Biking in the Mekong Delta

 January 17th – Long Cau to Cho Gau “Rice Market” town - 52.7 km/32.7 miles

Darrell and I were picked up from our hotel and driven over an hour south with our bicycles and gear to Long Cau. The Mekong Delta is a watery wonderland and we had our first ferry crossing soon after we began biking. The ferries have a bow ramp they can raise and lower to the cement incline at the shore. We boarded with all the motorbikes and one elderly woman with her bicycle, quickly turning around so we are all facing the bow again for a fast exit. Some ferries make a quick turn-around with motorbikes starting to load while we are still unloading.

At each river crossing we see giant rafts of Common Water Hyacinth (see photo below) floating by. Pontederia crassipes is native to the Amazon basin but has naturalized throughout the world and is often invasive outside of its native range. It certainly clogs up smaller water channels and ponds in Vietnam.

Typical ferry and water hyacinth in the channel

We zig-zagged on our sweet Trek Marlin bikes through many rice paddies – gorgeous now with tender looking shoots of spring-green rice. We only saw the leftover brown stubble after the rice was harvested when we were in Hoi An in early December so this is a treat! The rice in the south can be grown 3 times per year, while there are two harvests per year in the central areas like Hoi An, and only one harvest each year in the north around Hanoi.

Dragon fruit "cactus" plant

We also bicycled through acres and acres of what looked like cactus – but it was dragon fruit! It turns out dragon fruit is from a cactus species known as pitahaya in Mexico. We saw bushels of dragon fruit ready for transport. Vietnam is the world's largest supplier of dragon fruit!

Bushels of dragon fruit

We caught our third and last ferry – a longer one – to Longan Island and our homestay. The home is a beautiful open home built around a courtyard with a large patio in front so you can watch the fishing boats and barges go by. Most of the rice grown in the Delta is gathered here before being shipped to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon (used interchangeably) and abroad. The house has louvered doors open to the patio and outside gardens. We have an outdoor bathroom and shower off our room and a bed net over our bed. There are also many hammocks hanging in the courtyard. All three ladies of the house were resting in them when we arrived that afternoon!

Sunset from our Homestay

We were requested to join the other 3 guests and our hosts in the kitchen at 7 pm to help make our dinner. We grated taro and cut carrots and green beans. Then the taro was mixed with other goodies and we wrapped small bits of it in rice paper and rolled it up. We fried it in hot oil for one of our courses. We also made our own egg pancakes folded over the veggies, with some shrimp and minced pork. This is one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes! You eat it hot and dipped in the delicious sweet and sour sauce that accompanies most meals.

Darrell cooking his egg pancake for dinner!

January 18^th – Cho Gau to Ben Tre - 49.4 km/30.6 miles

We had the typical tourist breakfast of fried eggs and French bread and started biking around 8:30 am. We caught a ferry soon after we began, the first of 3 again. Today we biked through fields of coconut palms. There are rows of trees in raised humps with drainage ditches between the rows. Motorbikes pulling narrow trailers of piled up coconuts sped by.

We got to “Maison du Pays de Ben Tre”, our homestay, around 2 pm. The owner/manager was a very outgoing young man who lost his job during COVID so returned to his family home to take care of his grandmother. In the five years since, he has created an aesthetically pleasing homestay with five guest rooms plus a nice sitting and dining area.

The Maison was hosting a thank you party paid for by the local government to the folks who had donated food to 400 poor families in the region. We were invited to the party as we were heading out for a walk. A little food, conversation, and some rice wine and we were on our way. A lot of folks said “hello” as we walked by and a little girl ran up and gave us some candy! This is a friendly and welcoming community.

Looking for hidden birds in the Mekong Delta

January 19^th – Ben Tre to Tra Vinh - 43.4 km/26.9 miles

We bought some of the candy the Maison was selling – a spicy banana and nut chew that I just loved, then we headed off after breakfast. We only had two ferries today but they were both much longer and rougher crossings. We waited a long time for the first ferry to arrive and then were stalled longer because a motorbike with a big trailer tipped off the narrow cement ramp and ended up with two wheels in the mud. I’ve got a sequence of photos with folks trying to right it, but the hero was the female captain of the ferry that used the loading ramp like a forklift to lever the trailer back onto the cement ramp. Darrell helped along with a few others and there was good cheering when the motorbike and loaded trailer got up the ramp!

Darrell and others ready to help

The second ferry was much quieter with just one local couple besides us. I gave them each a banana nut chew while we waited for the boat to arrive and we attempted a short dialogue using google translate.

