Catalogue

The experience catalogue

Every session we arrange in the delta, in one place: the role of the person who runs it, how long it lasts, the season it suits, the largest group we take — our rule, not theirs — and what happens if it is cancelled.

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Sessions

The catalogue

Session	Run by	Length	Season	Max group (our rule)	Where
Night-market tasting walk	A home cook	About 2 h, from 16:30	All year	6	Can Tho
Market and home kitchen	A home cook	About 4–5 h, from 08:00	All year	6	Can Tho
Cai Rang at first light	Boat crew and guide	About 3 h, from 05:15	All year; clearest Dec–Apr	4 per boat	Can Tho
Coconut-stalk baskets and coconut fibre	A basket-weaving family; a fibre workshop	About 2 h	All year	6	Ben Tre
Mat weaving at the loom	A weaver	About 1–1.5 h	All year	4	Ben Tre
Coconut candy	A candy workshop	About 1 h	All year	6	Ben Tre, Cai Be
Rice paper and puffed rice cakes	A rice-paper family	About 2 h, early morning	Dry months; little on rainy days	6	Ben Tre
Old houses of Dong Hoa Hiep	A guide who knows the families	About 1.5 h	All year	6	Cai Be
Popped rice by boat	A popped-rice family	About 1.5 h	All year	6	Cai Be, An Binh
Flower beds at dusk and at dawn	A flower grower	About 1.5 h each	Weeks before Tet; plants all year	4	Sa Dec
The Huynh Thuy Le house, slowly	A guide who knows the house	About 1 h	All year	6	Sa Dec
Wooden-boat yard	A boatwright	About 1.5 h	Busiest Sep–Nov	6	Long Hau, near Sa Dec
Pink tangerine harvest	An orchard grower	About 1 h	Weeks before Tet	6	Lai Vung
Dawn on the water with a camera	A photographer-guide	About 3 h	Dec–Apr clearest; Sep–Nov dramatic	4	Cai Be, Sa Dec, Can Tho

Max group is the most people we bring to one session, set by us for the space it happens in. A home kitchen takes six; a loom has room for four to stand around it; a small boat in a flower canal carries four with cameras.

Names

We describe the people who run each session by their role, not by name. Your written confirmation names them once they have agreed to the date and to being named.

Food: the cook’s sessions

Night-market tasting walk. A home cook walks you through the Ninh Kieu night market in Can Tho, which opens from about 16:00, explaining which herbs go with which dish and why a sauce is sour. You taste; you do not need to finish everything. Ends with dinner at a place the cook chooses.

Market and home kitchen. The cook buys for lunch at the morning market the family uses, then cooks with you at home: typically a crisp rice-flour pancake with shrimp eaten wrapped in greens, and snakehead fish grilled in burning straw when straw is to hand. You chop, wrap, turn. Lunch is what you made. Vegetarian on request with notice.

Cai Rang at first light. Not a cook’s session but a food one: a private boat from Ninh Kieu to the Cai Rang market, 30 to 40 minutes, for its liveliest hour around 06:00 to 07:30, and noodle soup bought from a boat. The market is real but much reduced; we say so before you go.

Sources: VnExpress — 48 hours in Can Tho, 27 Oct 2023; vietnamtourism.com (private publisher) — Cai Rang guide, 27 May 2026; Vietnam National Authority of Tourism — Can Tho · checked 2026-10-11.

Crafts: the makers’ sessions

Coconut stalks and fibre. Around Hung Phong, families have woven baskets from coconut-leaf stalks since 1992; around An Thanh, coconut-fibre workshops have grown from two in 1980 to more than forty. The first is quiet handwork you can try; the second is noisy and industrial and shows the scale of the coconut economy.

Mat weaving. Hand weaving continues around Nhon Thanh near Ben Tre town. A weaver works the loom with you; patterns are counted in strands.

Rice paper and puffed rice cakes. Rice paper in the My Long style is grilled over charcoal on both sides; Son Doc-style puffed rice cakes are steamed sticky rice pounded with coconut milk and sugar, sun-dried, and grilled to three or four times their size. Both need dry weather.

Popped rice and coconut candy. Family workshops on the Cai Be side and on An Binh islet pop rice and press it with sugar by hand. The An Binh workshop we use sits in a village nearly a century old and reported close to 4,000 visitors a year in 2023; we go early.

Wooden-boat yard. The Ba Dai boat-building village in Long Hau has built sampans for generations and was recognised as national intangible heritage in 2015. Around twenty households still build, down from about two hundred. The yards are busiest in flood season.

