You are met at Noi Bai and driven into the city, forty minutes or so depending on the bridge traffic. The rest of the day is yours. Hanoi is best taken slowly on the first afternoon — a coffee on a low stool, a walk around Hoan Kiem lake, an early night. Your leader gathers the group before dinner to run through the week and to explain how the road crossings work.

A full day, most of it walking. We start at the Temple of Literature, laid out in 1070 and still arranged as five linked courtyards, then the Museum of Ethnology on the western edge of town for the house reconstructions in its garden. The afternoon is the Old Quarter: thirty-six streets each named for the trade once carried on there, a few still keeping to it. Water puppets at the end of the day, then dinner together.

We leave after breakfast and take the Hanoi–Hai Phong expressway, then the Hai Phong–Halong road over the Bach Dang bridge — about 150 kilometres, two and a half hours with one stop. Boarding is around noon, lunch is served as the boat clears the port, and the afternoon runs through Sung Sot cave and the steps up Ti Top. Kayaks go out before dark. Dinner and the night at anchor.

Tai chi on the sun deck for anyone who wants it, then the boat works its way back through the islands with a stop at Luon cave, where a low arch opens into an enclosed lagoon. Brunch is served while we cruise in. We disembark around eleven and are back in Hanoi by mid-afternoon. The evening is free, and your leader will point you at the better places to eat near the hotel.

Check-out is at noon and the morning is open. Most people use it for the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex and the one-pillar pagoda, both a short taxi ride away and both closed on Mondays. Transfers to Noi Bai are timed to your flight. If you are carrying on south, this is the natural point to pick up the overnight train to Hue or a connection to Ninh Binh.