One of the highlights of a trip to southern Vietnam is taking a boat trip through the unique Cai Rang Floating Market. Cruise between overloaded wooden cargo boats who are selling fresh fruits and vegetables to small wooden sampans. It’s an experience you won’t soon forget.
Can Tho is a busy Vietnamese city on the banks of the Hau River, a distributary of the Mekong. It’s a very colourful city. The streets are decorated with lights and bright flower ornaments. At night, the colourful lights make a beautiful scene. The Mekong Delta is called the ‘rice basket’ of Vietnam due to its fertile soil. The fruit and vegetable markets are filled with fresh produce grown in the nearby Mekong Delta.
Streets of Can Tho, Vietnam 
Streets of Can Tho, Can Tho, Vietnam 
Streets of Can Tho, Vietnam 
Can Tho market, Vietnam 
Can Tho market, Vietnam 
Can Tho market, Vietnam 
Rose apples, Can Tho market
On the busy streets we saw families, including mom, dad and two kids, crowded on to one motorbike as they drove through the city. Often, they were also carrying their groceries and other supplies they just bought. Most of the children didn’t have helmets.
Family on a scooter, Can Tho, Vietnam 
Family on a scooter, Can Tho 
Streets of Can Tho, Can Tho, Vietnam 
Streets of Can Tho, Can Tho, Vietnam 
Can Tho, Vietnam
On the edge of this modern city is one of the most interesting fruit and vegetable markets, Cai Rang Floating Market. It’s a 30 minute boat ride from Can Tho to the market. On the boat trip you pass tin or wooden stilt houses with tin roofs on the sides of the riverbanks. It’s a stark contrast to the progressive city of Can Tho.
Stilt homes on the way to Cai Rang Floating Market 
Lady on a sampan boat, near Cai Rang Floating Market 
Stilt homes on the way to Cai Rang Floating Market
Cai Rung Floating Market is different from typical floating markets in other Asian countries. As with many in the Mekong Delta, at Cai Rung, large cargo boats are laden with fresh produce. Small wooden boats called sampans weave between the larger boats. They are owned by merchants who are buying produce which can then be sold in the local markets. The cargo boats have tall bamboo poles on the end of their boat displaying the various produce that they have for sale. We took a tour of the market on a private sampan. Our small sampan took us between all of the various market boats, giving us a real feel of the action. Tours are also available on larger boats.
Bamboo poles, Cai Rang Floating Market 
Cai Rang Floating Market 
Watermelons, Cai Rang Floating Market 
Pineapples, Cai Rang Floating Market 
Cai Rang Floating Market, Vietnam 
Cai Rang Floating Market 
Watermelons, Cai Rang Floating Market 
Cai Rang Floating Market 
Cai Rang Floating Market 
Pineapple sales, Cai Rang Floating Market
Many people live on their market boats which have basic kitchens and sleeping quarters. You can often see their laundry hanging at the back of the boat. Some of the small sampans are cafes, offering coffee, tea, soup, sandwiches and noodles. They are very popular with the live aboard boats as well as the tourists. This 100-year-old market has everything covered from buyers and sellers to cafes and tours. It was fascinating to see this unique market in action.
Floating cafe, Cai Rang Floating Market 
Sampan, Cai Rang Floating Market 
Floating cafe, Cai Rang Floating Market 
Floating cafe, Cai Rang Floating Market
Here’s a short 1 minute video taken from our sampan.
Getting to Can Tho – The easiest access point to Cai Rang is Can Tho, which has a bus station and an international airport with limited flights. From Ho Chi Minh City, buses leave from the Western Bus Station (Bến Xe Miền Tây). There are a dozen vendors selling tickets for all classes of bus and minibus. Before buying a ticket, ask the fee, schedule and how long the drive will take. Some buses stop at every town on the way, others are direct (time can vary from 3 – 8 hours). Prices are 92,000 – 170,000 VND.
Getting to the Cai Rang – Purchase your boat ride from the vendors near Ninh Kieu Wharf or from your hotel a day in advance. Boat tours usually pick you up around 5:00 am. The boat ticket for a two-hour trip usually costs from 40,000 VND to 80,000 VND per person (big boat) and 200,000 VND/boat (small boat).
Coming up: The Incredible Temples of Angkor
For more pictures go to Gallery at Monkey’s Tale.
For more stories from our other adventures, go to Destinations.
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Monkey's Tale 
Great pictures as usual! A boat trip through the Mekong Delta was also a high point for us, but unfortunately my wife contracted dengue fever there. It fortunately only broke out one week later when we were already back home.
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Oh no! That’s one of our biggest fears when traveling.
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Biggest problem with dengue is that you get a terrible headache, but taking aspirin would make it a lot worse! We went to an emergency outpatient clinic, but they had no idea what the problem was. Fortunately, there is a good tropical disease doctor here who correctly diagnosed the problem the next day.
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That must have been so scary.
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Yes, but fortunately the sickness does not last long. Worse was when she got hepatitis in Pakistan, and must worse was a case of intestinal blockage in Tibet, from which she did not recover.
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Oh that’s horrible. I knew she had passed but didn’t know the circumstances. That must have been so difficult for you both.
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The quantities of fruits and vegetables and other wares are just mind-blowing! So colorful, too – loved all your photos.
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It was a little bizarre seeing so many boats loaded with so much fresh produce. And the markets are every day! Thanks for reading!
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What a colourful market (in spite of overcast skies)!
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It was very colourful with so much fruit and veg. The skies were overcast but the water was also grey. Didn’t take away from our enjoyment though!
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Wonderful post , as usual
💙💙💙
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Thank you!! 😊
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Vietnam is one of my favorite winter get always. Amazed to see a whole family on a motorbike..
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We really enjoyed Vietnam. The amount of people and supplies that they can cram on a motorbike is impressive, if not dangerous! We didn’t get pictures but we saw the families also carrying TV’s, chairs etc and huge bags of groceries and still hold on to small children!
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We have absolutely added this to our itinerary for next year, looks so interesting
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And it’s better to go on a small boat like we did not the bigger boats. You can hire a boat lady at the pier the day before, or book one through your hotel.
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Wow, fantastic photos, guys! Just look at those big piles of pinaples and watermelons, I wouldn’t even know where to start as everything looks delicious. Thanks for sharing and safe travels.
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Thanks! This floating market was so overloaded with every fruit and vegetable we could imagine. And it all gets sold to local merchants. So unlike any of our markets in Canada.
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Your photos, as usual, are wonderful. I love visiting markets, but a floating one is just extra fascinating and exotic. I can’t get over the boats loaded with those heavy watermelons and pineapples.
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This market is unlike anything I’d seen before, and it’s a real market. We thought the watermelon boat may tip!
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