8.00am We leave noisy Saigon City behind from your hotel and go straight to Ben Tre. We’ll pass by the Trung Luong Highway and huge Rach Mieu Bridge before dropping off at the boat station. The boat awaits us & starts cruising along the Ham Luong river (a branch of the Mekong) and stop off at various local workplaces to give you a picture of how the local economy works, including a brickworks, where bricks are still painstakingly made by hand; a coconut processing workshop, where you can sample fresh coconut and see how every single part of this versatile nut is turned into food and other products; and a mat weaving house, where straw mats are woven using a hand loom – you can even have a go at weaving yourself!
The boat will then stop at a quiet village where you can have a short walk to experience real Delta village life, before boarding your “xe loi” (a kind of motorized rickshaw) and traveling into the forest where you can visit fruit orchards before stopping at a riverside restaurant for a delicious and filling lunch, featuring such local specialties as elephant-ear fish and river shrimp, washed down with some cold drinks or beers.
It’s time to board a sampan for a relaxing trip along narrow canals. Take boat back to boat station. We hop a car again and loop-in-loop back to Saigon. Expected arrival time is 5 or after 5pm. End of services.