Taste of Vietnam

Upon arrival at Tan Son Nhat airport, you will meet your driver and local guide and transfer by car to your hotel. After a short rest, your guide and driver will pick you up at your hotel and transfer to an authentic Vietnamese restaurant for welcome dinner.

Get off of the tourist track to experience the local life of bustling Ho Chi Minh City. Learn about Vietnamese and Chinese communities in Cho Lon, one of the world’s largest and oldest Chinatowns. Start with a visit to Thien Hau pagoda in Chinatown, built by the Cantonese congregation in the early 19th century. Next, explore the iconic Binh Tay Market that is located in a vast ochre-coloured building, designed by a French architect and financed by a Chinese merchant. It is famous for the thousands of stalls and a great variety of goods, making it a true temple of commerce in Ho Chi Minh City. Enjoy your lunch at one of the most famous street food stalls in Ho Chi Minh city that specializes in serving Vietnamese noodle dishes. Then return to your hotel and explore this bustling city on your own.

Leave Ho Chi Minh City for Ben Tre City. Upon arrival, begin your boat cruise to Ham Luong river and get over Mo Cay.  Stop to explore the area with visiting the coconut processing workshop. Take a bike ride on shady paths, pass by green rice fields and vegetable plains to know more about the locals’ lives and the tropical culture. Stop to visit a local work shop of brooms making, coconut fiber workshop. Then continue to visit local house for fruit tasting and take a short walk in the village before riding on the sampan along the canal. Following lunch, take your time walking to surrounding area to explore more local life and see local house rooster farm. Getting back to the pier and transfer to your homestay.

Heading to Tra Vinh to explore the oldest Khmer – style pagodas of Mekong Delta and local attractions. On the way, you will have many opportunities to capture amazing sites of local life. Upon arrival, visit Kompong Chray pagoda which was built in 1673 has many years restoration after the Vietnam war. Continue to famous place Ba Om Pond which is an area of around 39,000 m2 of water surface, cool climate all year around and surrounded by the ancient trees over hundred years old. Then pay a visit to Ang Pagoda, a venerable Khmer-style pagoda, fusing classic Khmer architecture with French colonial influences. Nearby Ang Pagoda is the Khmer Cultural Museum which is an interesting place to study about the culture, materials and spiritual life of the Khmer people in the Delta. Later travel overland to Can Tho.

You will be picked up at your homestay for the morning boat trip. Visit Phong Dien which is the local floating market and explore fresh fruits on fruit floating shops before cruising to Cai Rang which is the biggest wholesale floating market. During your trip you will have chance to experience a breakfast on a floating boat in a local way as well as experience the lifestyles of local people in Mekong Delta though the beautiful tiny canals by small wooden boats and then learn how to make the noodles in Vietnamese traditional way.

After checking out you will meet your driver and travel to Tan Son Nhat airport for your short flight to Da Nang. Our guide and driver will be waiting at Danang airport to transfer you to your hotel. Then you will go on a bicycle ride through the rural scenery of Hoi An to Tra Que herb village, known for its aromatic herbs. Join in with the local farmers and observe their daily work of planting and picking vegetables. At lunch, you will have a chance to enjoy the village specialties: tam huu (small skewers of pork and prawns), various kinds of shrimps, pork and herbs, as well as six other dishes of the region.

You will return to Hoi An in the afternoon and have the rest of the day at your leisure to further discover the old streets or relax on the beach.

Today you are free to explore the surroundings area on your own.

Today travel to Hue along the East Sea, which offers breathtaking coastal views, and enjoy the mountain scenery on the Hai Van Pass, the Road of the Ocean Clouds. On the way, stop to visit the Marble Mountain, literally “five elements mountains”, a popular sightseeing location in Da Nang because of its alluring beauty. Stone steps carved into the mountain lead to a Buddhist Pagoda. Discover stunning caves and enjoy the beautiful view from the top of the mountain. Upon arrival to the mountain, climb up the stone stairs and visit the caves and pagodas as well as admire the beautiful panoramic view. Then head down the mountain and visit the stone village where the skilled local sculptors create many marble products. Next continue the journey to Hue, ancient citadel of Vietnam.

