

All you need to do is tell the tour agent you would like to do the best Mekong Delta Tour, and you will be presented with a range of options. The most popular Mekong Delta tour 1 day itinerary options are:

My Tho – Ben Tre – Mekong Delta Four Islands Tour

This is a 9 hour tour leaving from District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City. Cost is normally around 800,000 Vietnamese Dong per adult. This tour takes in a Pagoda, several motorboat and sampan rides, as well as some traditional workshops and lunch.

Let's start a new day with new #Destination 👌👌#Vietnam #Delta #River #Mekong #mekongdellta #tour #Tourism #Video #VideoPlay #Videos pic.twitter.com/pBLF9tVtR0

— GoAsiaDayTrip (@goasiadaytrip) August 25, 2017

Mekong Delta – Cai Be – Vinh Long (Little Floating Market) Tour.

This is a 10-11 hour tour leaving from District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City. Cost is normally around 1,100,000 Vietnamese Dong per adult. This Mekong tour travels to the floating markets, and includes several motorboat and sampan rides, as well as some traditional workshops and lunch.

Which Mekong Delta Tour to Book

We booked a Luxury Group Tours / Kim Travel Mekong Delta Tour through our tour booking desk at our hotel, the Duc Vuong Hotel. They have a wonderful tour desk. You can check out the Luxury Group Tours / Kim Travel website for more information.

Whilst you could contact the travel company directly, I don’t recommend doing this unless your spoken Vietnamese is good. The tour company should provide an excellent English speaking tour guide for the actual tour, however during the booking process may run into language difficulties.

That’s why it’s better to book your Mekong tour through and English speaking agent, such as the hotel tour desk.

Mekong Delta and Ben Tre Tour Itinerary

Pick up at Hotel

The Luxury tour van picked us up at our Duc Vuong Hotel at 8:00 am. A quick meet and greet with our English speaking tour guide, and Vietnamese speaking bus driver. Then the start of our 1.5 hour drive to Ben Tre.

Our bus had our little party of 3 people, and 3 other tourists on board. This is a nice size group, and gives you a chance to mingle with the other tourists.

Vinh Trang Pagoda

First stop was about half way to Ben Tre, at the Vinh Trang Pagoda. This was built in 1849, and has some spectacular giant 20m high Buddha statues. The main pagoda is in  renaissance style, and has some outstanding displays of traditional Vietnamese artwork.

My Tho Ferry Terminal

The tour continues onto My Tho, where you board a motor boat to cross the Mekong River to Ben Tre Island. This is a bustling ferry terminal with what seems like hundreds of tour buses heading for the same place. You get the feeling this is the most popular tour in town.

Crossing the Mekong River is only about a 10 minute journey, and along the way you will start to see all manner of Vietnamese life. Fishermen netting their catch. Merchants ferrying their goods up to Ho Chi Minh for sail. And fleets of boats from much larger businesses.

Unicorn Island Bee Farm

The first traditional workshop is a trip to the local bee farm. These bees don’t sting, and you get to put your hand into a swarm of bees to scrape out a dollop of honey, and then eat it. There is also a quick demonstration of how the whole bee to honey thing works.

Next is a sample of some delicious honey tea and snacks. You are offered to purchase some honey for 100,000 Vietnamese Dong per bottle, or some honey lotion for about 250,000 Dong per tub.

Hand Rowing Sanpan

The Hand Rowing Sanpan may not be the idyllic experience you were hoping for. There are literally hundreds of these sanpans jammed into tiny canals, ferrying tourists to various destinations. Whilst it is a wonderful experience, peak hour is definitely an amusing spectacle.

Horse and Buggy

Somewhere along the way you will be treated to a short ride on a horse and buggy. Fear not, this is along smooth roads and is quite comfortable. I guess this is a glimpse at traditional life, before motorbikes dominated the landscape.

Ben Tre Home Made Coconut Candy Workshop

Next there is a tour through a coconut candy factory. This factory is set up purely for the tourists, and does not sell to shops. You will see how the coconuts are scraped, then blended and cooked, then moulded and cut into candy. Also how the edible rice paper wrappers are produced.

After the demo visitors are encouraged to purchase some packets of candy for 30,000 Vietnamese Dong each. It’s hard to resist your own packet of these delicious coconut treats. You can also purchase some snake wine, if that’s your thing.

Tropical Fruits and Traditional Singing

There is another boat ride to a tropical fruit farm on Unicorn Island, where visitors are offered complimentary fruit platter and Vietnamese tea. Not special fruits, just the standard pineapple, watermelon, papaya and dragon fruits.

Then a small band of traditional singers will come and sing you a half dozen or so Traditional Southern songs, using traditional stringed instruments. Very entertaining to listen to, after which visitors are encouraged to leave a voluntary donation. About 10,000 Vietnamese Dong is all that’s required here.

Lunch and Zoo

Next stop is the 5 course lunch. You can purchase a beer, soft drink or water with you lunch if you like. The lunch is of course in Vietnamese style, and is mainly seafood based.

The lunch break lasts for about an hour, and is in a zoo type of a setup. There are very few animals – mainly porcupines, frogs and fish. We also saw a pigeon and a squirrel.

The main attraction however is a pit full of crocodiles. Visitors can pay 10,000 dong for a fishing rod, baited with a live fish to feed to the crocodiles. Whilst I’m sure this is cruel in some ways, and western countries would certainly frown upon it, it is still an entertaining spectacle. Our son would probably rate this as the highlight of his trip.

Boating around the Mekong Delta Four Islands

Along the way there are several motorboat and hand rowing sanpan rides, as you criss-cross the maze of channels to the different islands. The islands we visited were Dragon Island, Turtle Island, Phoenix Island and Unicorn Island.

On the final boat trip you get to have a fresh coconut drink along the way. Ours were young, sweet coconuts… delicious.

Things We Missed Out On

2 attractions advertised on our tour which didn’t eventuate are:

• Floating Fish Farm – apparently villagers cultivate fish and shrimp in wire baskets under their houses. Our tour didn’t see any of these.
• Bicycle Riding through the villages – our tour guide promised a 20 minute bicycle ride, but it didn’t eventuate. I suspect we ran out of time.

Is This Mekong Tour Suitable for Kids?

There are quite a few tricky place to get on and off boats. I would not recommend this 1 day Mekong Delta tour for kids under 5 years old, or anybody with mobility issues. Gang planks, handrails, and safe access platforms are virtually non existent, you are instead asked to rely on your own balance and hopping skills.

The walking is easy enough, mainly along flat trails. Some of them would become quite muddy in the wet season, so covered shoes would be a good idea. And there are a couple of narrow coconut log bridges to cross, which would be tricky for small kids or elderly people.

Overall Rating of the Vietnam Ben Tre Tour

This My Tho Ben Tre tour is one of the most popular in Saigon, and for good reason. It is quite inexpensive for a luxury tour, and is quite a busy tour. You do cram quite a lot of attractions into 1 day.

I thoroughly recommend you to tour Mekong Delta on your trip to Saigon, it is an intriguing look into Vietnamese culture. The exact tour you take is up to you, there are loads of different options to choose from. However we were very happy with our choice to tour Ben Tre Vietnam, and would happily give this tour a big thumbs up.

Plan Your Mekong Delta Trip

You can never do too much planning, and here are some useful resources to help you on your journey.

Would you like a free copy of our Ultimate Bucket List?

Not sure where to travel to next? We have created the Ultimate Bucket List to help you plan your next trip. 1170 awesome travel destinations in 167 countries. And we want you to have it for FREE.