Vietnam and Thailand in twelve days

Day 1

Arrive in Hanoi

Met at Noi Bai and driven into the Old Quarter, about 45 minutes. Nothing is scheduled on the first day. A walk around Hoan Kiem lake at dusk and an early dinner is what we suggest and it is not a formality — it is the fastest way onto local time.

Day 2

Hanoi on foot

Bun cha on a low stool at six in the evening

The Temple of Literature at opening, then the Museum of Ethnology, which is a two-hour round trip and the one museum in the city we would defend without qualification. The afternoon is free. In the evening a guide walks you through four or five pavement kitchens and teaches you how to order, which pays for itself over the following ten days.

Day 3

Hanoi to Ha Long Bay

Dusk at anchor, which is the whole reason for the night

Two and a half hours of expressway to the pier and aboard around midday. The afternoon is kayaking, swimming and a cave that needs twenty minutes rather than an hour. The point of the overnight is the stretch between four in the afternoon and nine the next morning, when the bay empties and you are anchored in a side channel with nothing moving.

Day 4

Off the water, and south to Hoi An

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

Day 5

Hoi An old town

The assembly halls before the coaches arrive at ten

A guided morning through the Japanese bridge, the Chinese assembly halls and two merchant houses that are still lived in. Hoi An stopped being a working port in the nineteenth century and was never rebuilt, which is why the streets read as a whole rather than as fragments. The afternoon is free: tailors, the market, or twenty minutes by bicycle to An Bang beach.

Day 6

My Son, a cooking class, or the beach

Your choice and we book whichever you name. My Son is an hour inland, brick Cham sanctuaries from the fourth century onwards, and it should be done at opening. A cooking class starts at the market and takes the morning. Or nothing at all, on the sand, which on a twelve-day trip is a defensible way to spend a Thursday.

Day 7

Hoi An to Bangkok

The Chao Phraya at night, from a boat rather than a bridge

A slow morning, then Da Nang airport and about two hours in the air to Bangkok. There is no land route between these two countries and no sensible overland alternative, so this is the one flight the itinerary is built around. You are in the city by late afternoon; dinner beside the river is the gentlest possible arrival.

Day 8

Bangkok by water

Wat Arun from the water at the end of the afternoon

The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo at opening, before the heat and the crowd, then Wat Pho next door for the reclining Buddha and the oldest massage school in the country. Cross to Wat Arun by ferry in the afternoon. We move between these by river rather than by road on purpose: the boat is faster, cooler and the better view.

Day 9

Ayutthaya

Wat Chaiwatthanaram in the last hour of light

An hour and a half north, the capital that preceded Bangkok and was destroyed in 1767. What is left is brick: rows of prangs, a headless Buddha, and one head held in the roots of a fig tree. It is a half-day of ruins and a half-day of river, and you are back in Bangkok by early evening. The ordinary train runs there too if you would rather do it that way.

Day 10

North to Chiang Mai

Wat Chedi Luang late in the day

An hour and ten in the air, and a different country. Chiang Mai is cooler, slower and older than Bangkok — a walled square a kilometre and a half across with a moat still round it and about thirty temples inside. The afternoon is a guided walk through four of them, finishing at Wat Chedi Luang, whose great brick stupa lost its top to an earthquake in the sixteenth century and was never repaired.

Day 11

Doi Suthep, and cooking or elephants

The terrace at Doi Suthep at eight in the morning

Doi Suthep first thing: sixteen kilometres up the mountain, 306 steps beside a naga balustrade, and a view over the whole valley before the haze settles. The afternoon is a cooking school that starts in the market, or a half-day at an elephant project. On elephants we are straightforward — we will only book places that do not offer riding and do not perform, and we will tell you which ones those are rather than letting you choose from a list.

Day 12

Chiang Mai, and home

The airport is ten minutes from the old city, which makes the last morning a real one rather than a scramble. Chiang Mai connects to Bangkok all day for an onward international flight, and there are direct services to several regional hubs.