After breakfast, your full day Hanoi city tour will start at your hotel, where the guide and driver will meet you.

We take the drive to the central political district of Ba Dinh, where everything about Vietnam’s national hero, Ho Chi Minh, is revered. Around the many sites to be found here, we get a better understanding of Ho Chi Minh and his present-day appeal to the Vietnamese people. We see this at the mausoleum and the stilt house where he lived his later years. We delve back through time with a look at the French colonial Presidential Palace and the ancient One-Pillar Pagoda.

After this, we proceed southwards to the Temple of Literature, a nearly 1000-year-old university that taught the best minds in the country. The verdant gardens and beautiful architecture here will transport us back to a simpler time, one where the teachings of Confucius were the main subject materials to learn.

We have lunch after this and take the choice of two museums for our next stop. The National Museum of Vietnamese History is a comprehensive look back through events in Vietnam and the culture that was carved out of by them. The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology takes visitors on a journey through the 53 ethnic minority groups and their varying customs, each of which are colourful, humble and displayed in full through artifacts and full-scale replicas of stilt houses.

The tour ends in the Old Quarter, where we will walk around and see some of the fantastic architecture that makes Hanoi such a picturesque city. We also explore the capital’s culinary delights on a street food tour, where our dinner will be a typical Hanoian dish full of flavour.

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Please Note: The following itinerary is just an example and may not be the exact itinerary that you follow. During the booking of this tour, you will choose the Halong Bay cruise ship and itinerary that suits you. Check cruise options at: Halong Bay Cruises, Lan Ha Bay Cruises and Bai Tu Long Bay Cruises.

Take breakfast in your hotel and wait for the bus. It will arrive in the morning and your journey across the Red River Delta will begin. At the end is the enchanting Halong Bay, where you will take a boat trip in Halong Bay.

We take a seafood lunch, once we have boarded, and head out into the grand limestone maze ahead of us. After a few hours of relaxed cruising, we make our first stop at Sung Sot Cave, a completely different world of stalactites and stalagmites in a cavernous space.

Following this, we make our way over to Titop Island, where we can enjoy relaxing, swimming or taking panoramic pictures from the top of the lookout tower here. Back on the boat, we enjoy a party on the top deck complete with sunset and happy hour. Also at this time, the chef will come out to provide us with a short cooking demonstration before dinner.

Our evening meal will be a glamorous affair, served in the dining room in front of a sparkling bay. The rest of your time is yours to do with as you wish.

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Rise early today and enjoy a tai chi session held on the top deck. This is a great chance to see the sunrise and enjoy a relaxing start to the day. Breakfast is served downstairs afterwards as we prepare for our last few hours of sailing.

We make a stop off at Cua Van Fishing Village, a community of colourful floating houses located in the shadows of limestone mountains. We take a kayak or a sampan boat around the houses, looking for examples of the kind of life that residents live on floating platforms.

After this, we return to the cruise ship and soak up the last of the atmosphere on board. We head back to the harbour after a delicious brunch served in the dining room, then disembark once arrived. You will meet our driver at the harbour and they will take you to Hanoi airport, where you will catch your flight to Da Nang.

Once arrived, you will take the drive to Hoi An, which is where you can check into your hotel and enjoy the rest of the afternoon in this magical town.

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch

Notes: Check-in is available at the hotel from any time after 14:00

Take breakfast today in your hotel and head out with the guide to Hoi An’s central market, where you can learn about the difference between northern and central Vietnamese produce.

After having a look around, we take a 25-minute cruise down the Thu Bon River and disembark at the Red Bridge Cooking School. Take a look around the vegetable and herb gardens here to get a feel for where your ingredients are grown, before heading inside the school and having your 1.5-hour cooking lesson. You will receive an informative introduction to each dish as well as a demonstration of some of the artistic flares that Vietnamese chefs like to add to their creations.

We have lunch here before transferring you back to Hoi An ending the cooking class in Hoi An. for you to enjoy some free time in the town.

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch

Enjoy breakfast and prepare for a highly scenic northwards drive. We head out of Hoi An and through Da Nang, before crossing over the incredible Hai Van Pass. This road has worldwide acclaim for its beauty, found across forested limestone mountains and the rocky coast below.

We keep driving until we reach Lang Co Beach at the end, which offers the perfect picture of paradise in which we can spend a few hours. We head onto Hue after this and check you into your hotel, after which you can explore the city at your leisure.

The guide will return to your hotel in the late afternoon to take you on a street food tour, where you can sample some of the most famous dishes in Hue that have reached every corner of Vietnam.

