Day 1: Hanoi arrival (D, GP)
Arriving at Noi bai Airport in hanoi, you'll be met and driven to your hotel, you’ll have time to relax after your journey. Later, you’ll be picked up for a welcome dinner at a good restaurant hosted in a French colonial building. In the evening, you’ll have tickets for a performance of traditional Water Puppetry (an art form unique to northern Viet Nam, and a good, light-hearted introduction to its rural culture). Your overnight stay will be in Hanoi.
Day 2: Hanoi’s tangible and intangible heritage (B, L, G)
An all-day tour of Vietnam’s thousand-year-old capital city, possibly including the Ethnology Museum, the Art Museum. In the afternoon, you’ll visit the stilt house of a famous Vietnamese artist to view his antique collection and restoration work. Next, you’ll meet another talented painter who will enjoy showing you his lacquer and oil painting artwork. Your guide can then show you the bustling Old Quarter. Apart from its maze of small streets, it’s an architectural pot-pourri - traditional tube houses, religious buildings, colonial houses, artisans’ dwellings and modern concrete constructions. Your overnight stay will be in Hanoi.
Day 3: Hanoi/Ha Long (B, L, D, G)
After an early breakfast, you’ll leave for Ha Long Bay, one of the most spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Areas and the world’s largest marine limestone ‘karst’ landscape. There you’ll board your boat, a wooden junk built from the model of the old Vietnamese court vessels with sails, a wide transom and rectangular superstructure, that will take you first to the busy World Heritage area and then to some of the less well-known grottoes and caves. Weather permitting, you’ll be able to swim, fish, climb a hill (not a mountain!) for an overview of the Bay’s remarkable seascape, or venture into some of the sea level caves in a small sampan. All your meals will be provided on board, usually based on fresh seafood, and you’ll sleep in a twin cabin with an en suite toilet and shower.
Day 4: Ha Long/Hanoi (Brunch, DP)
You’ll spend the morning cruising Ha Long Bay, followed by brunch, just before docking around noon and leaving for Hanoi. You should arrive in the late afternoon and spend the night in Hanoi.
Day 5: Hanoi/Hue (B, DP in Hanoi, G in Hue)
You’ll have a free morning before we pick you up for a noon flight to Hue. When you arrive, you’ll be met by our guide and driven to visit the Imperial Citadel of Hue, the nearby Antiquity Museum and the local Dong Ba market. Your overnight stay will be in Hue.
Day 6: Hue (B, L, D, G)
After breakfast, you’ll be met by our guide to board a riverboat to take you upstream on the Perfume River to visit the tranquil Thien Mu Pagoda. In the afternoon, you’ll visit Emperor Tu Duc’s mausoleum and one of Hue’s ‘garden houses’. After returning to your hotel to freshen up, you’ll return to sit down for dinner in the pleasant surroundings and a comfortable atmosphere of another of the garden houses. You’ll spend the night in Hue.
Day 7: Hue/Danang/Hoi An (B, L, G)
In the morning, you’ll drive to Danang (the views from top of Hai Van Pass are excellent – you’ll be able to see Lang Co beach and the lagoon far below, and Danang spread out before you to the south). Upon arriving in Danang, you’ll have a brief look at the remarkable Hindu statuary in the Cham Museum before leaving for Hoi An. After lunch, you’ll have a guided visit to the Ancient Town. Your overnight stay will be in Hoi An.
Day 8: Hoi An/My Son/Hoi An (B, G)
After breakfast, you’ll be driven to My Son Sanctuary, once the spiritual capital of the Cham Kingdom that dominated SE Asia for nearly a thousand years, and now a World Heritage Area. Its remarkable brick towers were badly bombed by the Americans, but are still impressive as is its remote valley setting. Your afternoon will be free to relax on the beach or wander around Hoi An. Your overnight stay will be in Hoi An or Danang.
Day 9: Hoi An/Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City departure (B, G)
You’ll be picked up in good time to board either the morning or afternoon flight to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City for your departure flight. Trip ends.
Readmore: Vietnam Heritage Overture 9 days
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