Less than two hours from the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, an entirely different world awaits — one free of traffic horns, high-rise buildings, and the relentless urban rush. In its place: winding emerald waterways threading through endless coconut groves, the gentle rhythm of oar strokes on still water, the sweet scent of coconut candy drifting on the breeze, and the soulful melodies of đờn ca tài tử folk music echoing beneath a thatched riverside pavilion.

This is the Mekong Delta — the region Vietnamese people describe with quiet reverence: "You have to go once to understand why people fall in love with it."

At The Rice Travel Group, our 1-day Mekong Delta tour from Saigon ranks among our most treasured itineraries. Not because it covers the most distance — but because within a single day, it delivers a complete and authentic cross-section of river life in the Cuu Long River Delta: traditional craft villages, snake farms, bee farms, water coconut forests, coconut candy workshops, horse-drawn carriages, wooden sampan boats, and unhurried afternoons in fruit-laden gardens.

This is the Mekong Delta Ben Tre My Tho tour designed by The Rice Travel Group for travelers who want to slow down for a day — and carry home memories worth a lifetime of stories.

Tourists enjoy the Mekong Delta - Ben Tre - My Tho tour experience offered by The Rice Travel Group.

Departure from Saigon — Your Journey West Begins at Dawn

The Rice Travel Group's vehicle departs from central Ho Chi Minh City at approximately 7:30 AM — the ideal window to avoid morning congestion and arrive in My Tho during the cool early hours, the finest time to begin exploring the waterways.

Over the 70-kilometer drive along National Highway 1A, your guide will walk you through the geography, culture, and history of the Mekong Delta region, giving you the context to appreciate everything you're about to experience. The scenery along the route gradually transforms — city shophouses give way to sweeping rice paddies, neat rows of coconut palms, and rivers shimmering beneath the early morning sun.

Welcome Stop — Your First Taste of the Mekong

Before entering My Tho city center, the group pauses at a roadside welcome stop — your first proper introduction to authentic Mekong Delta atmosphere.

This is more than a rest break. Styled in the tradition of a Southern Vietnamese garden house, the stop features shaded greenery, open-air seating, and stalls brimming with local specialties: still-warm Ben Tre coconut candy, spiced ginger preserves, black glutinous rice wine, and slow-drip Vietnamese filter coffee.

This is the first moment in the day you'll feel the unhurried rhythm of river country — and the first hint that your expectations for a Mekong Delta day tour are about to be exceeded.

See Also: Can Tho Tour – Half-Day Cai Rang Floating Market Experience with The Rice Travel Group

Vinh Trang Pagoda — A Century-Old Architectural Treasure in My Tho

The first formal stop of the journey is Vinh Trang Pagoda — one of the most ancient and beautiful pagodas in southern Vietnam, located within My Tho city in Tien Giang Province.

Built in the early 19th century and restored over successive generations, Vinh Trang is a remarkable architectural synthesis that harmonizes three distinct traditions: Khmer craftsmanship with intricate decorative motifs, French-Roman classicism with arched gateways and stately columns, and traditional East Asian design with curved rooflines, yin-yang roof tiles, and sacred guardian statues.

Stepping into the nearly 2-hectare grounds, visitors encounter towering Buddha statues standing serenely amid lush green foliage — the jovial Maitreya Buddha greeting guests at the gate, a pristine white Shakyamuni Buddha, and bas-reliefs narrating the life of the Buddha across the walls.

The temple's architecture is majestic

The Rice Travel Group's guide leads the group through each area of the pagoda, sharing the history and spiritual significance behind every structure — ensuring your visit goes beyond sightseeing to genuine understanding.

Vinh Trang Pagoda

Thoi Son Island — The Heart of the Mekong Delta Tour

Leaving My Tho by boat across the Tien River, the group arrives at Thoi Son Island — a lush, verdant isle set within the four branches of the Mekong River and the defining centrepiece of any authentic Mekong Delta Ben Tre My Tho tour.

Thoi Son is not a luxury resort or a modern attraction. It is one of four islets forming the Long An archipelago, where residents still live simply through orcharding, handicrafts, and ecotourism. That unselfconscious authenticity is precisely what has drawn millions of international visitors here for decades.

Thoi Son Island

Traditional Puffed Rice Cracker Village

The first stop on the island is the puffed rice cracker (cốm nổ) craft village — a traditional cottage industry that has been part of Thoi Son's identity for generations. Made from glutinous rice puffed over heat and bound with palm sugar or sugarcane molasses, these crispy, lightly sweet crackers carry the unmistakable flavour of the Mekong.

Visitors watch the entire handmade process — from roasting the rice over a wood fire to wrapping the finished product. Try a piece while it's still warm, and you'll immediately understand why nearly every visitor leaves with extra bags to bring home as gifts.

