Halong Bay to Mekong Delta Drive: Road Trip Tips & Info

The Mekong Delta (Vietnamese: Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, "Nine Dragon river delta" or simply Vietnamese: Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, "Mekong river delta"), also known as the Western Region (Vietnamese: Miền Tây) or the South-western region (Vietnamese: Tây Nam Bộ) is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries. The Mekong delta region encompasses a large portion of southwestern Vietnam of over 40,500 square kilometres (15,600 sq mi). The size of the area covered by water depends on the season. The region comprises 12 provinces: Long An, Đồng Tháp, Tiền Giang, An Giang, Bến Tre, Vĩnh Long, Trà Vinh, Hậu Giang, Kiên Giang, Sóc Trăng, Bạc Liêu, and Cà Mau, along with the province-level municipality of Cần Thơ.

If you’re planning this same drive and want to know all about it – how long it is, how long it takes, and where to stop along the way – read on. By the end of this post, you’ll know everything about the drive between Halong Bay and Mekong Delta.

How far is Mekong Delta from Halong Bay?

As the crow flies, it’s roughly 76 miles between Halong Bay and Mekong Delta. Luckily, we can’t skip over all the good stuff and have to drive – that means seeing some of the sights and countryside between these two points.

For driving, it is roughly 93 miles or 149 km between Halong Bay and Mekong Delta. This may vary slightly depending on your start and end points.

Halong Bay to Mekong Delta drive hours

In terms of travel time by car, the 93 miles drive from Halong Bay to Mekong Delta takes 1 hour 32 minutes. Again, your final drive time depends on where you start in Halong Bay and end in Mekong Delta.

As 93 miles is roughly one tank of gas, you may or may not need to stop for gas along the way; there are plenty of options along these major roads.

Halong Bay to Mekong Delta road trip

Realistically, you're not going to want to drive without stopping all the way from Halong Bay to Mekong Delta, especially if you're the main driver. So let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Mekong Delta, and you need to stop along the way to rest. Plus if it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting stops along the way, eat at great restaurants, and find a hotel to stay overnight. That's what we are perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Andorra, and you want to stop on the way to explore. If it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting places along the way, or maybe eat at a great restaurant. That's what we are perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.

Road trip: 1 days of driving

With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimate your total travel time for this trip.

Travel time: 1 hour 32 minutes on the road

Itinerary

Start at Halong Bay.

Drive for about 1.5 hours and arrive in Mekong Delta

Halong Bay to Mekong Delta airports and flights

To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we've put together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventually you'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airports and flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected to give you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.

Departure airport: Cat Bi International Airport (HPH)

Arrival airport: Noi Bai International Airport (HAN)

With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to and from the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.

Getting to the airport: 35 minutes

Getting to your destination: 31 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an example flight from HPH to HAN and figure out how long it would take to fly including take-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.

Commercial flight time: 8 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Halong Bay to Mekong Delta including time spent getting to/from the airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSA security lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.

Total travel time: 3 hours 14 minutes

Flying non-stop from Halong Bay to Mekong Delta

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Halong Bay and Mekong Delta. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or "as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterative Vincenty formula.

Flight time from Halong Bay, Quang Ninh Province to Mekong Delta is 9 minutes under avarage conditions.

Our flight time calculator assumes an average flight speed for a commercial airliner of 500 mph, which is equivalent to 805 km/hr or 434 knots.

Actual flight times may vary depending on aircraft type, cruise speed, routing, weather conditions, passenger load, and other factors.