Indochina Highlights

Small Group Journeys

Highlights

Tour Details

Itinerary

Day 1: Arrival to Saigon

Land in Ho Chi Minh City, which most people still call Saigon. A member of our team waits at arrivals and brings you to the hotel; the remainder of the day belongs to you.

Day 2: Saigon

The Cu Chi Tunnels take the morning. You descend into a section of the tunnel system while your guide explains its role during the Vietnam War. The city follows on foot: the Reunification Palace, Ben Thanh Market, Notre Dame Cathedral and Dong Khoi Street.

Day 3: Saigon to Mekong Delta

A full day in the Mekong Delta, tracing canals shaded by palms and calling at village pagodas and market stalls. Lunch comes from crops raised a few fields away. A Cao Dai temple is also on the route, built in a style found nowhere else in Vietnam.

Day 4: Saigon - Danang - Hoi An

Fly to Danang, then take the scenic coastal road across to Hoi An and walk its old streets, where French, Chinese and Japanese architecture stand next to one another.

Day 5: Hoi An

One corner of Hoi An has murals painted across its walls, lanes and alleyways. Afterwards comes Thanh Dong Organic Farm, a village that still grows its vegetables by traditional methods. Speak to the growers and have a go at the work yourself.

Day 6: Hoi An - Danang - Hanoi

A brief flight from Danang brings you north to Hanoi and its best-known sights: the Ho Chi Minh complex to begin, then Hoa Lo Prison, which American prisoners named the ‘Hanoi Hilton’. Next on the list is the Temple of Literature, and afternoon tea inside the Opera House ends the day.

Day 7: Hanoi to Halong Bay

The drive east from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay passes rice fields and small towns going about their business. A comfortable junk is waiting at the pier; lunch is served as the boat threads a course between the 3,000 limestone islands. The afternoon can be spent in your cabin, on the sundeck or at the bar.

Day 8: Halong Bay to Hanoi

Tai Chi on the top deck at first light opens the day, followed by brunch while the junk sails back to harbour. A vehicle returns the group to the Hanoi hotel. Later you explore the old quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake on foot, and the group sits down to a farewell dinner.

Day 9: Hanoi to Luang Prabang

A flight carries the group to Luang Prabang. Wat Xiengthong begins the sightseeing, then you climb Phou Si Mountain on foot. A Baci ceremony follows, and a tuk-tuk carries the group off to eat at Bamboo Experience.

Day 10: Luang Prabang

You rise early to watch residents offer alms to saffron-robed monks along the street at dawn. Breakfast is followed by a stroll down to the market to buy snacks, then Wat Mai and the National Museum. Afterwards a boat heads upriver as far as the Pak Ou caves, where a picnic lunch waits; petanque, the national obsession, fills the afternoon, and sunset comes with a drink in hand.

Day 11: Luang Prabang to Siem Reap

The Kuang Si waterfalls take up the first half of the day, then it is out to the airport for the hop to Siem Reap. That evening you see Phare, The Cambodian Circus. Its performers combine theatre, music, dance and modern circus technique to tell Cambodian stories: a few historical, others from folklore, others set in the present.

Day 12: Siem Reap

Another pre-dawn wake-up, this time to watch the sun rise behind Angkor Wat, with breakfast at a nearby restaurant once it is up. Angkor Thom — the ‘Great City’ — is entered through its south gate, where carved faces 23m (75-foot) high gaze down at passing traffic; the spot appeared in the film Tomb Raider. At its centre sits Bayon, the state temple built in the 12th century and covered in hundreds of oversized stone faces. Ta Prohm closes the day and tends to be the one people remember: vast trees have forced their roots straight through the masonry.

Day 13: Siem Reap

Beong Mealea Temple starts the morning: a 12th-century Buddhist sanctuary whose squared sandstone blocks lie scattered and half taken back by the forest. A market visit and lunch at a restaurant nearby follow. The afternoon reaches a far-flung cluster of three stilted villages, which water cuts off from Aug - Feb. You board a small craft and move through flooded mangrove, where wildlife is abundant. To close, a performance of old Khmer culture accompanied by the finest cooking in Siem Reap.