Sources: Mia.vn — six craft villages of Ben Tre, 11 Oct 2023; VnExpress — Ben Tre specialities, 5 Jun 2018; VOH — popped-rice village on An Binh islet, 25 Jun 2023; Nhan Dan — Ba Dai boat-building village, 5 Jan 2025 · checked 2026-10-11.

Flowers and old houses

Flower beds at dusk and at dawn. A grower in the Sa Dec flower village walks you through the beds as the light drops, about 16:00 to 17:30, and takes you by small boat between them from about 05:00 to 08:00. The village grows and sells all year; it is fullest in the weeks before Tet.

The Huynh Thuy Le house. Built in 1895, renovated inside in 1917, a national relic since 2009, and linked to Marguerite Duras’s L’Amant. Published hours (October 2025) are 08:30 to 17:30; we arrive at opening.

Old houses of Dong Hoa Hiep. In Cai Be, 36 houses between 100 and 200 years old, seven recognised as heritage houses. A guide who knows the families takes you into two.

Sources: Bao Van Hoa — Sa Dec flower village before Tet, 23 Jan 2022; VnExpress — Sa Dec flower village guide, 17 Jan 2026; Mia.vn — Huynh Thuy Le ancient house, 3 Oct 2025; Mia.vn — Dong Hoa Hiep ancient village, 25 Sep 2023 · checked 2026-10-11.

If a session is cancelled

Each session has the same cancellation logic, written here in words rather than percentages, because the dates depend on your trip and are printed on your confirmation:

Before the specialist confirms your date, removing a session costs nothing.
After they confirm and before the cut-off date on your confirmation, removing a session returns its fee to you in full; only money already spent — ingredients bought, a boat paid — is kept.
After the cut-off date, the fee goes to the specialist, who has turned other work away for you.
If the specialist, the weather or the river cancels, you pay nothing for that session. We offer a replacement of the same kind where one exists, or refund the line.

How sessions become a trip

Two sessions a day is the most we plan, and most trips mix food, craft and light. The four sample trips are built from this catalogue: Delta Kitchen, Craft Villages of the Delta, Sa Dec in Flower Season and The Photographer’s Delta. If you want a session that is not in a sample trip, ask; the pricing page shows how its fee appears on a quote. Background on the crafts is on craft villages explained.

Plan your trip

Found the session you want?

Tell us which one, the month and how many of you. We reply by email with a short trip built around it.

Send the form

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Why is the group limit sometimes four?

Because the space is small: a mat loom, a small boat between flower beds, a photographer-guide who needs to stand beside each of you. We set the limit by the room, not by the price.

Are the specialists employees?

No. They are independent cooks, makers, growers and photographers who agree to run a session for a fee. Their work goes on whether or not we visit.

Can we tip the specialist?

You can, and it is welcome, but it is never expected. Their fee is already paid.

Which sessions suit children?

The flower beds, the boat yard, the basket weaving and popped rice usually work well. Hot pans and charcoal grills need close supervision; we will say which sessions we would skip with young children.

Woman spreading rice batter in a thin circle on a cloth stretched over a steaming pot in a family workshop

Trips

Tours

Four private two-to-four-day delta trips, compared by sessions, drives and seasons.

Row of family workshops with drying racks of rice paper in front of houses in the Mekong Delta

Understand · Crafts

Craft villages explained

What a delta craft village is, how each craft works, how it is changing and how to visit well.

Market seller smiling and looking at the screen of a camera held out by a visitor

Understand · Photography

Photographing people and markets

Our consent etiquette for photographing people, markets, workshops and temples in the delta.

Notebook with a hand-drawn route of the Mekong Delta next to a cup of iced coffee on a wooden table

Trips · Pricing

Pricing

Why our trips are priced on request, what a quote contains and what moves it.

Guide and traveller looking at a paper map on a riverside table in the Mekong Delta

Trips · Booking

How to book

The steps from first form to confirmed plan, deposits, and what happens if plans change.

Rows of potted yellow chrysanthemums on raised beds above a canal in the Sa Dec flower village before Tet

Example journey

Sa Dec in Flower Season

Two nights in Sa Dec before Tet: growers, the Huynh Thuy Le house and a wooden-boat yard.

Start planning

Tell us which session or trip you have in mind

A month, how many are travelling and the session or trip that interests you are enough to start. We reply by email with questions or a draft plan that names each session by role, each hotel and every price line.