Product Description
Mekong Delta Photography Tour is another 3 days photo tour that departs from Saigon – Ho Chi Minh City and takes you to the heart of the Mekong Delta. Join this 3 day tour, designed by a French Photographer Arnaud Foucard, you will sail on some of the region’s most beautiful arroyos, ride through endless coconut groves and mesmerizing fluorescent green rice fields, visit some authentic Khmer temples and meet with the monks, witness the colorful morning activity of genuine floating markets, and will get many other great opportunities to capture the true beauty of the Mekong Delta and its people.
Map
Mekong Delta Photography Tour Itinerary
Day 1: Saigon – Ben Tre – Tra Vinh – Soc Trang.
We begin the day by picking you up at your hotel and heading down to the Delta, with our first stop being Ben Tre. We start our exploration of the Delta by taking a sampan along a narrow canal lined with mangrove trees, before returning to land for a bicycle ride through dense coconut plantations. We then return to the quayside in Ben Tre, where the bustling market and streets full of commercial activity provide a vibrant tableau for street photography. In the afternoon we head to the Khmer cultural heartland of Tra Vinh, where we will visit some of the 141 Khmer temples practicing the Theravada branch of Buddhism – a wonderful opportunity to experience these serene, peaceful places and get some wonderful portraits of the young monks in their saffron-coloured robes. We’ll then cross two branches of the Mekong by ferry and spend the night in the town of Soc Trang.
Day 2: Soc Trang – Long Xuyen.
After breakfast, our first stop is Nga Nam floating market, the oldest market in the Delta. Its remoteness and lack of tourism infrastructure have kept it off most tourist itineraries. Situated at the confluence of five canals, it boasts more floating vendors than any other market which is why it’s our first choice. To really get in amongst the traders we’ll use a small traditional local boat, which will help us interact with the vendors and get some really good shots. To help you get different perspectives on the market, we’ll also shoot from the balcony of a nearby house and from the market quayside. We’ll then take the road to reach Tiger Island located across from the city of Long Xuyen. Upon our arrival, we will hop on bikes to go around the island to get a sense of its unique atmosphere. The islanders have preserved their traditional blue houses whose main rooms are open to the outside, visible through partition made of wooden bars. This is a magical sight at night. Dinner and overnight stay with a local islander.
Day 3: Long Xuyen – Saigon.
Sunrise on the Long Xuyen floating market. This market, located away from the city on a wide arm of the delta, is probably one of the most typical in the area and one of the largest since it extends over one kilometer. The scarcity of tourists makes contact with the most authentic locals and therefore facilitates exchanges. We then discover a Khmer floating village where hundreds of families live on houseboats. During floods, the water level rises several meters. Houseboats follow the movement of the water. On the way back, we come across the very photogenic village of Dinh Yen which is specialized in the manufacture of traditional mats. We’ll reach Ho Chi Minh in the late afternoon. Mekong Delta Photography Tour is completed.
Mekong Delta private tours
Lotussia Travel is a Hanoi tour operator offering a wide selection of multi-activity holidays in Vietnam. Options include countryside cycle, biking, road cycling, jungle trek, trekking homestay, mountain hiking, peaks climbs, motorbike, scouter touring, camping, caving expeditions, kayaking, boat trips, cruise, street food, sightseeing, culture tours. Most of our trips are private customized, and specially designed for small group tours, family vacations. The itinerary above – Mekong Delta Photography Tour is only a sample that can be further customized to fit your requirements better. Just follow it or contact us for designing your perfect adventure in Vietnam.
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Itinerary disclaimer
Occasionally our tour itineraries are updated during the year to incorporate improvements stemming from past travelers’ comments and our own research. The information given in this itinerary may be slightly different to that in the service proposal. It’s very important that you print and review a final copy of your itinerary a couple of days prior to travel, in case there have been changes that affect your plans. If you have any queries, please contact us. We are here to help you!
Please note that while we operate successful trips in Vietnam throughout the year, some changes may occur in our itineraries due to inclement weather and common seasonal changes to timetables and transport routes. This can happen with little notice so please be prepared for modifications to the route. The order and timing of included activities in each location may also vary from time to time.
