After clearing immigration and customs at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport, you will be met and taken to the hotel where you will stay for 2 nights. There will be an orientation meeting before the welcome dinner where you will enjoy your first taste of the complex, yet subtle, Vietnamese cooking - a cuisine full of unexpected delights.
Today begins with a visit to Hoan Kiem Lake, the heartbeat of Hanoi, followed by a cyclo tour around the maze-like warren of streets that make up the Old Quarter and a stop at the Ngoc Son Pagoda. After lunch at the famed Metropole Hotel's Spices Garden, where diners graze among "street food stalls," tour the Temple of Literature and the Fine Arts Museum. Dinner tonight will be at a restaurant featuring delicacies from the Red River Delta.
This morning, tour the state-of-the-art Museum of Ethnic Minorities which will provide some background on the various hill tribes who live in and around Sapa. After lunch, visit the iconic One Pillar Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh's elegant Stilt House and the idiosyncratic museum that is dedicated to his life. After supper, board the overnight train to Sapa.
The train arrives early in Lao Cai, one of Vietnam's gateways to China. Travel by private bus along a highway that threads through terraced mountainsides and verdant valleys, past Mount Fansipan, Vietnam's highest peak, before coming to the former French hill town of Sapa where you'll stay for 2 nights. After lunch, visit the nearby Black H'mong tribal village of Cat Cat. While there, enjoy a local cultural show. Dinner tonight will be at a minority restaurant.
After breakfast, drive north to visit Ta Phin. Set in a valley layered with rice paddies and dotted with small home communes, it is a rarity -- a place where the Black H'mong and the Red Dao, the area's two largest minorities, live together yet maintain their own traditions and colourful native costumes. After lunch at a village restaurant, return to Sapa in time to explore the town's bustling everyday market as well as the Saturday evening "Love Market."
An early start to drive to the Muong Hum Sunday market, an off-the-beaten track regional market where many minority tribes, dressed in their distinctive clothing, gather to socialize and sell cardamom, mountain plants and other food and agricultural goods. Look for Flower H'mong in their full, embroidered yellow and red skirts, and Zao Tuyen in black pants and elaborate headdresses decorated with silver chains and bells. After lunch, visit either the Muong Vy Caves or a nearby minority village. After supper in Lao Cai, board the overnight train to Hanoi.
The train arrives early so you will stop at a small hotel to freshen up and have breakfast. Then drive northeast through the Red River Delta with its rice-paddy embroidered countryside to Halong Bay, one of the world's most bewitching places. Board our private, luxury Chinese-style junk for an overnight excursion among the limestone islets that jut dramatically from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. With a little imagination, these limestone outcrops can morph into fighting cocks, dragons and even General Charles de Gaulle's nose. Gorge on fresh seafood, check out remarkable caves, see floating fishing villages before anchoring in a quiet bay for the night. Weather permitting, you can swim or kayak off the boat.
Early birds can greet the dawn, exercising or sipping coffee or tea on the upper deck. After breakfast, explore another cave and enjoy another swim before cruising back along another route to the jetty. Arrive back in Hanoi in time to board your flight to Hue, the former Imperial Capital of Vietnam where you will stay for 2 nights.
Start the day with a ride on a traditional Dragon Boat to visit Thien Mu pagoda. Continue to visit two of the finest examples of Imperial architecture, the tombs of Tu Duc and Khai Dinh. After lunch, explore the moated ruins of the Forbidden Purple City and learn the story of Vietnam’s royal past under the Nguyen Dynasty. Time permitting, end the day checking out at the bustling Dong Ba Market.
After breakfast, drive south along the scenic coastal highway, stopping at Lang Co Beach, then touring the Cham Museum before having lunch in Danang. Continue on to Hoi An, via China Beach. carving factory and a silk factory on the outskirts of Hoi An. Check into your hotel for 3 nights. Hoi An is a town crammed with art galleries and tailors where custom made clothes can be sewn in just a few hours. There will be plenty of time to check out the shops - or just to laze around the hotel pool. Good restaurants also abound. Dine tonight at one of the riverside restaurants where you can indulge in local delicacies such cao lau, a type of noodle made nowhere else but in Hoi An.
This morning, take a short walking tour of Old Hoi An, which miraculously escaped any significant damage during the Vietnam War. Today, it's an architectural treasure trove of lovingly maintained Chinese, Japanese and French merchant homes and places of worship. Its compact Old Quarter is off-limits to cars and easy to navigate. In the afternoon, visit the sprawling food market before taking a boat along the Thu Bon River to the Red Bridge Restaurant for a hands-on cooking class where you'll prepare your dinner.
This morning, enjoy an eco-tour cruise. Learn how to paddle a basket boat or coracle, a small, round boat woven from coconut fronds, how to cast a net to catch fish the way the locals do and about the role the coconut water palm channel played during the Vietnam War. The captain will prepare a delicious lunch of local fish on board. The afternoon is free to check out Cua Dai Beach or enjoy the hotel spa or a dip in its pool.
After breakfast, fly to Hanoi. Check into the hotel for 2 nights. There will be time to visit local art galleries and shops or just saunter about the Old Quarter before attending an optional late afternoon performance of the acclaimed Thang Long Water Puppets. Dinner tonight will be at a popular local restaurant.
This morning, visit Duong Lam ancient village. Founded about 1,200 years ago, this agricultural village still has many century old houses brick scattered among its tiny old alleys. The houses are built of laterite brick, a hard red clay formed from weathered basalt that is cut into brick shapes for construction. While there, we'll also stop at the Mong Phu temple dedicated to King Ngo Quyen and King Phung Hung, two Vietnamese national heroes, and the 15th Century Mia Pagoda, home to 287 statues of varying sizes. Lunch featuring specialities such as soft green lentil cake or rice cake stuffed with brown onion will be served at an ancient house. You'll get back in time to pick up any last minute souvenirs before the farewell banquet at one of the best fusion restaurants in the country.
After breakfast, transfer to the Noi Bai airport for your flight home.
THE TORONTO STAR Saturday, January 5, 2002 (PDF)
THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Saturday, January 12, 2002 (PDF)