We landed in Tra Vinh in a sterile hotel – not nearly as nice as the homestays but it did have a pool. I took a shower in my bike shorts and sports bra so I could use them as a bathing suit and cool off in the pool.

January 20^th – Tra Vinh to Cau Ke - 59.3 km/36.8 miles

Darrell had an 8 am zoom meeting, so I checked out the “Ecostore” across the street. It was the Vietnamese version of the Dollar Store – everything was 19,000 dong – just under a dollar.

We left around 10 am and had our longest ride yet, almost 60 km, with a few detours off the outlined route. It was like being the ball on a mini-golf course (Darrell’s expression) with quick turns, short steep bridges, broken “sidewalks” (actually narrow roads), ducking under palm fronds and under electric lines, all while dodging motorbikes and giant piles of coconuts…

A giant pile of coconuts

We stopped at two Khmer Buddhist temples – “Ang Temple” was just outside Tra Vinh and is the signature temple here. Then our route took us right through the grounds of another temple as we approached the end of the bike ride.

Khmer Buddhist Ang Temple 

We found Suonsia Homestay and it is another delightful place. The Homestays were all highlights of this trip. Suonsia had a self-serve fridge with chilled mugs and cold beer, plus a hot shower, and hosts that speak both English and French in addition to their native languages. It has been their home since before the American/Vietnam War. The grandfather worked for the American soldiers and had to leave when the Vietcong took over. But now they are back, with remnants of trenches that were dug during the war, and the craters left over from bombs.

B52 bomb crater in their backyard

We had a delicious dinner of egg pancake with fresh veggies, lettuce, mint, giant shrimp, tasty chicken and a squash soup, plus a perfect mango for dessert.

January 21^st – Cau Ke to Can Tho - 60.6 km/37.6 miles

I woke up with the roosters and Darrell was already awake. I tiptoed into the host’s kitchen to make coffee around 5 am. D and I took a bird walk after our wake-up juice and listened to the noisy white-nest swiftlets flying in and out of a tower window. We also saw yellow-vented bulbuls – so two new species for us!

We ended up on our roughest road yet – lots of sidewalk-width and very broken up cement paths – so a lot of rattling and I stood up on my pedals much of the time to avoid the jarring. At one point our bridge was down (see photo below) so we detoured around that as well. Then when we thought we were taking a bridge into Can Tho it turned out to be our 11^th ferry – this time a small boat that we had to maneuver our bikes on as well!

The bridge was down and being rebuilt

Our fancy hotel is situated on the Hau river and we had a wonderful view over the city and river system here.

View of the Hay (Bassac) River and Can Tho

January 22^nd – Can Tho boat trip to Cai Rang floating market – return to Saigon

We met our boat captain at 7 am for our trip to the Cai Rang floating market. This market gets a lot of tourist looky-lou’s but the tourists are not buying much – it is a working market for the folks along the river. The sellers put up a sample of what they are offering on a pole in front of the boat so buyers can see which boats are selling what they want – sweet potatoes, onions, watermelon, etc. It is a huge market since the boats must be far enough apart for the buyers to connect with them and for the tourists to cruise by snapping photos!

Morning chat at the Cai Rang Floating Market

We also saw the Interceptor 003 from the Ocean Cleanup Project as we were returning to Can Tho. While there are some real issues with the OCP netting living organism as they collect plastic in the ocean, I don't know much about their river interceptor success. You can read more about it here if you are interested.

The Interceptor 003 from the Ocean Cleanup Project

We met our driver back at the hotel at 9am and he was loading our bikes into the back of his truck. Then we began the almost 3-hour drive back to Saigon for our last night in the big city. We had reservations (you NEED reservations) to eat at one of the many Pizza 4Ps in Saigon. There is a remarkable story behind the success of this enterprise. It reminded me of our friend’s pizza restaurants in Flagstaff and the pizza was almost as good as his! 

Pizza 4Ps lives up to its hype!

Summary of the bike trip – We highly recommend Mr. Biker Saigon for both guided and self-guided trips or for renting a bicycle and arranging your own trip. The bikes were high quality and outfitted with panniers and a phone holder for easy navigation. The team was accessible by quick communication on the road with WhatsApp. Our average speed was only about 10 mph, so if you are looking for a higher-speed ride, we don’t recommend the occasionally rough roads, and frequent turns you need to make going on the scenic back roads. But, if you are willing to slow down, and have a few bumps along the way, this trip was fantastic! 

We’ve had a wonderful 2-months in Vietnam, and the Mekong Delta was a highlight. We are so grateful for the time we spent with the friendly, hard-working, kind people in this beautiful country.