Essence of Vietnam & Cambodia

Small Group Journeys

Highlights

Tour Details

Itinerary

Day 1: Arrival to Hanoi

You are met on arrival in Hanoi and brought to the hotel. The hours before your Tour Leader’s briefing and the group’s welcome drinks are your own.

Day 2: Hanoi

The day is given to Hanoi. Hoan Kiem Lake sits at the centre of the city and is where you start, followed by Dong Xuan market. From there you reach the Ho Chi Minh complex: Ba Dinh Square, a photo stop outside the Presidential Palace, the residence he used between 1954 and 1969, and the One Pillar Pagoda of 1049. Lunch is at a local restaurant, then the Temple of Literature, which served as the country’s first university. Hoa Lo Prison follows – the Hanoi Hilton to the American pilots held there – along with St Joseph’s Cathedral and the Opera House, and the day closes over afternoon tea.

Day 3: Hanoi to Halong Bay

It is a long drive from Hanoi to Halong City, the gateway to the bay, past villages and rice fields going about their business. You board a junk at the pier and set out among some of the bay’s close to 2,000 limestone islands, and lunch is eaten while the green water slides past.

Day 4: Halong Bay to Hoi An

More of the bay follows this morning, and brunch comes on board before the junk turns back for the pier. The drive to Hanoi follows, then the flight on to Danang, and a transfer across to Hoi An, a small and pretty town where the hotel is booked. Your evening is unplanned.

Day 5: Hoi An

A walking tour starts the day in Hoi An, a river port that once traded widely, where building styles from China, Japan and France stand along the same street. You look inside a traditional merchant house and an assembly hall put up by the Chinese community; the Japanese Covered Bridge is on the route too. Afternoon hours are free: take the lanes at whatever pace suits you, order clothes from a tailor, or ride a bicycle to An Bang Beach.

Day 6: Hoi An to Saigon

The morning in Hoi An is yours, then a flight down to Saigon, where a car runs you to the hotel. Nothing is scheduled after that.

Day 7: Saigon - Cu Chi Tunnels

The morning runs out to Cu Chi, and you go underground into the tunnel network to hear what it was used for in wartime, before returning to the city. After lunch a guide takes you round Saigon’s past: the former Presidential Palace, then the Central Post Office and Opera House, Ben Thanh market, and Notre Dame cathedral, seen from the square while the last of its long restoration is finished.

Day 8: Saigon to Mekong Delta

You cross to Can Tho and board your boat for a run into the delta. Fruit trees and palms follow the waterways, with sugar cane and rice in the fields behind them. Mid-afternoon brings a landing and a look at the slower business of village life, bicycles included for anyone who wants one. There is a drink waiting as you come back aboard, and evening comes down over the fields.

Day 9: Mekong Delta to Can Tho

Breakfast is early, taken while the boat moves, and a sampan then carries you among the traders at Cai Rang floating market. Ashore at Can Tho, the road continues to the Binh Thuy ancient house, a design drawing on both eastern and western taste under feng shui rules; the French interior has been kept in good order.

Day 10: Can Tho to Chau Doc

After breakfast the road runs to Chau Doc. You call first at a handsome Khmer temple, then at a floating house that is both a home and a catfish farm, before checking in at the hotel.

Day 11: Chau Doc to Phnom Penh

Breakfast done, a speedboat runs down to the frontier at Vinh Xuong and Kaam Samnor. Formalities over, it carries on up the Mekong to Phnom Penh. The afternoon takes in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and, beyond the city, the memorial at Choeung Ek; both are places of remembrance, visited quietly. Drinks later at the Foreign Correspondents' Club or Le Moon rooftop, with the light going off the river.

Day 12: Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

A cyclo takes the morning, threading the back streets of Phnom Penh. Wat Phnom, the point at which the city started, is the first call, then the Royal Palace, whose Silver Pagoda draws most of the attention, and the National Museum for its Khmer collection. A flight from Techo International Airport follows, north to Siem Reap.

Day 13: Siem Reap

You leave in the dark for Angkor Wat and are in place as the central spires turn to silhouettes against the first light. Angkor Thom follows, with the Bayon, and lunch is back in town. The afternoon holds Banteay Srei and Ta Prohm, and the group eats together tonight for the last time.

Day 14: Departure from Siem Reap

The journey closes here, though what you saw is yours to carry home. A transfer takes you to the airport, about an hour out of town, in good time to fly.