Snake Farm

One of the most emotionally charged stops on the tour is the snake farm on Thoi Son Island. Home to several species native to the delta — cobras, rat snakes, and water snakes — the farm serves purposes ranging from traditional medicine to wildlife education and cultural demonstration for visitors.

Your guide explains the role of snakes in Southern Vietnamese folklore and daily life, and describes how handlers safely work with venomous species. Brave visitors can experience having a snake wrapped around their wrist — entirely safe under the supervision of experienced handlers, and absolutely unforgettable.

Honey Bee Farm

Just beside the snake farm, the honey bee farm offers a peacefully contrasting experience. The island's rich flora — coconut blossoms and longan flowers in particular — makes it ideal territory for producing premium-quality honey.

Watch active hive frames up close, learn about how bees produce honey and the sophisticated social structure of a colony — an engaging nature lesson for all ages. And the ritual highlight: a spoonful of raw honey stirred into hot ginger tea, sipped on the spot. No Mekong bee farm visit is complete without it.

"Đờn Ca Tài Tử" — When Music Becomes the Soul of the Delta

The group travels by electric cart through narrow lanes canopied by coconut palms — a gentle, green, and quintessentially island way to move — arriving at the folk music pavilion.

Here, visitors are treated to a live performance of đờn ca tài tử — the traditional chamber music of Southern Vietnam, inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013. Unlike the grand productions of cải lương opera, đờn ca tài tử is intimate and spontaneous: musicians gathered in a circle, the đàn kìm (moon lute), đàn tranh (zither), and đàn cò (fiddle) interweaving with a vocalist's warm timbre beneath a palm-thatched riverside house.

Listening to Lý con sáo or Vọng cổ hoài lang performed live in this setting — no amplification, no stage lighting, just the instruments and the human voice — touches something deep and wordless. Many international guests describe it as the moment they felt closest to the heart of Vietnam.

Guests are welcome to interact with the performers, take photographs, and even try playing an instrument. No skill required — just the willingness to try, and the readiness to laugh when your fingers land in all the wrong places.

Sampan Through the Water Coconut Forest — The Quietest Moment of the Day

From the music pavilion, the journey continues with one of the most beloved experiences on any Mekong Delta tour: a sampan ride through the water coconut (dừa nước) forest.

The sampan — a slender three-plank wooden boat that has served the delta's people for centuries — glides through narrow channels flanked on both sides by towering water coconut palms. In this moment, there is nothing but the lap of water against the hull, birdsong from the canopy, and dappled light filtering through the fronds onto the green surface below.

The rowers — predominantly local women with deft, practiced strokes and warm, unhurried smiles — navigate passages only a small boat can reach. The ride is short in distance but long in memory. Many guests say this is the stretch of the day they most wished would never end.

If you're searching for a moment to set your phone face-down, to stop thinking about work or deadlines — this is that moment.

The moment of sitting in a small boat, gliding through rows of cool, water-filled coconut trees, is a favorite among visitors.

Ben Tre Coconut Candy Workshop — A Century of Sweet Tradition

The sampan docks at the coconut candy workshop — one of the most iconic symbols of Ben Tre Province, rightly known as the "Coconut Kingdom" of Vietnam.

Ben Tre coconut candy is not a new invention. The craft has been practiced here for over 100 years, handed down through generations and still produced entirely by hand. Visitors observe the full process: grating coconut flesh, pressing out the cream, simmering it with sugarcane juice and malt syrup over a wood fire until the mixture reaches the precise consistency to be rolled flat, cut into squares, and wrapped in young coconut leaves — every step performed by skilled hands.

Try a piece straight from the workbench — chewy, fragrant with fresh coconut, gently sweet rather than cloying — and you'll understand at once why this is the most-purchased souvenir from every Mekong Delta - Ben Tre - My Tho tour. A full range of flavours is available: natural coconut, durian, pandan, and cocoa — each a distinct experience.

Ben Tre coconut candy workshop 

Horse-Drawn Carriage to Lunch — Going Slowly to See More

From the candy workshop, the group travels to the lunch venue by horse-drawn carriage — a mode of transport once commonplace across rural Southern Vietnam, and today a rare cultural experience found only in the Mekong countryside.

The clip-clop of hooves on earthen lanes, a gentle breeze from the flanking coconut palms, the soft jingle of bells around the horse's neck — no vehicle could be more fitting to close a Mekong morning and open a leisurely midday meal. This is the kind of travel where the journey itself is the destination.

A Mekong Lunch — Eating as the River People Do

Lunch on The Rice Travel Group's Mekong tour is served at a garden restaurant on the island — open-sided, palm-roofed, with the sound of wind through the orchard and a table set with authentic Mekong Delta specialties that no city restaurant can fully replicate.

