Traveling to Can Tho for the Cai Rang floating market?

Most people I’ve spoken to travel to Can Tho for the Cai Rang floating market. Many pictures are shared of it online, it is featured in influencer videos and reels… but it doesn’t actually look like that. Not anymore. The importance of this wholesale! market on the river is falling and it’s falling fast. Locals told me it might not even exist anymore within the next five years.

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Cái Răng floating market

The Cái Răng floating market is a wholesale market, meaning that the minimum amount to buy something is quite high. From the early 20th century it was an important trading point where goods from all along the river were sold and redistributed.

Over the last few decades more roads have been built and, more importantly, bridges. Cars and lorries are more practical and faster nowadays to transport goods and food. The river is loosing one of the aspects that made it the lifeline of many cities.

Many boats means a lot of fuel is needed. And procuring it on land to bring it back is a long way. The next best thing is a swimming petrol station (first picture). Is is safe? I don’t know. But it is there.

Many merchants at the market advertise their goods by “bẹo hàng“, which means to hang a sample of what they’re selling on a long pole on their ship. So when you see a sweet potato on a stick, hanging off a boat: now you know why.

Cai Rang floating market tour

The tour starts at 5:30 AM at a pier in Can Tho City. They messaged me the day before to confirm I had read that when I booked the tour and sent a Google Maps location to me to make sure I found it. And yet in the morning I still managed to miss Sophia (our guide for the day) and the two other guests. Eventually we found each other and walked through a pitch black alley onto the slippery stone pier and climbed into the boat.

While we zipped along the river the sun slowly began to rise and colour the blue nights sky in pink, then orange and a bright yellow.

When we got to the market there were almost as many tourist boats (some full to the brink, others build for 30, carrying 5 people) as merchant boats. And the remaining merchants of Cai Rang market don’t particularly like the tourism, since nobody that’s visiting is going to buy their wares.

However some enterprising locals benefit from the new influx of people. We stopped at a smaller boat with just one woman in it. Sophia told us has been selling drinks on the river for over 20 years, first mainly to merchants and customers, today mainly to tourists.

Other small boats traverse the water, selling soup to anyone who docks to their boat. The bigger tour boats are too high to buy from either of these smaller sellers, so nobody on the river profits from those, except for the boat captains.

Once we had passed the market we watched as the bigger tour boats turned back around, while our small boat kept going. Past the market and into the surrounding small canals. Along the way Sophia told us about Can Tho province, the history and development. She joked “many people here work in agriculture, it is a hard job, but very important. But I have the best job, I get to talk all day!”

At some point we stopped at a makeshift pier and crossed a bamboo bridge onto shore, to then walk through a small village. Sophia explained the different fruits to us, how jackfruit and durian are protected from animals, how to tell different kinds of coconuts apart and how to spot a makeshift toilet in the jungle. Sophia also explained why they had picked this unassuming village as a stop of the tour. While many tours stop at the cacao garden or rice noodle workshop, they are mainly set up for tourists and don’t reflect the real local life she wants to share with people.

Once we reached a road crossing all of us thought we had to walk the entire way back, but to our surprise (and delight) our boat captain was waiting for us!

The next stop was an eco homestay even further down the river. A total of four groups stopped here, two of them by boat. There was a cabin for every small group and we got together to make Bánh Khọt in a cast iron pan over a fire, for second breakfast (or super early lunch). Once they were done we also got some Vietnamese green tea and some of the fruits we had just seen an hour before and relaxed a bit.

The last stop on the tour was the same as the first: Cai Rang floating market. This time without all the other tourist boats. We were invited to step onto the boat(s) of a merchant family. They have been living and selling on the river for several generations and their boat is not just their workplace, it is their home. This family had three boats docked together. One was for living on, with a small hut and a roofed outdoor area. The second had pets (and food) in the form of chickens, fish and toads as well as storage. The third was full of sweet potato, their current merchandise.

Should you travel to Can Tho for the Cai Rang floating market?

Don’t just travel to Can Tho to see the Cai Rang market. Bu if you travel to Can Tho, do visit the floating market as long as it still exists.

This tour is what you’re looking for if you really want to experience the Mekong Delta. The floating market is just the first stop – a long one, with coffee and noodle soup on the boat. But where the other (bigger, fuller) tour boats turn back our small boat kept going. Through side canals and the mangrove forest to a village in the country side, then even further to an eco homestay where we cooked a delicious Mekong cuisine style dish!

My guide Sophia made the tour very memorable. Not only did she share the stories of the people we met and the places we saw, she’s also very knowledgable about the fruits and legends of the area.