Home » tour » Cangio mangrove forest and Mekong homestay
Please note that this tour is designed as a self drive tour where you will be guided by one of our knowledgeable team. It is the responsibility of the client to ensure that they are compliant with local motorbike license regulations. We can discuss this with you at the time of booking. If you would like to do the tour as a pillion rider, please contact us for more details,
Our guide and drivers will pick you up at your hotel at 08.00 am. Riding pillion with our drivers you will escape through the south-west of the city through the “Beverly hills of Saigon” in dist. 7.
We take a wooden ferry at 09.15 am across to Can Gio Island, drive the back roads through land containing shrimp farm, swallow bHochiminh-motorcycle-tours-cangio-mangrove-forest-exploreird houses for farming the bird nests, salt fields, and mangrove forest away from the tourist track to discover the real life of people living in this wetland.
Our stop is Vam Sat biosphere reserve. Here you will take a motorized wooden boat then a sampan, cruise zigzagging the quiet canals to the Bats reserve swamp. You will study how to fish for crab, have fun with crocodile fishing and climb up the observation tower to see the panorama of this vast forest wetland.
From May to October every year, thousands of birds come to this Biosphere Reserve to build nests and lay eggs. If you are here in the breeding season, you have the option of rowing a sampan to discover their live (additional fee is 4usd/person if you are here at this time).
We can have lunch at a local restaurant with dishes at your request. After lunch we travel to our homestay in Ben Tre and have the late afternoon and evening free to see how your hosts live and to discover the local village.
Exploring the Mekong delta on two wheels, you get a unique perspective on this scenic area as well as being a witness to daily life here as it has been going on for centuries. The lush delta is really a gift from the Creator for the almost 20 million inhabitants living and working on the lower section of one of the longest rivers on earth, providing rice, fruit and aquatic products for worldwide market. This fertile area is where the mighty Mekong River approaches the sea and splits into nine very big branches and then into a network of hundreds of tributaries. We call it “Cuu Long” or “Nine dragon’s river delta”.
Driving back roads mostly through villages away from the tourist track you discover the real life of people living along this magic river. We take quiet laneways and dirt paths weaving in and out of villages and fields waving to kids whizzing by on their way to school, saying “Xin Chao” (hello) to women pedalling gracefully in their traditional “ao dai” dresses, and hopping onto small ferries to cross the tributaries alongside elderly vendors carrying groceries on their bikes.
Next day, we will cruise past some interesting places such as old style brick kilns before stopping at a coconut-processing workshop where you learn how the locals waste nothing from the coconut tree in making a variety of products, handicrafts and candy. Transferring to bicycle, we cycle along trails under the green canopy of coconut plantation to a local host who own a huge antique ceramic collection before stopping for a pleasant lunch of local specialities, including delicious “Elephant Ear fish”.
We also row a sampan along the tree lined canals to get a closer look at life before taking our private boat back to the pier and riding on through many ride paddies, vegetable farms to Saigon in late afternoon.
This tour requires an adventurous spirit and a strong backside. Sturdy outdoor clothing and footwear is recommended.
*Other food choices are also catered, including vegetarian.
