Dead in the water? What the hunt for Vietnam’s last floating market reveals about traveling beyond the usual currents

Note on Vietnamese names: This story uses familial terms when referring to the Vietnamese—that’s why anh (older brother) appears before the names of the two Vietnamese people quoted. These indicate gender and age in relation to the writer, who is in his 30s.

When I arrive in Long Xuyên, a small city in Vietnam’s vast Mekong Delta, it’s impossible to tell river from road.

Jackhammer rain has pummeled the city for hours, drowning entire neighborhoods and driving residents indoors. Those braving the deluge glide along on seemingly amphibious motorbikes, wrapped in rain ponchos that billow like makeshift sails. As my bus charges toward the terminus, it plies the waterlogged streets like an obnoxious, oversized cruise ship, creating waves that further drench the beleaguered bikers.

Despite these biblical scenes, nobody’s particularly fazed; it’s rainy season, after all. Torrential rains and wandering rivers are routine from May to November in southern Vietnam. Folks here have adapted to life in, on, and occasionally under the water—which is precisely why I’m here.

Long Xuyên, a small city in An Giang Province, lies 93 miles (150 kilometers) west of Hồ Chí Minh City (Saigon) on the Hậu River, the Mekong Delta’s thick, chocolate-colored vena cava. On my last visit, something mythical emerged before my eyes and I’ve come back to see whether I imagined it.

I had heard whispers of this mythic phenomenon—a bona fide floating market—almost two years ago in Châu Đốc, a small town on the Cambodian border even deeper in the province. Châu Đốc is an extraordinary place in itself, and I’d spent the better part of a week there, exploring the perennially flooded Trà Sư Cajuput Forest, visiting the bejeweled statue of Bà Chúa Xứ at the foot of Sam Mountain, and paying my respects at Ba Chúc Pagoda which commemorates the Khmer Rouge massacre in 1978, an event which triggered Vietnam’s invasion and the eventual overthrow of Pol Pot’s genocidal regime.

One afternoon on Châu Đốc’s languid waterfront, I struck up a conversation with a fish farmer and asked about the town’s floating market, still peddled as one of the best things to do on Vietnam’s official tourism website. He chuckled, declared it chết rồi (‘already dead’), and told me to try Long Xuyên instead.

“The first few times I visited the Delta—in 1999 and the mid-2000s—floating markets were the thing to do for foreign visitors. Today, visiting a floating market can feel more like a staged event than a local way of life.”

- Tom Divers, founder of Vietnam Coracle

I put on a show of polite interest: I’d been on these hapless market hunts before, from Cái Bè (also chết rồi) to Phong Điền (five little boats do not a floating market make). As far as I could tell, the only floating market with any pulse was Cái Răng in Cần Thơ, the Mekong Delta’s biggest city, where tourists can outnumber traders.

I’d decided long ago that worthwhile floating markets were dead in the water, but after my chat with the fish farmer, I spoke to Phạm Minh Tuấn, a survivor of the border massacres and general manager of two hotels in Châu Đốc that are part of the Victoria hotel group. Anh Tuấn knew An Giang Province better than anyone.

“You have to go, you’re going to love it,” he told me, to my great surprise. “Long Xuyên has the last authentic floating market in the Mekong Delta.” My interest was irreversibly piqued. I planned a quick stop on my way back to Saigon, but by the time I arrived, only the final scraps of activity linger on the water. I’d committed a cardinal sin of travel: I’d rushed.

Before the 2000s infrastructure boom, when roads and bridges began stitching up the Mekong Delta’s detached river islands, the floating markets were a mesmerizing sight: Hectic gatherings in perpetual flow where vegetables, fruit, fish, and gossip were traded at the crossroads of silty waterways.

“The first few times I visited the Delta—in 1999 and the mid-2000s—floating markets were the thing to do for foreign visitors,” says Tom Divers, founder of Vietnam Coracle, an online resource for independent travelers. “Today, visiting a floating market can feel more like a staged event than a local way of life.”

This time, two years on, I arrive in Long Xuyên the night before the market. With a final jolt, my oversized, cruise ship of a bus lurches to a stop. I peel my skin from the sweaty pleather seat, scoop up my belongings, emerge into the blur outside, and set off for my hotel and an early night.

At dawn the next day, the rainclouds have vanished, and the rising sun feels poised to paint the morning with deep purples and brilliant oranges. I wander in the darkness toward the river, just five minutes from my hotel, and take in the waking scenes.

Charcoal fires crackle to life for cơm tấm (broken rice), a southern specialty that Long Xuyên plates up with a choice of grilled or braised pork. A little further on comes the snip-snip of someone slicing chả, the sausage that accompanies bánh cuốn (wet rice paper rolls), which is served in a small eatery opposite a handsome, decades-old corner building.

