We do a substantial amount of off road travel, so we often need to use boat for mekong cruise on the mighty river or in small waterways and canals. For long distance cruise up the Mekong river, we use a larger boat and will have some bicycles and kayaks which we use for adventures on and around the Mekong river’s many islands.
It’s approximately 40km from My Tho to Ben Tre and we then continue to Cai Be floating market. This boat can hold up to 20 people, the bikes and kayaks are held in the hold. Picture to the left and above: our “Mien Tay” boat.
Our luxury Cochinchine with 12 cabins (twins and doubles) on board. All are airconditioned with private bath. This is a great boat for long cruise all around Ho Chi Minh city to Mekong delta and then up stream to Chau Doc.
The MienTay barge, a traditional Mekong style vessel, has a large cabin which hold as many as 16 people. There’re share showers and toilets for both male and female. The sleeping cabin is equipped with a fan, and its open window allows for fresh air from the river to circulate. Upper deck has more space for relax and sunbath.
We use a smaller boat to transfer to our homestay or to explore the natural waterways . This boat has proved very popular when we’ve used it to cruise between Cai Be floating market and, over the wide Mekong, on to Vinh Long town.
We use this sampan to padde down narrow canals and waterways; some of these are so constricted that they will not let a larger boat pass. We have great on this sampan which we use in the MyTho-Ben Tre one-day trips as well as on the Cai Be trip and on nearly all of our Mekong delta trips.
You can see also here our boat for mekong cruise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p1jbp9ucB0
