Cycling Mekong Delta - Explore Camau's Forest

Depart from Saigon downtown, and you will transfer out of Ho Chi Minh and cycle through the gateway of the Mekong Delta. We'll bike on mostly flat paths, passing fertile soil farmlands of rice paddies and vast vegetation to Tien Giang before we break for lunch in town.

Tra Vinh and Soc Trang have pleasant country cycling routes. There is a significant population of Khmer people living here as their homeland. Today, you can explore not only their daily lives of them but also learn ancient history and culture. We start our cycling adventure after 10 minutes transfer from the hotel. All are smooth concrete paths through rural villages that allow you to discover and experience the lifestyles and daily activities of both Khmer and Chinese. A quick transfer you out of the town after a leisurely breakfast. Then you will venture on open paths into Khmer hamlets, learn about Theravada Buddhism, visit the beautiful Pagodas, and encounter the Khmer monks. Afterward, you will wander through the authentic Vietnamese and Khmer countryside villages. Tra Vinh countryside offers a stunning rustic landscape for natural and bicycle lovers. The paths are small, enough for bicycles and mopeds across the endless rice paddies.

Enjoy tasty lunch in Cau Ke town, then the afternoon's cycle takes you along quiet back roads, through fruit orchards, across water channels on small bridges, and ferry boats, passing numerous Khmer temples and little towns to Tra On. From here, you take a ferry to the island with a short ride through the island and take one more ferry to Can Tho.

After breakfast, we board the motorized boat on the Can Tho River to the Cai Rang floating market. It's a genuinely unique floating market in the early morning, with different sizes of vessels steering around. The bigger boats anchor when small sampans move and try to find a good deal on business. Every boat advertises what to sell by hanging its product on a long bamboo pole—wholesale from neighboring provinces and the sampans from local rural villages. Tiny sampans sell steamed rice, noodle soup, coffee, and even lottery tickets. Disembark from your boat, and pick up the bike for a morning ride to Binh Thuy. Explore the backwaters of Phong Dien, pass local schools and some little land markets by the waterways, and visit the oldest ancient house in Binh Thuy.

It is one of the wealthy landlord's houses in the 19th century in the Mekong Delta—Built-in 1870 with a blend of Asian and colonial architecture. The exterior was French, but the interior was a traditional Vietnamese house. The house was set in the movie of "The Lover" in 1992 based on Marguerite Duras's novel who loves Huynh Thuy Le between 1928 to 1932 in Sadec township. Lunch en route before a 2-hour vehicle transfer takes us to Chau Phu District, a rural area near Chau Doc. It's the perfect time to continue the afternoon ride around 2:30 pm when the weather is cooler. Ride on tracks along agricultural canals, enjoy the Sam mountain views, and see farmers harvest rice crops. Finally, you will transfer on a winding road to Sam Mountain and check-in at the Sam Mountain Resort.

After a hearty breakfast, a quick transfer takes you to a rural hamlet near Sam Mountain, and then you cycle to Tra Su Forest, also a bird sanctuary. The routes take you through palm trees, Khmer villages, and colorful Buddhist pagodas, then across the rice paddies and lotus fields, making the ride more delightful. Enjoy the motorboat ride through Tra Su Forest; learn about the wildlife in the wetlands variety of birds, including storks, egrets, cormorants, peafowl, and water cocks. We will have sampan rowed through an area home of various birds. The motorboats can scare birds because of their noisy engines. We will see many baby birds in the nests if we are there in the bird's breeding season.

Then we continue cycling on gentle hilly country back roads to Ba Chuc village, and your guide will tell you what happened in the town in 1978. Then you will have a short visit to the memorial of locals if time permits! The ride will continue; we follow the quiet back roads along the Cambodian border to Ha Tien.

Depart at 7:00 am by a transfer of 1.5 hours to Kien Luong's rural Dist. The day's cycle in the countryside, and we ride on back roads, less traffic along the coast to Hon Chong. The Hon Chong is a beautiful tourism complex with local beaches, stunning rock pinnacles, limestone karsts, and caves with colorful hidden pagodas in the mountain. Local pilgrims visit the beautiful pagoda hidden in the mountain. 

It's a nice place to explore the beautiful site and its surroundings, visit the pagoda, then undulate the jungle, a mountain along the coast, and cross the idyllic farmlands and mountain jungles until we reach the verdant countryside. We bike into small hamlets along the coastal route, passing little fishing villages, stilt houses, and Khmer villages. Along the coastal paths, you will be the first-hand to witness and experience the life of locals living in little seaside towns—lunch en route. We can venture through remote hamlets and meet the friendliest farmers at the country's seafood farms and mangrove forests.

The routes are small, mixed of concrete, some tracks, and small asphalt roads in the middle distance but rolling hills at the beginning and some undulating in the last part. There is so much time for you to enjoy a coffee break and wander into tiny small markets, the homes of locals along the bay of Cay Duong. Enjoy endless photos taken at your own time, end up today's ride in a small town, and relax your legs on vehicle transfer to Rach Gia.

A quick vehicle will drive you to Rach Soi, and then you will benefit from the stunning scenery of the wetland along the coast. Ride past many colorful fishing boats and ships and family fisheries, enjoy some ferry crossing rivers, and meet friendly locals along with lively villages. You will stop off at Tac Cau, enjoy coffee and fresh fruit, wander around the small market by the river fork, look over the river, and admire hundreds of wooden fishing boats with endless photos. Following your ride, venture into the rustic countryside, fish and shrimp farms, and paddy fields. You will see buffalos working in rural, local harvest agricultural crop and animal farming along the way to U Minh Thuong.

Have lunch at a local restaurant. Following lunch, you will rest 1.5 hours on a vehicle transfer to Thoi Binh, and then you will follow small tracks to U Minh Ha forest, explore the forest by bike, then by boat. A long-tailed engine-composite boat rides through greenery forest and waterlily; enjoy seeing storks, kingfishers, and birds, listening to birds singing and experiencing the forest's wildlife. If time permits, you want the last ride along waterways, through the small jungle to urban Dist, then back on the vehicle for a short transfer city center of Ca Mau.

After a leisurely breakfast, your guide and driver will take you to Ca Mau airport and board a domestic flight to Ho Chi Minh to catch your international flight home. Vietnam Airlines daily scheduled flights are in the morning and the afternoon.

Please, inform us of your international flight so that our tour operator will book the domestic flight to connect to your international flight at a suitable time. Cycling Tour Mekong Delta