Things to do in Cai Be

Cai Be sits on the Mekong roughly two hours south-west of Ho Chi Minh City by road, and its floating market is the reason most visitors stop here. It is worth being clear from the start: this is not Cai Rang. Cai Rang, near Can Tho further down the delta, is the large, well-known floating market that appears in most photographs and most tour brochures.

Cai Be's market is smaller, quieter and increasingly thin, as more sellers move onto land each year, so anyone arriving expecting Cai Rang's scale will be disappointed.

What Cai Be does offer is a low-key sampan ride past a colonial-era church, brick kilns and orchard channels, usually combined with a stop at a riverside workshop making coconut candy or puffed rice.