We took a private tour taking us from Ho Chi Minh City to Phu Quoc island. The first day took us from HCMC to Can Tho with +/- 45km of biking between Cai Lay and Vinh Long, along small roads through countryside villages and including two ferries. Basic lunch in a homestay. Luxurious but soulless overnight at Muong Thanh hotel. The second day started with a visit of Can Tho Cai Rong Floating Market by boat, followed by +/- 30 km of biking along small channels and rice fields to Thoi Lai (+/- 10°05'16.0"N 105°35'23.4"E). Basic lunch in a homestay. We continued by car to Chau Doc, visiting Bang Lang Stork Farm along the way. Very luxurious overnight at Victoria Nui Sam Lodge, on a hill overlooking the rice fields. Following day started with a boat tour past the Chau Doc fish farms and to the Cham muslim village (Đa Phước, 10°43'28.9"N 105°07'28.1"E). Then biking past lots of rice fields to the Tra Su nature reserve which we visited by boat. Lunch in a basic restaurant. Then by car to the Ba Chuc memorial, passing through Khmer-villages. Finally, further by car to Ha Tien with overnight at the River Hotel. The following morning, Vietnam Backroads agency arranged our taxi to the port as well as the hydrofoil tickets to Phu Quoc.

Reasons for giving four stars :
- The excellent way in which Kieu Lam from the agency communicated with us before the tour ; she was helpful, patient and flexible with our requests and planned this tour according to what we thought was important to see along the way.
- Our excellent guide Cong. He took us along very nice paths, was always concerned about our safety and gave his explanations in good English. He never pushed us into buying things in souvenir stalls etc. (he rather bought some small stuff for us :-))
- Our excellent driver Loc who was always helpful with loading and unloading bikes, luggage,... driving in a really safe way (compared to most other Vietnamese drivers) and remaining remarkably calm even when chased by big honking buses driven by madmen.
- The good quality of the hotels and dinners.
- The beautiful landscapes and friendly people of Mekongdelta. Upon passing through small villages, everyone would shout "hello" at us, sometimes children would even run along for a bit.
- The good quality of the bikes (helmet provided)

So why not giving five stars ?
- Price of this tour was really very high compared to the usual cost of travel in Vietnam.
- Lunch locations/settings were rather basic.

Unless you are on a tight budget, I can 200% recommend this agency. 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 Nov 2018

I was very happy with the trip. Vien was a great guide and excellent company. He looked after us well. Nghia was an excellent driver and he also looked after us very well. I had a great time. 02 - 14 Nov, 2018

The trip was fantastic, Van. Your choice of places to buy fruit, see sights and people, to eat in restaurants, and to interact with local population was exceptional. We appreciated your flexibility about length of rides and changing agendas to see sights or eat at more interesting restaurants. We enjoyed learning about the country and culture your perspective. The bike maintenance was impeccable, as were the bike refreshments. The bike equipment was high quality. We love the jerseys. Fantastic! Cycling Vietnam Backroads 13 Jan 2012.

Happy New Year. Don and I hope we can ride with you again someday!

Mr Nghi is an excellent guide. He meets us every day with a smile and was available at all times. He’s an excellent cyclist and always ready for a hard & challenging ride. He was attentive to our needs and accommodating to special requests. Our driver Thao is also a very good driver, very safe and always prompt. He also kept the van very clean and supplied with drinks. The quality of the food choice overall was excellent. Some of our very best meals were arranged by Mr Nghi in small villages for our lunches and gave us a great insight into the culture. If we had any constructive feedback, maybe the van could sometimes be closer on long rides and maybe the guides could be supplied with modem mapping technology like GPS or smart phones, for the most efferent routing and use of time. This is one of the best trip we have ever taken and our first bike tour, and we are extremely happy with experience. We have many wonderful memories and photos. We would highly recommend Vietnam Backroads to our friends. We are already looking forward to our next trip with Vietnam Backroads. 24 Dec 2012 - 04 Jan 2013.

We did 3 day 2 night bike ride through the Delta...it was wonderful. We love our guide. Day one was a lot of riding in concrete paths along country side, rural villages, taking a ferry to island etc. Day 2 was a combination of biking and boat exploration to the floating market. It was a long van ride to Rach Gia where our guide took us to a nice restaurant. In the morning the guide arranged a taxi for us to the docks where we took the boat to Phu Quoc. We wanted to end our trip on the island,so the itinerary of this trip worked for us.
I think you see so much more with 2 days biking than just a one day excursion from HCMC. We loved it. It was so interesting to ride through the villages, try the various fruits, hear the children laughing and saying "hello"....etc. We enjoyed the boating morning and the floating market.
It is really only 2 days riding since Day 3 is the trip to Phu Quoc.
Much of the riding is on conrete paths and very safe....occassional areas that need repair etc, but over all good. Most of the riding is quite flat except for the little narrow steep bridges over the canals.
The mountain bikes we had were excellent....everything in great working order. You should do it! 21 - 22 - 23 Nov, 2018

I took a rest when I choose Vietnam Backroads for myself and my team, but its the best from the internet. It turn out more than I expected and your guide Mr Thang is very professional and very knowledgeable. There is not a boring moment with him around. He made us feel very comfortable and we enjoyed our ride very much. The numerous coffee break is good and dinner is excellent.
On behalf of my team, I would say "Big thank you" to Vietnam Backroads Bicycle Tours. 21 - 30 April 2013

Overall your arrangement is very good. The back up, the food, the accommodation are all superb. And most of all the guide provided is excellent. He speak very good English, very knowledgeable, very easy to get along and very diplomatic.

