Mekong Delta

The Mekong Delta: Vietnam’s Agricultural Engine at Ground Level

The Mekong rises on the Tibetan plateau, flows 4,900 kilometres through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and discharges through nine distributary channels into the South China Sea. The Vietnamese call those channels Cuu Long: the Nine Dragons. The alluvial plain they have built – entirely from silt carried from the roof of Asia – produces about half of Vietnam’s rice, the majority of its fruit, and most of its freshwater fish. From the air it is a green grid of paddies and waterways. From the water, it is something else: a flat, dense, endlessly industrious landscape where the river itself is the road.

Most tourism concentrates within day-trip range of Ho Chi Minh City, 70 to 90 kilometres south: My Tho, Ben Tre. The further you go, the more the tourist infrastructure thins and the agricultural reality takes over. That version of the delta is the better one.

The Floating Markets

Cai Rang market near Can Tho is the most significant floating market in Vietnam: wholesale produce sellers arrive by boat before dawn, and retail buyers in smaller craft circle to purchase. Each boat advertises its goods by hanging a sample from a pole extending from the prow – cay beo, a method legible at distance to passing buyers in other boats. By 8am the main business is largely done. Getting there requires staying overnight in Can Tho or leaving very early by hired boat from the city pier.

Phong Dien, smaller and about 20 kilometres from Can Tho, runs retail rather than wholesale, starts later, and is accessible by bicycle. It receives fewer visitors and functions less as a performance for tourists. Both are worth the effort; Phong Dien is the more honest version of a daily market.

Can Tho

Can Tho is the largest city in the delta and the most practical base for the western sections: 1.2 million people in the greater area, a riverfront night market, and restaurants serving the regional cooking that is distinct from Saigon cuisine. Bun mam (fermented fish noodle soup) is the local dish most worth trying. Hu tieu Nam Vang, noodle soup of Cambodian origin, reflects the delta’s cultural overlap with the country upriver. The fish flavours here are stronger and the use of fresh herbs more intense than what you find two hours north.

Boat hire from the main pier costs roughly VND 150,000 to 250,000 per hour depending on boat size and negotiation.

Ben Tre and the Southern Delta

Ben Tre province is coconut country. Processed coconut products – candy, oil, fibre goods – are made in cottage workshops along the river roads. Bicycle tours on the network of narrow roads and canal bridges are the natural activity here; the flat terrain makes cycling straightforward and the scale of the waterway network only becomes apparent at ground level.

Tra Vinh province has a significant Khmer population and several Khmer Buddhist pagodas with different architecture from the Vietnamese tradition. Soc Trang in the far south has the Khmer Mahatup monastery and the Kh’leang Pagoda, worth visiting if you are in that part of the delta rather than rushing back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Getting There

Buses from Ho Chi Minh City to My Tho take about 90 minutes; to Can Tho about three hours. Hydrofoil services on the river between Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho take around 2.5 hours and are more atmospheric than the road. Can Tho has domestic flight connections to Hanoi and Da Nang.