Today spend your whole day to experience Hue city by special way, on scooter. Behind our driver, first make a visit Thanh Toan Bridge and exhibition house where presents agricultural tools and fishery’s tools, listen the folk-song of the hue’s agriculturist. Next, move to An Bang Ghost City, the cemetery behind the fishing village, holds an incredible collection of incredibly ornate tombs and memorials, some costing hundreds of thousands of US dollars to construct. The buildings incorporate both Buddhist and Christian iconography, some of which are modelled after the royal tombs of the emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty. Notice the detailed mosaics made from broken pottery that adorn many of the facades. Continue to drive to the stunning Thieu Tri Tomb, one of several relics of Hue Citadel Complex which was recognized as a world heritage by UNESCO. Compared to other kings’ tombs, Thieu Tri’s tomb is the only one that faces Northwest – a direction that rarely any palace and tomb architectures faced in Nguyen Dynasty. Enjoy a vegetarian lunch with Nuns in a monastery before watching Vietnamese traditional martial arts which have beautiful attack, fighting techniques and skilled in using swords, symbolizing for the lasting, the indomitable spirit, the prosperity of the country. Then visiting a well-known 7-story Thien Mu Pagoda that is located over the banks of the Perfume River. The pagoda, which sits among the buildings of a Buddhist monastery, became known as a site for anticommunist protests after Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist clergy member, self-immolated and brought attention to the plight of his people. Round off your day by making a paper flower. The art of paper flower making is very well-known in Thanh Tien Village in Phu Vang District. For over 300 years, they have built and maintained this reputation and supplied directly to the royalty in the Imperial Capital of Hue.

After checking out you will meet your driver and travel to Phu Bai airport for your flight to Hanoi.

Upon arrival at Noi Bai airport, you will meet your driver and local guide and travel by car to the restaurant where President Obama and Anthony Bourdain ate dinner to try very specialist dish of Hanoi – Bun cha.

Back to your hotel in Hanoi and free time at leisure for the rest of the day.

The Insider’s Hanoi starts off sampling the local Café culture at our Italian style Café in the heart of the old quarter, overlooking Hanoi’s oldest church, to the famous French colonial style St. Joseph’s Cathedral. We then set off for a ride through the city’s iconic narrow streets and head into the heart of the historic Old Quarter. Alighting at the railway tracks, we can see how the locals live & work, just centimetres from the train tracks in tall narrow houses. After a short ride on the scooter toward Huu Tiep Lake, we meet a fascinating elderly resident of the area who regales us with stories of the past in a 400-year-old temple. It’s then a short walk through traditional local market streets to see the B52 crash site at the lake. This US bomber was shot down during the 1972 bombing raids of Ha Noi, a poignant reminder of recent history. Back on the scooter for the ride to the Ngoc Ha Market and stroll around this huge, bustling place taking in the vibrant atmosphere that typifies Ha Noi. We then ride out of the city to the Long Bien Bridge, a magnificent structure built over a hundred years ago which spans the Red River and connects the Hoan Kiem and Long Bien districts, and provides shelter to locals living on boats underneath. Only motorbikes & bicycles can traverse, so off we go! Our next ride takes us along the riverside as we whiz past the ancient dyke wall, beautifully decorated with mosaic artworks and on to a Kumquat Farm, located in a peaceful green agricultural oasis in the city. These little trees are traditional gifts at Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, and adorn every family home, symbolising luck, health, wealth, fertility and peace. We then jump on the scooter and head to our final spot, a special light snack before taking you back to your hotel.

At 4.00pm: your guide will pick you up at your hotel to start street food tour. Having Pho and end of the trip at Bia Hoi place.

In the morning, you will travel to Halong and arrive around noon. There, you will embark on a cruise in the must-see Halong Bay. This world-famous bay is one of the most beautiful landscapes in Vietnam, with its giant rock islets covered in luxuriant vegetation overlooking the waters. Halong Bay includes some 1,900 islands and islets of rocky peaks, often uninhabited and unvisited. This scene creates a spectacular marine landscape, which earned it UNESCO World Heritage status in 1994. You will be served lunch and dinner abroad with excellent and freshly caught seafood from the bay. At the end of the day, you will have the chance to enjoy a night fishing session on the boat.

Early in the morning and depending on the season, you will wake up to enjoy sunrise over the aquamarine waters of the bay. Then the cruise will tour around the bay until you disembark at the end of the morning. After that, you will then return to Hanoi on a road lined with typical rice fields of the Red River Delta.

Transfer to Noi Bai International Airport for your departure flight.