The lunch menu typically features:

• Deep-fried elephant ear fish — fresh from the pond, the skin crisped to a golden crunch while the flesh inside stays tender and sweet. Served rolled with fresh herbs, rice vermicelli, and tamarind dipping sauce, this dish defines Southern river cuisine.
• Mekong fermented fish hotpot — a rich, deeply aromatic broth of fermented snakehead or climbing perch, laden with fish, pork, shrimp, and a platter of wild delta greens. Daunting at first encounter, impossible to stop eating after the first spoonful.
• Salt-and-chilli grilled giant freshwater prawns — pulled from the Tien River, the flesh sweet and firm, charcoal-grilled with fragrant chilli salt. The table's most-requested extra helping.
• Sour fish soup with water lily stems — the bright tang of tamarind, the sweetness of ripe tomato, the fragrance of ngò gai (sawtooth herb), and the unexpected crunch of wild water lily stems. Familiar yet unlike anything you've tasted before.

Lunch here is not simply fuel for the afternoon — it is a ceremony marking the end of the morning's exploration and the beginning of a gentle, unhurried close to the day. Eat slowly. Accept another glass of honey-ginger tea. Let the afternoon light filter through the palm thatch.

The cuisine in the Mekong Delta is delicious and high-quality.

Tropical Fruit Garden & Crocodile Farm — An Afternoon You Won't Want to Leave

After lunch, the group has free time to stroll through the tropical fruit orchard — one of the quiet privileges that only a Mekong Delta itinerary can offer.

The garden grows a wide variety of seasonal tropical fruit: clusters of bright red rambutan, brown-skinned longan, soft sapodilla, fragrant jackfruit, and clusters of young green coconuts swaying overhead. Depending on the season, guests may pick fruit directly from the trees and eat it on the spot — an experience no supermarket or market stall can provide.

Within the same grounds, the crocodile farm brings the afternoon's most theatrical moments. Freshwater crocodiles ranging from one to three meters bask in the late afternoon sun, occasionally opening their jaws to reveal rows of sharp teeth — simultaneously prehistoric and quietly fascinating. Local guides explain crocodile farming, the ecological role of the species in the delta, and its use in regional cuisine.

This is the most unhurried stretch of the day — no rushing, no schedule, just slow footsteps through the orchard, the rustle of leaves, and afternoon gold reflected on the canal.

The crocodile farm

Return to Saigon — Full of Stories, Ready for Tomorrow

At around 4:30–5:00 PM, the group boards the boat back from Thoi Son Island, transfers to the vehicle, and begins the return journey to Ho Chi Minh City. Estimated arrival at the original pickup point: 6:30–7:00 PM — in time for dinner and a well-earned night's rest.

On the ride back, the atmosphere among the group is invariably warm in a way that feels entirely natural. Strangers at breakfast, by afternoon you've shared a sampan, laughed together at the snake farm, attempted the same folk instrument, and listened to the same ancient melody drifting across a river you'd never seen before. That is the quiet magic every Mekong Delta tour produces.

Why Choose The Rice Travel Group for Your Mekong Delta Tour?

Many operators run Mekong Delta Ben Tre My Tho tours from Saigon — but not all tours are equal. The Rice Travel Group builds every itinerary around three core principles:

Authenticity — no performance, no staging. Every activity on this itinerary — from the puffed rice village and bee farm to the coconut candy workshop and folk music session — takes place at genuine local operations, not purpose-built tourist installations. Guests arrive, observe, and participate in real life. That is what creates real memory.

Small groups — for a complete experience. Our group sizes are deliberately limited to ensure every guest receives attentive guiding, space to engage, and freedom from crowd pressure.

Guides with depth. The Rice Travel Group's team doesn't just know locations and schedules — they know the Mekong, love the Mekong, and have the ability to transfer that love through every story told along the way.

See Also: War Remnants Museum – The #1 Ranked Museum Worth Visiting In Asia

The Mekong Delta Is Waiting

Of all the journeys The Rice Travel Group has shared with guests over the years, the 1-day Mekong Delta tour consistently receives the most heartfelt responses.

Not because it is grand or luxurious. But because it is honest — honest enough to reach something deep inside every guest, whether you are an international visitor stepping into Vietnam for the first time, or a lifelong Saigon resident who has lived beside the Mekong all their life and never quite arrived.

The Mekong doesn't ask you to prepare much. It only asks you to slow down — and let the gentle, generous spirit of this river country seep in slowly, with each stroke of the oar, each piece of coconut candy, each note of folk music floating out across the evening canal.

Contact The Rice Travel Group now to book your tour quickly!

Contact & Booking

Address: Bui Vien Walking Street, Ben Thanh Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City 

Hotline: +84 962.333.621 (Zalo / WhatsApp)