Highlights of Vietnam

Small Group Journeys

Highlights

Tour Details

Itinerary

Day 1: Arrival to Hanoi

A car meets you at the airport and brings you into the city, with the afternoon left free. The group gathers later over welcome drinks for the trip briefing.

Day 2: Hanoi

A full day in Hanoi. You walk the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake at the middle of the city, then Dong Xuan market, before moving on to the Ho Chi Minh complex: Ba Dinh Square, the Presidential Palace and the residence behind it, and the One Pillar Pagoda, which dates from 1049. Lunch is taken locally. The afternoon covers the Temple of Literature, Hoa Lo Prison – the jail American pilots called the Hanoi Hilton – St Joseph’s Cathedral and the Opera House, closing with time on foot in the Old Quarter.

Day 3: Hanoi to Halong Bay

Halong City is the port for the bay, and the drive there takes you past paddy fields and farm work going on much as it always has. Your junk is moored and ready; lunch is served once you are under way, threading between some of the 3,000 karst islands that rise straight out of the water. By evening there is your cabin, a stool at the bar, or simply the deck.

Day 4: Halong Bay to Hue

Tai Chi is offered on the sundeck as the light comes up, and brunch follows while the junk returns to harbour. Ashore again, you are driven to Hanoi airport and fly south to Hue, the old imperial capital. The hotel is waiting, and the remaining hours are unscheduled.

Day 5: Hue to Hoi An

The morning is guided: the mausoleum Emperor Tu Duc had raised for his own burial, then the Imperial Palace, Thien Mu Pagoda and the Citadel. The road on to Hoi An runs through some of the best scenery anywhere in the country. You check in, and the hours after that are your own.

Day 6: Hoi An

Tra Que sits about thirty minutes away by bicycle, a village given over to growing herbs. You are shown along the growing beds and told how the settlement started, then handed tools — soil to turn, raking and sowing, seaweed spread as fertiliser, watering, and a share of the picking. Feet are soaked afterwards. Lunch comes next at a village restaurant and you cook part of it yourself: ‘Banh xeo’, the pancake made here, alongside ‘Tam Huu’ spring rolls. A short lesson in trimming and rolling the herbs closes the visit before you cycle back to the hotel.

After lunch the town itself is walked, a UNESCO world heritage site whose architecture still carries the marks of Portuguese, British, Japanese, Chinese and French merchants. The route enters an old family residence, calls at Chau Ong pagoda, a Chinese assembly hall, takes in the Hoi An Museum and the Japanese Covered Bridge, then finishes back in the Ancient Town, where the rest of the time is yours.

Day 7: Hoi An to Saigon (Cu Chi Tunnels)

Danang is half an hour by road, and from there you fly to Saigon, which runs the country’s commerce. There is time at the hotel to clean up before heading for the Cu Chi Tunnels. Crawling a stretch of that tunnel system gives the Vietnam War something solid to attach to. The evening back in the city is unplanned.

Day 8: Saigon - Mekong Delta

The day runs down to Ben Tre, well inside the delta country that grows the nation’s rice. You board a boat, move out onto the main river and then turn off into the side canals. Small workshops are open along the way, and a pedicab takes you the last stretch to lunch. On the return there is a Cao Dai temple, painted in colours that belong to nothing else in Vietnam. The group eats together in Saigon for a farewell dinner.

Day 9: Departure from Saigon

After breakfast a guide leads you around central Saigon on foot: Dong Khoi Street to begin with, Notre Dame Cathedral with its weighty colonial brickwork, the Reunification Palace, and last of all Ben Thanh Market, which belongs to its traders more than to anyone visiting. A transfer runs to the airport in the afternoon for your onward flight.