Excellent day trip - Very interesting day trip filled with activities. Special thanks to our tour guide Ben who is easily one of the most likeable guides we ever had. He also tell us a lot of interesting facts and stories.

two cents from the diaspora - reposting because of discriminatory language??? THIS IS CENSORSHIP!!! anyway.... ---- i’ll preface this review by saying that i’m vietnamese american (born and raised in the states!) and took my two elderly parents on this tour. as my parents had lived in vietnam for the first half of their lives, i was definitely worried that it would be too ‘touristy’ as some of the more negative reviews claim. but boy oh boy did i have nothing to worry about. this trip was jam packed with so many activities and my parents were having the time of their lives! to all my diasporic vietnamese brethren, this trip allowed me to both reevaluate and spiritually connect with my own diasporic imaginations of the motherland. as i've dedicated years of my life to the academic field of critical refugee studies, the initial boat ride to the first island had me in absolute tears!!! (re: "Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees" by Yến Lê Espiritu) my biggest qualm was with the prices of this tour — we were most definitely robbing the workers!! my parents love to lick the sturdy closed-toed shoes that cover the ankles of the wealthy and even THEY thought we were exploiting workers with the price we paid for this tour ($22/person). my father (capitalism <3er) was COMPLAINING about how CHEAP the tour was and was genuinely frustrated and concerned for all the workers. to vietnam adventure tour, i urge you to give all the workers a more adequate wage, either by raising your prices or fixing the distribution of your funds. with how cheap this tour was, i am honestly worried that these people are not being paid far wages. i mean, their jobs are extremely laborious AND they have to serve smelly and sweaty tourists?!?!? (this is merely an observation from lived experiences, not a derogatory remark) this is not what bác hồ would have wanted… ☹️ to those of you foreigners (i’m looking specifically at those of you who live in the global north 🫵) who complain about tipping the workers, i genuinely hope you all go take a looonnggg loonnngg nap and/or reflect on your privileges. --- tldr: it was fun! and really really cheap for all it has to offer! those of you who complain about tipping and/or don't tip will face the wrath of a higher being >:(

Wonderful tour - James our guide was very kind and informative. He ensured that we were safe all the time and had a good experience. The tour was well organized and we had a great time. The bus had air conditioning which was a lifesaver! Definitely recommend to take this tour to take a break of the busy city and enjoy the Vietnamese country side. Everybody in our group was super kind and we had a great time talking with everyone Thanks for a good time!

Taste of Paradise - The best thing about it was reading the one-star reviews in retrospect. The whining complaints by well-fed westerners about a staged experience and being asked for a tip. What were they expecting? Local women standing knee deep in water on the rice fields, men toiling with a buffalo and a plough spontaneously bursting out in folk song under the scorching sun to please the ears of overfed and highly stupid tourists? No, that is sadly not possible as every member of the whole village is now working hard to entertain you. If you choose this tour, accept the rules and lower your expectations to an experience worth 22 dollars. You will be exposed to the cultural delights a small village of people can conjure up with their existing talent and yes, you will be quickly moved around and shuffled on from one experience to the next before you can start thinking too much about how gently embarrassing each one is, for which I was very grateful indeed. (Who would want to spend more than five minutes in a life threatening wooden structure steered by a local grandma, who has clearly not been trained in the basics of occupational health and safety and will probably lack the know-how to resuscitate when needed?) And yes, asking for a tip is firm and well-timed: your life is still in the hands of your local skipper as you’re approaching the end of your boat ride, and for this reason the only thing you think twice about is how much to pay so be prepared with a range of notes. Our guide, Harry, was a sweet local boy with a passionate drive to entertain and I must say he does succeed and he has certainly helped make the epic bus drive at least semi-tolerable. Thank you, Harry, for the trivia questions!

We had ben (Tré) as a... - We had ben (Tré) as a tour guide. Ben provided a Great tour. Entertaining host. The river ride and the food was the best.

Life around the Mekong - Our guide was lovely and very helpful. Vegetarian food was arranged for us. Obviously these days tourism is big so we saw how the people of the Mekong have adapted to this with boat rides, market stalls and food catering. It was interesting and pleasant. We got to see some countryside, taste a lot of new foods and sample some alcohol. My husband thought it was too "touristy" but I enjoyed it.

Too touristy - Enjoyable day but felt disappointed that we didn’t get to see much real Mekong life Spent too much time in sweet factory and honey farm Not enough time showing real Mekong life

Disappointing tour - This tour was disappointing and felt like a tourist conveyor belt. I imagine if you travelled further into the Mekong Delta it might be more interesting. There was pressure throughout to tip and pay extra for items and parts of the tour. If this had been communicated beforehand it would have been helpful.

Great Tour apart from no hotel dropoff - The tour itself was great. Only gave 3 stars as it was bucketing down rain when we arrived back in Ho Chi Minh and all the other (8) people on the tour were dropped/escorted with an umbrella back to their hotel except us (despite our hotel being in the pickup/dropoff list when we booked). The guide took us back to the tour office and we had to make our own way back to our hotel. Guide was aware no Grab driver would collect us in the rain so we were forced to run 10 minutes in torrential rain back to the hotel.

Contrived touristic nonsense - worst tour I’ve ever done - Terrible beyond belief. Please don’t waste a whole day on this utter nonsense like we did. Once you arrive at what must be the most polluted stretch of the Mekong, they ferry you to an island while the tour guide inexplicably sings karaoke songs so loud you have to cover your ears for fear of them being damaged. Once on the island it immediately becomes apparent it is one big tourist trap hellhole. They move you place to place trying to sell you mass produced garbage. The ‘traditional folk singing’ is a few Vietnamese women dressed in costumes singing ‘if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands’ in Vietnamese, followed by them asking for money for the performance. This is not a joke that was genuinely what happened. Unbelievable. Part of the trip includes seeing a caged python being brought out for what must be the hundredth time that day, simply to take a photo with it. It’s not related to anything to do with the Mekong they simply keep a python in a cage for tourists to take photos with. Contrived touristic nonsense. The photos you see advertising the trip looks like it features small hand powered canal boats through natural and scenic channels in the Mekong, this could not be further from reality. Huge numbers of people line up to get on a boat with 4 people in each, which is then ferried down a small dirty polluted canal for 5 minutes, before it turns around and goes back to where you started. All the while you can see trash in the water, hear the road and cars beeping, and passing many other boats coming the opposite direction. Lunch was plentiful but really bland food, and we felt so grim from all the pollution that eating was difficult. Next to the site where you eat there are many animals kept in tiny enclosures, which again are there for no other reason than for tourists to take a photo. Very sad and completely irrelevant to what was advertised as a Mekong delta tour. I truly don’t understand all the 5 star reviews, it was by far the worst part of our trip to Vietnam and was honestly the worst tour I have ever done. Please don’t waste your time with this. Maybe the tours with more days where you actually go deeper into the delta is better, or maybe it would be better to stay at a Homestay somewhere deeper in the delta and organise excursions through them, but this tour was just awful and I felt genuinely embarrassed to have paid money and spent a day doing this. Once we arrived at the delta and realised what a load of nonsense it was we were basically just waiting to leave. Save your time and money and keep away.