Introduction
The first thing you need to decide is whether you'll go the the Mekong
on your own, or on an organized tour. I advise you to go on an
organized tour for these reasons:
- It's much easier:
I spoke to an Israeli who spent 6 weeks in Vietnam doing everything at
his own pace, trying to do everything independently. He told me it was
almost impossible to travel alone in Mekong. F.i. he asked for a bus to
a certain place, a Vietnamese accompanied him to the busstation but
didn't find the bus himself...
- It's much cheaper: hiring a boat on your own will prove more expensive
- It's much faster
- The tours will show you the highlights,
and you will also go into houses of people they know. Since few
tourists are visiting Mekong in general, and certainly not the big
tourgroup, it still remains an unspoiled region.
Then, if
you've decided on the organised tour, you need to decide which company.
Sinh Café, Kim Café, Saigon-tourist (pretty new), Fiditourist are all
budgetpossibilities. You'll see that there's not much difference in the
program of their tours. When we were there, Saigon tourist was trying
to get its share of the market by cutting prices. These agencies travel
independently. Only if they don't have enough passengers, they will
combine their groups in 1 tour. It's difficult to give recommendations,
since the scene changes all the time. F.i. the previous owner of Kim
Café now works for Saigon tourist etc...
Which trips
Then you need to decide on what tour you'll take:
1 day tour:
will take you to My Tho, visit a nearby Pagoda (not worth the effort)
and make a boattrip on the Mekong seeing the market. I advise against
this trip since it won't give you a real feeling of Mekong with it's
narrow canals. Price 7 US$ including lunch.
2 day tour: we did this and we liked it very much, especially the second day. Price is 20 US$ including accommodation, food is extra.
-
First, on the way to Vinh Long, you'll go to a pine-apple plantation.
This is nothing special though, just a hut with some pine-apple plants
around it. Don't expect something industrial.
- Then you have lunch along the river in Cao Be.
-
Then you take a boattrip and stop along the way in some local
small-scale factories (brick, rice paper, sweets etc...). The floating
market is nothing spectacular, and then you take a long trip to Vinh
Long.
- In Vinh long you get an hour free, and they have a very
interesting market (especially since we had just arrived, so it was all
very photogenic for us).
- Then you go on by bus and take the ferry to Can Tho (arrive at 6 pm).
-
The Kim Café takes their guests to the Huy Hoang Hotel. Rooms are very
mediocre and normally cost 90.000 VND. If you want AC, you'll pay 5 US$
extra. The best hotel in town is the Victoria, see beneath for a
description. <br
/>- The second day was really the best.First you take a boattrip on
the Can Tho floating market, and then you go through narrow canals to
Phung Dieng to visit another floating market. This boattrip, from 8.45
am till 11.45 am was really the highlight of the trip.
- Then
we went to Can Tho for lunch. Unfortunately they took us to a
restaurant full of tourists along a very busy road (where we got stuck
for 2 hours because the bus broke down).
- The trip back was
pretty hard: a 4 hour ride back. Normally you visit a Viet Cong base on
the way back, but this was impossible due to the floodings.
3 day tour:
we originally planned to do this trip, but due to the floods, this was
impossible. Price is 30 US$ including accommodation, excluding food.
-
First 2 days are the same as above, but instead of returning to Saigon,
you'll go to Chau Doc, a town at the Cambodian border. We spoke to
people who did it, and they said the landscape was very nice there.
You'll also visit Sam mountain full of temples and pagodas and with
nice views. Don't expect too much of the sunset, we always had
clouds.
- On the 3rd day, you do a boattrip with a floating market again, and then you return with also a visit to the VC base.
Longer trips are also possible.
Transportation
As I said before, it's difficult to find your way around on your own.
Another
option however is to take a hydrofoil from Saigon to Can Tho and back.
They're not cheap at 24 US$ one way, but you'll travel in style with AC
etc... I read reports from someone saying it was a great trip,
sometimes also along narrow canals.
- The hydrofoil leaves Saigon early in the morning.
- Return trip from Can Tho around 12.30.
Between
Can Tho and Chau Doc, the Victoria hotels have a boat shuttle for up to
20 passengers, but this depends on demand, so no fixed schedule.
Accommodation in style
The only luxury hotels in the Mekong are operated by the Victoria chain and situated in Can Tho and Chau doc.
We stayed at the Victoria Can Tho,
and it was truly a marvellous hotel. It is pretty small scale, but this
allows them to take care of the details: welcome drink, welcome fruit
basket in the room, beautiful rooms with views on the river, AC, safe
(didn't work in our room), TV, terrace, swimming pool. The only
drawback is that it's far from the the center (actually near to the
ferry terminal, take a motortaxi for 2000 VND pp), but they have a free
boat shuttle which takes you there in 5 minutes. Price is about 60 US$
(10/2000). Check out their website for more info and reservations.
They also have a similar hotel in Chau Doc, but we didn't stay there
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