Meals:  Breakfast, Dinner

Notes: Check-in is available at the hotel from any time after 14:00

Take breakfast in the hotel and prepare for a full day of excitement. The Hue city tour starts on a dragon boat on the Perfume River, which will take us through the wonderfully lush scenery of Hue and will end at the Thien Mu Pagoda. We disembark here to have a look around this 7-storey building, built in 1601, on the beautiful banks of the river.

We head next to the Hue Imperial Citadel, which stands in the middle of Hue as an imposing reminder of the Nguyen Dynasty. The 13 emperors who lived here did so from 1802 to 1945, ruling the country from the architecturally magnificent citadel and the Forbidden Purple City, where the king and his family used to live. We will learn more about the history of Hue at the Royal Fine Arts Museum, around which we will take a short tour.

We take lunch in the city and then head to the tomb of Emperor Ming Mang, who is buried in the hills of Hue in luxurious style. The architecture found here is a fantastically ornate work of art, typical of the feudal period of the Nguyen Dynasty.

Our final stop is to Dong Ba Market, Hue’s bustling hub for trade on the banks of the Huong River. End of Hue City Tour 1 Day.

After breakfast at your hotel, the driver will arrive to take you to Phu Bai airport for your flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Once you have caught your flight and landed in the south of Vietnam, you will be picked up by the driver and taken to the centre of the city, where your hotel awaits.

Take the time to relax at the hotel and find some lunch before the guide arrives. We start our city tour at the Reunification Palace, where the Vietnam War was ended by a tank crashing through the gates. We head to the nearby War Remnants Museum to learn more about that day in 1975, as well as the other events throughout the war.

We continue the tour with a look at some of the French buildings constructed during colonial times. These include the Notre Dame Cathedral and Saigon Central Post Office, both of which are vibrant additions to the city. The tour ends at your hotel.

Meals:  Breakfast

Notes: Check-in is available at the hotel from any time after 14:00

Finish breakfast at your hotel and take the drive to the verdant outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. We will have a look around the beautiful gardens here and enjoy the freshness to be felt outside of Saigon. The guide will explain about the uses for each of these southern herbs before we begin our 1.5-hour cooking demonstration.

We will watch the chef work their magic before having a go ourselves. This will be followed by lunch, where we can savour the food we just created. Jump into the car after this to begin the trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Once we arrived, we will receive a brief introduction to the tunnels before being shown inside. This is an astounding 250km web of tunnels located below the jungle floor, which acted as a stronghold of the Viet Cong as they plotted the fall of Saigon during the war. We take a look around the tunnels in all of the various operation rooms here, including hospitals, weapon storages and command centres.

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch

Have breakfast in the hotel restaurant before the driver and guide pick you up for your transfer to My Tho City for the Mekong Delta Boat Tour. We board a boat in the southern reaches of My Tho and head out across the mighty Mekong River, stopped at several islands during the process.

The first of these islands is Phoenix Island, where we can see beautiful stretching of coconut trees flanking the river’s shores. After this, we head to Turtle Islet to see how coconut from this abundant region is processed into candy. A horse and cart will be our transportation to the next stop, which is a local family home at the end of a quaint path, where we can sip on various different types of tea and listen to a live performance of southern Vietnamese folk music.

We savour a local lunch before we take the scenic drive to Vinh Long, where we will find the Ut Trinh Homestay and stay here. Relax in the grounds of this fabulous homestay, complete with traditional Vietnamese feel in the lush gardens and wooden furnishings.

If you like, you can join the host with cooking dinner, which will help you to get a better understanding of the flavours on offer here.

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Take breakfast in the homestay and the drive to Cai Be Floating Market, one of the Mekong Delta’s action-packed markets where all buying and selling takes place on boats. We will board our own boat and head out into the market, finding deals in several wooden boats along the way.

After this, we head to shore and find workshops where local coconut crafts are made. We jump onto our bicycles after this and explore the picturesque rural scene of the Mekong Delta through visits to farms and orchards, where you can see the unrestrained nature on show.

We board a local rowing boat and head down a canal bordered by luxuriant nipa palm, where you can see some of the most evocative greenery in the Mekong Delta. This comes before we step back on land for the final time and explore some of the famous brick kilns dotted around the region, where fabulous pottery is created before its painting in traditional Vietnamese style.

We make our final market stop on the return to Vinh Long, where we can see a wealth of exquisite seafood for sale. The car will take us back to Saigon after this, stopping for lunch on the way and arriving for your final night of the tour in Ho Chi Minh City.

Meals:  Breakfast, Lunch

Relish your final breakfast in Vietnam and take some time to soak up the last of the atmosphere of Ho Chi Minh City. The driver will arrive at your hotel about 3 hours prior to your departure time in order to take you to the airport. Here, you can catch your onwards flight.

The tour finishes here and we thank you for your interest and company! We wish you well in your future travels throughout Vietnam!

Meals:  Breakfast