Cai Be, after the market

Cai Be is a river town where the Tien River is wide and full of working boats. Along its banks and on the islets opposite, families run small workshops that make the delta's everyday products: coconut candy, popped rice, rice paper, rice wine, honey. A boat trip here is a visit to those workshops and to an orchard, with the river traffic going past.

It is quieter than My Tho, mainly because it is about 37 km further from Ho Chi Minh City. Fewer day trips make the drive, so the jetties and workshops see fewer groups. That is the case for going: a calmer day, paid for with roughly half an hour or more on the road in each direction.

For years Cai Be was sold as a floating-market destination. Wholesale boats used to gather on the river from about 03:00, trading until the middle of the afternoon. As roads and bridges let traders switch to trucks, the market shrank. A conservation plan adopted in 2017 had little effect, and a 2024 national press report described it as still existing but weakening. A Tuoi Tre feature had already charted its decline in 2018.

Recent reports describe a handful of trading boats on many mornings, sometimes fewer, among the boats carrying visitors. Some tour schedules still list the market, marked as seasonal. We would rather you went to Cai Be for the river and the workshops and were pleasantly surprised by any trading boats, than went for a market and found it gone. If a floating market is important to you, go to Cai Rang in Can Tho.

The workshops are family businesses, often in the front of a house. Rice is popped in a wok of hot sand and pressed into bars; rice paper is spread on bamboo racks to dry in the sun; coconut candy is boiled, cut and wrapped by hand; honey and rice wine are offered to taste. Boat trips in Cai Be have visited these workshops for years, and the families are used to visitors.

A short ride in a hand-rowed boat usually leads to an orchard, where fruit in season is served with tea. The orchard months are roughly May to August.

Cai Be's workshops and boats do not publish tariffs. The figures we can point to:

• A join-in Cai Be day published by one Ho Chi Minh City operator at VND 699,000 per adult, including the vehicle, guide, boats and lunch (read on 11 October 2026)
• Workshop tastings are free; what you buy is priced by the family
• Tips for boat crews are customary and up to you

How a private day here is priced is explained on the pricing page.

• If a floating market is the reason for your trip — go to Can Tho for Cai Rang
• If you want the shortest possible drive — My Tho is about 37 km closer
• If you cannot face 10 to 11 hours door to door on a join-in day
• If your only free day is a holiday weekend, when the expressway is at its slowest