Vietnam in ten days

Day 1

Into Hanoi

Hoan Kiem lake in the last half hour of light

You are met at Noi Bai and driven into the Old Quarter, about 45 minutes outside the worst of the traffic. Nothing is scheduled. The useful thing to do with a first evening is one slow lap of Hoan Kiem lake and an early dinner, which puts you on local time by the second morning rather than the fourth.

Day 2

Hanoi at walking pace

The stelae courtyard at the Temple of Literature, early

The Temple of Literature first, before the school parties, then the Museum of Ethnology on the western edge of the city, which is the one place that explains the fifty-three minority peoples you will otherwise only photograph. The afternoon is free. In the evening a guide walks you through four or five pavement kitchens, and by the end of it you can order confidently for the rest of the trip.

Day 3

Out to the bay, and aboard

An hour of kayaking in a side channel with nothing else moving

Two and a half hours of expressway to the pier, boarding about midday. The afternoon is kayaking and swimming, and the reason for the overnight arrives at four o’clock, when the day fleet turns for home and the bay goes quiet. Dinner is on board at anchor.

Day 4

Ashore, and south to Hoi An

The first walk across the lantern-lit bridges

Brunch as the boat comes in mid-morning, back in Hanoi by early afternoon, then an hour and a quarter in the air to Da Nang and 45 minutes by road to Hoi An. You arrive after dark, which is the right introduction to a town lit by lanterns.

Day 5

The old port on foot

The Tan Ky merchant house, which is still a family home

Hoi An was the busiest harbour on this coast until the river silted up, after which the town was too poor for a century and a half to knock anything down. That is why eight hundred timber shophouses, the assembly halls and the covered Japanese bridge are all still standing in an area you cross in ten minutes. A guide takes the morning; the afternoon is yours for the tailors, the market or An Bang beach.

Day 6

My Son, a kitchen, or the sand

My Son before eight, ahead of the coaches

One decision and we book whichever you make. My Son is an hour inland — brick Cham sanctuaries from the fourth century onwards, heavily bombed and still worth the early start. The alternative is a cooking class in the morning and the afternoon on the beach. We will not push you towards a third thing that suits neither.

Day 7

The length of the country in eighty minutes

The change of pace between the two ends of Vietnam

A last morning in Hoi An, then 45 minutes to Da Nang and an hour and twenty in the air. Ho Chi Minh City runs at a tempo nothing north of it prepares you for, and the first evening is best spent in District 1 doing very little with it.

Day 8

Saigon, including the difficult part

The basement situation room at the Reunification Palace

The War Remnants Museum in the morning: partial, uncomfortable, and still the most honest two hours a visitor can spend here. Then the Reunification Palace, whose 1960s rooms have not been touched since the day it fell. The afternoon goes to Cholon — Binh Tay market, Thien Hau temple and the gold streets — and the evening is free.

Day 9

One morning in the delta, done properly

The narrow canals, in a sampan, before the heat

The standard delta day trip drives two hours to My Tho, puts you in a rowing boat for twenty minutes wearing a conical hat and has you back by six. We do not book that. Ours leaves at six for Ben Tre and Cai Be, about two hours out, and spends the time in the small canals, a brickworks and a coconut-processing yard, with lunch in a working house and the boat back in the early afternoon. It is still a day trip and we say so — the delta earns a night at Can Tho, which ten days cannot carry.

Day 10

Home from Tan Son Nhat

Breakfast, a late checkout if the room allows it, and the airport, which is inside the city and 30 to 50 minutes away depending on the hour. If your flight is at night we hold the room until the afternoon and find you something unhurried to do with the day.