Mekong River Delta Day Tour From Ho Chi Minh City (My Experience)

After traveling down the northern part of the Mekong via slow boat in Laos, I wanted to explore the southern part aka the Mekong River Delta. To kind of complete the route, y’know? I booked a day tour through my hostel (Alleyway Hostel) for $25 USD.

This post is a review of my experience on that tour, our itinerary, and my general impressions of the tour itself. If you’re debating whether to book a day tour from Ho Chi Minh City or do an overnight tour, keep reading!

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Vietnam Travel Essentials

The absolute must-haves for your trip to Vietnam!

Go with an Airalo eSIM and stay connected
Don’t forget to get travel health insurance!
Check Hostelworld for discounted stays or Agoda for slightly nicer ones
Search Skyscanner for flights (domestic and int’l)
Use 12Go to book bus and train tickets
Take a guidebook for tips on where to go

What's In This Post

Mekong Delta Tour Info

There’s tons of companies that do basically the same tour, so really you just need to decide how big of a group you want to travel with.

I highly recommend paying a bit extra for a smaller group (or even a private tour) because you’ll be able to spend more time at each stop and you won’t feel like you’re in a herd of cattle going from place to place. Bonus: if you spring for a private tour, you can usually customize the stops you visit!

My tour was about 15-20 people, which isn’t bad, but ideally it’d be under 10 people. It did include a (really good!) lunch, two snacks, and entry tickets for everything, including the boat ride(s).

Some tours that are similar to my tour that you can book online are:

Upper Mekong River Day Trip from Ho Chi Minh City — actually this looks exactly like my tour AND it’s cheaper
From Ho Chi Minh City: Mekong Delta Full-Day Tour — another one that’s cheaper than the tour I went on, haha!
Private Luxury Tour Mekong Delta 1 day — this is one of the private tours available!

Mekong Delta Day Tour Itinerary

Here’s where we went on the tour:

Ving Tranh Pagoda

Normally we’d have stopped here on the way back into town, but our tour guide said that it’d be less crowded if we did it first thing in the morning. It was still fairly crowded, and HOT, and to be honest it was very similar to other temples I’d seen elsewhere. Perhaps if I’d started in HCMC and went north it’d be more special, but after so many similar sights it was just okay.

Also, turns out they were doing construction on part of the temple, so much of the grounds were closed off. All we could get to was a small part, with some of the larger statues. Oh well!

Boat to Unicorn Island

We then boarded a boat to go down the river, passing Dragon Island, Unicorn Island, Phoenix Island, and Turtle Island. Our guide explained a bit of the history of the river and the people who live there, and the importance of those four mythical creatures and their significance to Vietnamese culture.

Shockingly, the Mekong River water is actually clear! It looks brown from the boat, but our guide put a bottle in and showed that actually it’s very clear water. And drinkable, too!

Honey farm & coconut candy workshop

Once we got to Unicorn Island, we disembarked and went to a coconut candy workshop where the workers demonstrated how the coconut milk and meat was extracted and processed to make candy. We also got a taste test! It was pretty good, actually.

Next was over to the honey farm, where once again we saw a demonstration of bee/honey products. We had a special tea, honey-something or other banana chips, and a spoonful royal jelly. I did end up buying some banana chips to have as a snack on the way back to HCMC.

Canal boat ride

This was maybe my favorite part of the tour! We went over to another place and then boarded tiny rowboats driven by older ladies in big hats.

They took us down the river a short ways and then came back up the same way, dropping up off for lunch. It was very peaceful, and it was interesting to see the little houses situated along the river.

Lunch

Lunch was REALLY good. It was served family style, with big plates of food available for everyone to take. That fish in the back was presented like that, and then they took it to the back and brought out fish spring rolls. I liked this meal a lot, actually.

My photo actually doesn’t show all the food; some more came out after I took it. There was enough for all 8 of us at the table to have and enjoy.

Fruit snack and singing

We went…somewhere else on the island (where??) to have a snack of fresh fruit and be sung at by local singers in costumes. It was VERY cheesy. Compounded by the fact that surrounding the dining area was a market filled with cheap plastic souvenirs, it felt super tourist-trappy.

After the singing, we got put onto large golf carts and taken in a large circle around the neighborhood. I’m not sure what the point of this was but it did take up some time, at least.

Then we got back on the boat to head to the mainland, and back on the bus to head back to Saigon.

Final thoughts

I gotta be honest, I didn’t enjoy how crowded the tour spots were, or how FAST everything was, or how much selling there was compared to historical/cultural info. If you’re really, really short on time, this would be a decent way to squeeze in the highlights of the area.

The downside of starting the tour in HCMC is that you’re 2 hours away from the Delta, so you have quite a far distance to get there and back in one day. I think this led to the feeling of being rushed, because we had to fit everything in a short amount of time.

Honestly, it’d be better to do an overnight tour and be able to take your time at each location, plus go places that aren’t just shops trying to sell you souvenirs. If I was going to do it again, I’d definitely do that instead.