Top Things to See & Do in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

In Can Tho city, find peace at this flower-filled park overlooking the Song Hau river. It’s most beautiful at night when the scent of jasmine lingers and walkways sizzle with food stalls. The other eye-catcher is a sinuous pedestrian bridge topped with two giant replica lotus flowers, shimmering green and red on the rippling surface. Couples court strolling arm in arm to Cai Khe, an islet with pretty views of Ninh Kieu and the city skyline.

Just a 6km (4mi) voyage from Can Tho, this floating market makes for a lively day trip and is a magnet for travellers with cameras – hence the crowds. Boats burst with watermelons, barges overflow with pineapples, tiny dugouts carry pigs and hawkers in conical hats yell their prices while bagging bundles of greasy banknotes. This is Cai Rang. Come early morning to see the best of the action, beat the tour buses and snap Instagrammable shots in golden light.

It’s a mesmerising sight, in bougainvillea-laced gardens by the Songgo river near Mỹ Tho city. The main structure, raised in the early 20th century, glitzily weds French-rococo mansion and Confucian prayer hall, opening onto an atrium that holds a Gongshi (scholar’s) rock encrusted with a miniature temple. Cloisters ring with giant bronze bells, effigies of scholar-saints sit shrouded in incense and two huge Buddhas bask in the grounds.

Phu Quoc, across from the Delta in the Gulf of Thailand, is a popular resort island. Its forests – protected as a National Park – are a refuge for hornbills, nocturnal lorises and long-tailed macaques. A lot of it is off-limits but visitors can wildlife-spot in the Khu Rung Nguyen Sinh Forest – or hike to the peak at Mount Heaven.

Packed your binoculars? Not far from Chau Doc city is Tra Su forest, a plantation left to run wild as a reserve in the 1980s. Now it’s a haven for birds, including threatened species such as the painted stork. Between September and November, you’ll see them early morning or late afternoon, when they’re most active and the forest floods. A canoe tour passes along leafy waterways spanned by romantic, rustic wooden bridges.

Above the vast flatness of the Mekong plains, 60km (40mi) or so from the city of Long Xuyen, Sam Mountain (Nui Sam) rises like an isolated blister of rock. It is a sacred site for Buddhists, encircled by a pilgrims’ village and speckled with dozens of pagodas and Buddha statues. Paths take you upwards to a temple at the broad peak. From up here, you can look out over patchworks of paddies cut with ribbons of water and groves of palms.

Travellers love this rural complex of camps, huts and jetties in the midst of Dong Thap Muoi wetlands close to the Cambodian border; particularly in the wet season, between September and November, when the flower ponds of lotuses are in bloom and locals offer canoe rides. Follow wooden causeways cut among the cajeput trees – known for their essential oils – and climb the observation tower for drone-worthy views over the wilderness.

Before they were wrecked by agriculture, reed-bed ecosystems dominated the Mekong Basin. This is why Tram Chin – a government-decreed restoration project – is so internationally important. The nurtured wetland is a crucial habitat for rare species – you may spot the world’s tallest flying bird, the Sarus Crane. It gets busy so arrive early morning – or two hours before sunset on a weekday – when crowds are a trickle and the birds most active.

The Mekong Delta delivers an intoxicating mix of drifting serenity and floating-market mayhem, the best way to absorb it all being a two-day cruise aboard a sampan. Most tours leave from Ho Chi Minh City and drift through the Mekong’s tangled backwaters, canals and floating villages, taking in Cai Be and Cai Ro markets along the way. Cabins and dining rooms, under palm-thatch canopies, are airy and cool at night. Bring plenty of repellent.