Vietnam Express

Your guide meets the group beyond the immigration hall at Tan Son Nhat International Airport and a private coach is waiting at the kerb. The transfer into District 1 takes around thirty minutes, longer in the morning rush, and the guide uses the drive to run through the next nine days.

After check-in, an afternoon walking tour of the city centre: the Reunification Palace, Notre-Dame Cathedral and the central post office, both French colonial landmarks still in daily use, and the Ben Thanh Market a short walk from the hotel.

Welcome dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Saigon skyline, with time to settle in after a long travel day.

An early departure for the Cu Chi Tunnels, about an hour northwest of the city. The guide covers the history of the tunnel network on the drive and at the site, where the group can walk a section of the tunnels and see the trap mechanisms, weapons, and field kitchens that kept the resistance running underground. Crawl passages are open for those willing to go deeper.

Back in Saigon for the War Remnants Museum, the most direct account of the conflict available to a visitor, then the contrast of the high-end shops along Dong Khoi Street and the streets of the old French quarter.

Dinner at a city restaurant, with the evening free afterward for those who want to walk the river promenade or find a rooftop bar.

An early hotel checkout and private transfer to the airport for the domestic flight to Da Nang, roughly ninety minutes in the air. The guide is on the same flight. From Da Nang airport a private vehicle covers the thirty-minute run south to Hoi An.

Check-in and then the group is free to explore the Ancient Town on foot, the way it is best seen. The old merchant houses, the Japanese Covered Bridge, the tailor shops, and the canal-side cafes are all within walking distance of the centre. There is no coach inside the pedestrian-zoned core.

Dinner in the old town, with the evening free to walk the lantern-lit lanes and the river quays as the paper lanterns hold their own against the dark.

A bicycle tour out through the rice paddies and craft villages on the edge of town. The route is flat and the pace is relaxed, passing pottery and carpentry workshops and the open farmland that made the old port what it was.

A cooking class at a riverside restaurant: a short market walk for the ingredients, then a hands-on session preparing two or three dishes from the Central Vietnamese kitchen, followed by a group lunch of what everyone has cooked.

A paper lantern release on the Thu Bon River at dusk, when the lanterns are set on the water and the town slows down. The evening is otherwise free, useful for anyone collecting an order from a tailor.

A morning flight from Da Nang to Hanoi, with a private vehicle waiting at Noi Bai airport for the run into the city. The capital has a different weight from Saigon: quieter, older-looking, with a French-quarter street grid and a lake at its centre.

An Old Quarter walking tour with the guide: the 36 guild streets, each historically devoted to a single trade, and Hoan Kiem Lake with the Ngoc Son Temple on its island, reached by the red The Huc Bridge.

Water puppet theatre at one of the traditional stages near the lake, a northern Vietnamese art form that uses the water surface as its stage and tells stories from rice-farming life and the country's founding legends.

The Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first university, founded in 1070, with its five courtyards and the stone stelae naming the scholars who passed the royal examinations across six centuries.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex on Ba Dinh Square, with the stilt house where Ho Chi Minh worked and the One Pillar Pagoda nearby, then Hoa Lo Prison, the colonial jail later known to American pilots as the Hanoi Hilton.

A walk across the Long Bien Bridge at sunset, the iron span that carried French colonial trade and later became a symbol of the city's endurance, then a group dinner at a traditional Vietnamese restaurant.

An early breakfast and a private transfer from Hanoi to the Ha Long Bay embarkation pier, roughly three and a half hours east. The guide travels with the group and uses the drive to brief on the cruise programme and what to bring on deck.

Board the private overnight junk in the early afternoon. The programme covers kayaking through narrow limestone passages that cannot be reached by motor, a swim at a quiet beach away from the main lanes, and a cooking demonstration on the galley deck.

Sunset cocktails on the sundeck as the boat anchors away from the day-cruise routes, then dinner served on board, typically built around seafood landed by the fishing families who work the bay.

Tai chi on the top deck at sunrise for those who want it, led by a crew member, then a visit to one of the bay's floating fishing villages by bamboo rowboat, where families have lived on the water for generations.

Brunch on board before the junk returns to the pier and the group disembarks. The private vehicle returns to Hanoi, around three and a half hours, with the rest of the afternoon free to rest or walk the city.

The evening is free, a last night in Hanoi for the group to find dinner in the Old Quarter at its own pace.

Breakfast at the hotel. The guide coordinates the departure transfers, timing each vehicle to the individual flight schedules so no one waits longer than necessary and no one rushes at the airport.

Private transfer to Noi Bai International Airport for outbound flights. For groups continuing to a Thailand leg of a cross-border itinerary, the Bangkok connection is achievable on most schedules from Hanoi's afternoon departure bank.

The route ends at the airport. Safe travels.