Great job, we definitely like to recommend to my friends. 21 - 30 April 2013

Hi Van,

It was good to be able to get on the bus to skip a section of the day's ride when it was very hot or an uninteresting bit along the tar road.
The back roads through villages and countryside were excellent, very interesting. The guides were all terrific, also the drivers.
Vietnam Backroads did a great job returning our luggage that was lost by Malaysian Airlines.
Colin & Joanne Burke, November 10, 2013

Good to hear from you. We are in HCMC today and will leave for MuiNe tomorrow. We stay at the The Luxe Hotel on 261-263 le Thanh Ton St. My wife expects to be needing size S. Would be great if you'd manage to bring one to the hotel. We had a great time cycling through the Mekong Delta.

Hi Hue, We have found the shirt and short at the reception today, the are very beautiful and are a perfect memory of a very nice trip. Thank you very much. If friends of us plan to travel to Vietnam we will certainly advise them to organize a biking tour with your biking agency!! Dec, 2012

Hi Van
Thank you so much for the best holiday. The food was fantastic, probably a little too much at times I haven't lost any weight after cycling 700 kms. The accommodation was above the standard I expected especially for the one night stays.

The organisational side of things was excellent running like clockwork. The staff you employed went out of their way to help and make sure we had water, food, were comfortable on our bikes, we were very spoilt.

Our truck driver was there all the time filling water bottles getting us food. Our bus driver (Hi - not sure how to spell it) was running after us making sure we had everything we needed and his driving was exceptional. Ican't praise Bobby and Nghi enough they made the trip a wonderful experience, it was hard to leave we felt they were part of our group. 11 - 24 Nov 2012

*FOR NEXT YEAR*
I would like to organise another trip for 2013, doing the Mekong Delta/ Phu Quoc Island area because that would be completely different to what we have seen. Just a couple of questions - what month do you think we should do the Mekong Delta - I will aim to get about 12 people again and we would look at flying in on the Saturday to Ho Chi Min and starting the trip on the Sunday - then flying out 14 days later on the Saturday Night, I think that was a great way to see everything and the flights were easy from Sydney to Ho Chi Minh.
On this trip we wouldn't do the guided tours of temples etc and would be looking more at country side and villages. Any help and advice you can give me would be great. Not sure if anyone found a bike seat left in the bus, not a problem if they haven't but Debbie thinks she left it behind. Thanks again and please thank your wonderful guides and drivers for us - maybe they can all do the next trip with us, that would be good.

Many thanks for your email. We very much enjoyed the trip - and will certainly contact you if we plan another trip to Vietnam! I'm back in Europe now, missing Vietnamese weather, food and cycling! 12 - 15 May 2013
Best regards, Pieter

Hi Van, We loved the route - it was lovely to be on quiet back roads away from the traffic, and the scenery was amazing. The scenery was also very varied which made it so interesting, from rural villages to sunny rice paddies, shaded coconut plantations, and villages along the river - it was all just quite fascinating to see, and we really felt we were seeing a very different side of Vietnam from that which you see from a vehicle on the road. Our guide Thai was excellent. That's all I can think of for now, thanks again for arranging our trip - we have great memories (and photos)! 14 June 2011

Thanks for your e-mail. We really enjoyed the trip! Bobby (as we called him) is a good guide and he knew where to go. Never been lost in the kampong! Your tour is really off the beaten track which we like! Good that you ask for recommendations because that will help your company. We all have cultural differences and people from Europe (like us) will appreciate other things than people from Vietnam or other Asian countries. I will list them:
- we appreciate taking backroads where no tourists are (this is all done by your company)
- we like the flexibility in distances on a day
- bikes are ok
- plenty of drinks available
- Bobby is an honest guide and he calculated costs of diner etc very well!
some advices from our side (do not take it personal)
- drinking sugar cane is very good, but we prefer to drink it in the Kampong green instead of a busy street or a big empty restaurant
- we value the authentic living style of the Vietnamese so we therefore like to sleep in the Kampong; e.g. home stay
- we think you can make a lot of money by opening a small guest house at a nice spot in the Kampong. Just explore 5 to 10 rooms. Simple western breakfast (no buffet) with baguette, egg, orange juice, jam, butter and some yoghurt, make sure that it is clean. It can be very simple and keep the idilic spots of having hammocks, table and chair outside, just like the other people live. There aren't many hotels and the available hotels are more business style hotels which we don't like. They are too big, have no atmosphere and they are not in nature and the kampong....
- we prefer having lunch and dinner in small eateries, not in the big very empty restaurants offered in the tour. Let the tourists eat where the locals eat in the kampong with a nice view over the rice fields or palm plantations. make sure food is hygienic and it can be Vietnamese and simple. Do not offer complete chickens as they are too 'rough' for us.
Thanks again Van and we will recommend your organization to our friends. 18 -19 - 20 Mar 2012

