Trip overview
This trip has one idea behind it: stop moving. Most delta itineraries string together a market, a workshop, a pagoda and a boat ride, all inside a single day, and you end up seeing the region from the window of a vehicle more than from inside it. Here you drive to Vinh Long, cross by a short boat to the An Binh cluster of river islands, and stay two nights with an orchard family running a homestay, rather than a hotel. The rooms are simple. The value is not the room, it is being on the family's schedule instead of a tour schedule: their meal times, their canal, their sense of when the light is worth being out in.
The one set-piece excursion is a half-day in Sa Dec, which since the 2025 provincial merger sits in Dong Thap province alongside My Tho and Cai Be. Sa Dec is known for two things: a flower-growing district that supplies much of the country ahead of Tet, at its best in December, and the Huynh Thuy Le house, the real building behind the love story Marguerite Duras wrote as The Lover. Outside of that morning, the itinerary stays local to An Binh: paddling narrow canals by hand, walking through fruit orchards, watching a brick kiln, and helping make rice cakes in the homestay kitchen if you want to. This is not a trip for anyone who wants a full programme of sights. It is for anyone who has already done one of those and wants to sit still in the delta instead.
Trip highlights
- Two nights with an orchard family on An Binh island rather than a hotel, reached by a short boat crossing from Vinh Long
- Hand-paddled canals narrow enough that no motorboat or tour bus can follow
- A walk through working fruit orchards and a visit to a traditional brick kiln
- Hands-on rice-cake making in the homestay kitchen
- A half-day in Sa Dec: the flower-growing district and the Huynh Thuy Le house, the real setting behind The Lover
- A pace built around staying in one place, not adding another stop to the list
Your day-by-day itinerary
Day 1: Saigon to Vinh Long, boat crossing to An Binh island, homestay orientation
You leave Saigon by private vehicle for Vinh Long, then cross by a short local boat to the An Binh cluster of islands sitting between the Tien and Co Chien river branches. Your homestay hosts meet you at the family's own jetty. There is no set programme for the first afternoon beyond settling in, a walk through the orchard around the house, and a home-cooked dinner with whatever the family is preparing that evening.
Day 2: Paddled canals, orchards and a brick kiln on An Binh island
A full day on the island, mostly by hand-paddled sampan through canals too narrow for anything with a motor. You stop at working orchard plots, a traditional brick kiln still in use, and spend part of the afternoon in the homestay kitchen learning to make a round of rice cakes, which you eat rather than merely watch being made. The day has no fixed itinerary beyond that; your hosts set the pace, and the point is to let them.
Day 3: Sa Dec flower village and the Huynh Thuy Le house, drive back to Saigon
After breakfast you cross back to the mainland and drive to Sa Dec, now part of Dong Thap province following the 2025 merger, for a morning at the flower-growing district, at its most colourful in December ahead of Tet but active year-round, and a visit to the Huynh Thuy Le house, a late-19th-century East-meets-West mansion tied to the real story behind Marguerite Duras's novel The Lover. From there you drive back to Saigon, arriving in the afternoon.
What’s included
- Hotels in the class you choose, twin or double occupancy, with breakfast each morning, or an equivalent property if the one named is full.
- All meals written into the day-by-day programme below.
- A private air-conditioned vehicle for every transfer and excursion in the programme.
- An English-speaking local guide at each stop on the route.
- Every boat trip, river crossing and cruise named in the itinerary.
- Entrance fees for the sites listed in the programme.
- Drinking water in the vehicle and on boat days.
- Government tax and service charge.
Not included
- International and domestic flights, and rail tickets.
- Visas, and any fee collected at a border post.
- Travel insurance.
- Meals and drinks that are not written into the programme.
- Personal spending such as laundry, phone calls, minibar, souvenirs and watersports.
- Early check-in, late check-out and room upgrades.
- Anything added on the day at your request outside the printed programme.
- Gratuities for your guide and driver.
- Costs arising from weather, flooding, road closures or other events beyond our control.
- Bank transfer charges.
Booking this trip
- Days
- 3 days / 2 nights
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For visa rules, payment terms and what to expect on the ground before you travel, see [Vietnam travel information](vietnam/travel-information).
Send us your travel dates and the number of travellers and we will confirm your homestay and hold the departure for you.