Inclusions
Depending on the proposed option (semi-guide tour or all-inclusive package tour), the price may include the following services. Please bear in mind Lotussia Travel is specialized in tailor-made trips. Trip cost vary depending on group size and other details.
- Car transfers.
- Local tour guide. The English-Speaking guide is provided by default. Other language may be available upon request (with extra charge).
- Meals.
- Entrance fees.
Exclusions
Unless required most of the following services are usually not included in our tour price.
- Visa
- Flight/Train tickets.
- Accommodation.
- Tour leader.
- Local porter(s).
- International travel insurance.
- Drinks.
- Tips.
- Personal expenses.
Tour guide
Our tour guides speak English or French. They hold a university degree in tourism and national license as a guide. If you wish to send a tour leader along with any group, he or she can fully rely on the knowledge and experience of our local guides.
Remote treks are always accompanied by a local representative to deal with permits and authorities and manage the porter team. They speak the local dialects, know the cultural traditions and give tips on suggested behavior in fragile ecological areas and tribal communities. For some itineraries, the role of tour leader and representative is combined.
Driver
Our drivers don’t speak English. It’s possible that a few of them might know some basic words, such as telling time, stop, and lunch. If you’re looking for effective communication throughout the journey, we highly recommend booking a tour guide.
Trip routes
Principally, Lotussia Travel requires all the trip associates to know the destinations well by any means of traveling or enquiry to the local suppliers to figure out all the relative details of any trip. For adventure tours such as jungle trekking, mountain hiking, sea kayaking, river rafting or biking, cycling tours, Lotussia Travel will never add any new routes into available schedule until survey or pre-view it.
Accommodation
Lotussia Travel carefully choose all the hotels, guest-houses or home-stays based on service quality, location, and characteristics, doing best to make the accommodations in the remote small places as comfortable as possible. Please bear in mind that hotels in Vietnam might not be in the same standard in other country. Generally hotels in major cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city, Hoian, Hue…are much better than hotels and guest-houses in mountainous areas.
Meals
Lotussia Travel take dinning as an indispensable experience to clients since it is an important part in Vietnamese culture. Therefore, Lotussia Travel will not intend take clients to the most expensive restaurants but non-touristy local ones which offer delicious, local food, with nice or interesting atmosphere. The restaurants might be simple in the country but LOTUSSIA Travel guarantee is sanitary and cleanliness. Or even on our trek, we encourage our cook offer client food with new tastes from day to day. During adventure itineraries to mountainous or remote areas, there is sometimes no choice for hotel and restaurants. We will try our best to bring you the best taste of local food.
Drinks
As the tap water in Vietnam is undrinkable, Lotussia Travel recommend clients to drink bottled water throughout your trip, or boiled water on treks. Lotussia Travel offers bottle water all the day, and soft drinks like Cola, Sprite or Vietnamese Tea or if possible juice in restaurants (if mentionned in itinerary). This is not automatically included in the packages. In simple restaurant or on camping, Lotussia Travel offers boiled water, instant coffee or juice, wrapped milk (Details are confirmed in bottom of your itinerary).
Transportation
In most destinations of Vietnam, all the roads are well paved though the traffic is quite messed up like in Hanoi, Hai Phong… We use proper vehicles, car, minibus or coach in good condition based on the size of the groups. We use 4WD only on the rough road where the other vehicles could not pass through or based on clients requirement on overland journeys or treks. For cycling itineraries, we usually use our support minibus or minibus with support truck. For sea kayaking, river rafting trips, diving packages we use standard boat as support. Detailed information is provided on our service proposal.
We use drivers who are native or local of each travel destination and maintain good safety records for all trips. Most of our drivers can speak English but a little bit. This is just enough to understand basic words such as “time of departure”, “stop”, “restaurants”, “hotels”…If you want to learn more about Vietnamese culture and information about sightseeing sites, booking a tour guide is highly recommended.
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