Music from cải lương, musical folk theater popular across the Mekong Delta, thrums from an unseen speaker while smiling elderly exercisers shuffle their toes out of rhythm.

Vietnam’s tourism headliners are drawing larger crowds than ever, which is perhaps to be expected in a world where satellite data shows that 80 percent of travelers visit just 10 percent of destinations.

Before arriving at the pier, I check the time. The market is only just beginning to stir, so I allow 10 minutes to sip a violently sweet cà phê sữa đá (Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk) delivered by a man on a bicycle from his shop no more than 20 meters away. I feel a group of middle-aged men, clearly unaccustomed to out-of-towners, burning holes in the back of my head.

When I glance over and nod, they break into toothy grins and lift their glasses in greeting. Behind them rises the modernist Long Xuyên Cathedral, a 1960s creation with a spire shaped like two distorted arms, fingertips stretched upward to clasp a large cross.

Sitting here during this blessed morning with growing excitement for the floating market, I reflect on the travelers waking up in crowded coves in Hạ Long Bay or grumbling their way through Hội An’s rammed old streets. 2025 is shaping up to be Vietnam’s biggest tourism year, yet I seem to have Long Xuyên entirely to myself.

“In 2019, whenever I visited somewhere at a tangent to the main tourist cities, there would always be a healthy huddle of youngish independent travelers,” says Divers. “Today, when I visit those places, there are virtually no other foreign visitors.”

Vietnam’s tourism headliners are drawing larger crowds than ever, which is perhaps to be expected in a world where satellite data shows that 80 percent of travelers visit just 10 percent of destinations. The government has set a target of 25 million international arrivals and 120-130 million domestic trips for 2025; if met, the country’s star attractions—Hạ Long Bay, Đà Nẵng, Hội An, Nha Trang, Phú Quốc—will be busier than ever.

Although Vietnam’s official tourism statistics don’t show a drop in interest in lesser-known spots, I share Divers’ sense that the country’s quieter corners have felt especially subdued since the pandemic. Perhaps it’s a matter of contrast. Set against Hội An’s heaving streets, the quiet backwaters of Châu Đốc and Long Xuyên feel all the more blissful.

Buzzing from an unfinished cup of syrup masquerading as coffee, I wander down to the pier and spot Nguyễn Thanh Trường. Born in Long Xuyên, he will be my captain for the morning.

As I clamber into anh Trường’s boat, children from the far bank begin spilling onto the pier, their blue-and-white uniforms bright against the thinning haze. The sun burns the mist off the river, revealing a slow-moving waltz between two motorbike-loaded ferries. After anh Trường threads the gap between them, the floating market begins to materialize.

“The floating market used to be just outside Long Xuyên, but it grew too big about 20 years ago and had to move further away. Then it just got smaller and smaller.”

- Nguyễn Thanh Trường, boat captain

One boat sags slightly under the weight of what looks like a children’s ball pit of coconuts, the biggest of which is skewered on a stick to advertise the stall’s wares. A little further on, we draw alongside a hulking vessel stacked with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pineapples, where a gloved seller lobs fruit across to his customer. I catch the tail end of the transaction before the shopper zips off downstream. “She’s heading back home,” says anh Trường. “She’ll sell those pineapples in her village.” Long Xuyên’s floating market is a wholesale market, he explains. Everyone here buys in bulk to resell.

Some boats are more residential, with sky-blue picket fences, hanging flowerpots, and windows opening onto the morning light. A bleary-eyed, doom-scrolling teenager brushes his teeth over the gunwale. A dog stands sentry over a woman munching bánh mì (Vietnamese baguette). An old man smokes languidly while a rooster patrols the deck; when it spots us drifting past, it unleashes a deafening crow.

A stout woman with a treasure chest of consumable goodies paddles up and asks what we’d like. I order two coffees (just a little condensed milk this time) for anh Trường and myself. With the deftness of someone who’s performed the maneuver a thousand times, she hooks her boat to ours, packs ice into a plastic cup, and pushes off again, vanishing downstream. Nearby, another vendor ladles hủ tiếu (noodle soup) into two bowls for a pair of elderly women, who grin at me mid-slurp.

We glide past less human scenes too—hulking mechanics’ barges, floating petrol stations—but even they feel like essential pieces of this riverine puzzle. “The floating market used to be just outside Long Xuyên,” anh Trường tells me as we idle between two floating workshops, “but it grew too big about 20 years ago and had to move further away. Then it just got smaller and smaller.” I ask if one day it will disappear completely and he smiles. “Who knows?”

I don’t know either, but the tides point in two directions. Long Xuyên’s floating market may keep ebbing until it sinks altogether, as others have across the Mekong Delta, or tourism may one day keep it afloat, as it has in Cái Răng. Whatever the future brings, those willing to drift and bob beyond Vietnam’s worn tourist routes will, for now, have Long Xuyên—and nearby Châu Đốc—almost entirely to themselves.

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