Hi Van, Thanks for the best 4 days we had in Vietnam ! we loved our tour and the enthusiasm you showed whilst guiding us. There is no way we could of seen the things we seen or done the things we did if we'd been on 4 wheels or even on foot...thanks mate. P.S. can you make sure you sort the weather out in Dalat if we come back :-) Saigon to Nha Trang 4 days. 05 Sep 2011

Dear Ms Hue,
From Nha Trang we went to Hon Ong, where we spent three days before returning to Ho Chi Minh City and back home a week ago. In Sweden we have plenty of snow and a crisp -18 degrees celsius (see attached photos). I guess every country and climate has its own charm...

Back to your question about the tour - We are very happy with our four day bicycle tour!! Phuc was a very good guide who made sure the biking and pace was up to our capacity. He made sure to stop to point out interesting things and enable us to take photos of views, coffee, tea, pepper and banana plantations. He made sure we had snacks and drink stops along the road. We got to stop and meet friendly people along the road. He took us to genuine and very good eating places and was all-over very friendly!!
Hoang - our driver - was also very good. He was a skilled and very careful driver and we always felt safe with him behind the wheel. He was also very attentive and made sure we had water along the road, sheered us on and took care to wipe our eating sticks and plates when having meals. The trip was perfect for us - a mix of national park, jungle, farmland and back roads and with a one day stopover and sightseeing in Dalat. The fairly rough accommodation in Nam Cat Tien and the very good accommodation in Dalat was a good combination. We always felt very safe and we definitely had our share of adventure and sightseeing.
I cannot enough express how happy we are with our biking with Vietnam Backroads Bicycle Tours. This was the best way to experience Vietnam!! We will sure recommend you to everyone who might be interested!! I can honestly not think of anything that could have been different - not even the rainy day we had between Dalat and Nha Trang.
Kind regards..and please extend our praise to Phuc and Hoang as well!!. Feb, 2012

We are back in the flatlands, in Holland. We have wonderful memories of our trip in Vietnam, we are very happy about the holiday. This was the first time we were on a biking holiday and we were very impressed by the smooth organisation of Vietnam Backroads. We are very happy about every aspect of the holiday and don't know anything we are not happy - not even when we think very hard on it.

To be specific we are very happy about:
- the information before the trip (website, e-mails, adjustments on standard program).
- the bikes were of high quality and well maintained.

To be honest we were a bit worried about it in advance as it is so important for the quality of the trip. Even when the bike size was not correct for me on the first day it was solved the next day with a larger framesize.
- the mechanical skills of Van and Trang. They continously optimized the bikes for us.
- the routes and the maps by Van - they were really the backroads of Vietnam and we never had to bike on the busy and dangerous highways. The routes were easily adapted to the circumstances (longer or shorter trip). Combined with the mechanical skills this is for us the most unique features of this company.
- the chosen hotels. The only hotel which fell al little out of tune was the one in Hanoi.
- the information Trang gave to us about the history and culture of Vietnam.
- the safe driving of Mr. Huang. In a way we were always happy to see him as we knew that he would have fresh water and fruits for us ready. During transfers we felt always very safe.

One advice for booking the flight tickets: ask for the names as given in the pasports, since a change can cause problems at in checking for the flights. Another thing is that one request for not taking any more pictures of your guests should have been enough, and three requests is too many. We're happy to recommand your company to anyone who wants to cycle in Vietnam. We're certainly to return to your company one day to have another trip in Vietnam or Cambodia

Best regards, 23 May 2012

I was just looking at our photos and everything from the bike trip from Saigon to Hanoi. The pictures are awesome and we keep talking about how great it was to see Vietnam on bicycle. Everyone is very impressed with our stories and experiences. We really had a wonderful trip! Thank you so much. Vietnam Backroads 03 Mar 2011

Ms Katie:
I have enjoyed every minute and have been very impressed with all the staff. From when i booked, I always had very quick responses to my emails. Our guide, Nghi was very knowledgeable and did everything. He could make our stay as enjoyable as possible. Thanks you very much! Our driver was excellent too!

Mr Luke:
Very enjoyable tour, well organized and got to see lots of things we would not otherwise have seen on our trip. 20 -21-22-23 Step 2013

Thanks, this was amazing. I will rave about it. Now we have done the best bike trip in the world we can retire! Great variety of scenery. December 22, 2013

The restaurants were fantastic! Great food and refreshment. The guides were so nice and funny, they make everything very easy. We will recommend your tour to friends. The routes were amazing. Everything was fasunating. I love my ride. 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 Feb 2012