Cai Be and An Binh islet

Cai Be was a river-trade town, and it still lives facing the water. Its famous floating market has weakened a great deal: a conservation plan drawn up in 2017 made little difference, and the boats you see in the morning are fewer each year. What Cai Be keeps, and keeps well, is Dong Hoa Hiep, a village of old houses a short drive inland. It received national relic status in 2017. About ten of its houses were built before 1945; among them is the house of Mr Kiet, which dates from around 1838 and is built entirely of wood, with carved trusses and pillars.

Across the river, An Binh is a large islet, more than 60 square kilometres, of orchards and narrow lanes, with a pagoda, Tien Chau, dating from the mid-eighteenth century. It has been receiving visitors for decades and has many family homestays. On a weekday morning outside the holidays it is one of the calmer places to walk in an orchard so close to a town.

Vinh Long town, now the centre of the enlarged Vinh Long province, gives the trip its hotel night and has a Confucian temple, Van Thanh Mieu, built in the 1860s.

The cool, dry months from December to February are easiest for older travellers. The orchards are at their fullest at the start of the rains, around July and August, when rambutan trees in particular are heavy with fruit; the trade-off is heat, humidity and an afternoon shower most days. In October and November the river is high, and riverside streets in Vinh Long can flood at the highest tides for a few hours in the morning and evening.

Entry to the old houses at Dong Hoa Hiep varies by house and is not published in a source we could check; on our trips it is inside the quote. Hotel prices in Vinh Long are on the quote for your date.

We sleep in Vinh Long town rather than on the islet for practical reasons. The town has hotels with private bathrooms and air-conditioning, some with lifts, and a riverside where an evening walk is flat and lit. The crossing to An Binh is short, so staying in town costs you nothing in the morning: breakfast, a three-kilometre drive to the landing, and you are among the orchards before the heat builds.

Hotel stock in a provincial town changes, so we name the hotel on your quote for your date, with its room type and whether it has a lift, rather than promising one here.

• If you are looking for a busy floating market. Cai Be's has faded; Can Tho's Cai Rang is the one that survives.
• If you have only one day and dislike long drives. The Ben Tre area is closer.
• In the flood-season peak tides of October and November, if anyone in the party cannot cope with water on the riverside streets.
• If old houses do not interest you. Then An Binh alone, as part of a Can Tho trip, may be enough.

The Cai Be and An Binh two-day trip spends day one at Dong Hoa Hiep, sleeps in a Vinh Long hotel and spends the second morning on An Binh. It joins with the Can Tho trip to make three days.