The Mekong in a day, without sharing a seat

The Mekong Delta has very few high-end places to stay within day-trip range of Saigon, and a day trip does not need one. What separates a comfortable delta day from a tiring one is almost entirely transport and privacy. The coach tour leaves at a fixed hour, collects from several hotels, stops at the same orchard as every other coach and returns when the slowest group is ready. The private version leaves when you are ready, goes straight to a pier or the expressway, and changes plan when the light or the weather does.

So we sell the parts that make the difference, and we say exactly what each one is:

• The private speedboat. Chartered for your party from a pier in central Saigon. On the published timetables we have checked, a speedboat reaches the canals at the upper edge of the delta in about an hour and twenty minutes, with no traffic at all.
• The private car or van. A sedan, a 7-seat car or a converted van with fewer, larger seats, for your party only. It takes you to the big Mekong branches at Ben Tre, My Tho or Cai Be, which the speedboat cannot reach in a day.
• The private sampan. A small rowed or motor boat on the narrow canals under water-coconut palms, for you and your guide only. No queue at the jetty, no waiting for a full boat.
• The private lunch. A table set for your party, at a garden or riverside house we choose for the route, with the menu agreed in advance and dietary needs handled before the day.
• The private guide. English-speaking, with you from hotel door to hotel door, working to your timing rather than to a group's.

Prices are quoted per party once we know the date, how many are travelling and where you are staying or docking. The pricing page explains what moves the number, starting with how many hours the boat is chartered for. How to book covers the steps from the form to a confirmed day.

Two kinds of traveller come to us most often with a hard deadline. Cruise passengers have a port day with an all-aboard time that does not move. Business travellers have one free day between meetings, or a late flight out. Both need the same thing: a plan built backwards from the deadline, with the margin written down.

For cruise passengers, the shore day planner explains how a delta day fits around a port call, and when it does not fit at all. Large ships usually berth at Phu My, a long drive from the city, and that changes the answer. Confirm your ship's timings before you send us anything; we plan from them, not from a typical day.

• Travellers who want two or more nights in the delta's resorts and lodges; our trips are day trips and single nights from Saigon
• Anyone looking for the lowest price for a delta day; a shared coach tour costs a fraction of a private boat
• Parties who cannot fit in one boat and one vehicle; private travel loses its point when it needs a convoy
• Travellers who want an overnight cruise on the river; we do not sell cruises
• Visitors set on seeing a floating market crowded with hundreds of trading boats; that market no longer exists, and we will not pretend it does