Vietnam Classic, 8 Nights: Hanoi to Saigon

Into the city from Noi Bai and an afternoon walk through the Old Quarter — the trade streets, the tube houses, the lake with its red bridge to the Ngoc Son temple. In the evening the water-puppet theatre by Hoan Kiem, and a first dinner of bun cha or pho at a pavement table, which is where Hanoi eats. An early night before a full day. · Hanoi · Airport transfer, about 45 minutes

Ba Dinh square early for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (mornings only, closed Mondays and Fridays and for maintenance in most autumns), the stilt house and the One Pillar pagoda, then the Temple of Literature, the academy founded in 1070, and the Hoa Lo prison museum. Lunch in the French quarter. The afternoon is the Museum of Ethnology or an egg coffee on the train street, and the evening is free for the night market on Hang Dao. · Hanoi · Private vehicle, full day

The expressway east across the delta to the Ha Long harbour, about two and a half hours, to board around midday. Lunch under way among the 1,969 islands UNESCO inscribed in 1994, then Sung Sot cave on Bo Hon island, a kayak in a lagoon, a swim at Ti Top for the brave, and sunset from the top deck. Dinner aboard, the anchorage in a sheltered bay, and a cabin with a window onto the water. · Ha Long Bay · Private vehicle, about 2 hours 30 minutes; cruise boards around midday

The bay at first light, breakfast on board and a last cave or floating village before the harbour at about eleven. The vehicle takes you straight to Noi Bai airport for the afternoon flight to Da Nang, an hour and twenty minutes, and the drive down the coast to Hoi An, 28 km south, arriving in the evening in time for the lanterns coming on along the Thu Bon and dinner in the old town. A long travel day, and the only one on the itinerary. · Hoi An · Cruise return, vehicle to Noi Bai (about 2 hours 30 minutes), flight to Da Nang about 1 hour 20 minutes, transfer about 45 minutes

The old town before the shops open: the Japanese Covered Bridge of the early 1600s, the Tan Ky and Phung Hung merchant houses, the Fujian assembly hall with its dragon fountain, the market on the river. Lunch of cao lau, the noodle only Hoi An makes. The afternoon is An Bang beach or a bicycle through the Tra Que herb village; at dusk a rowing boat onto the Thu Bon among the lanterns, and the old town on foot once the day trippers have gone. · Hoi An · On foot and bicycle

A morning at the Marble Mountains on the road back to Da Nang — the stair up Thuy Son, the pagodas and the Huyen Khong cave, the view along the coast — then the midday flight south to Ho Chi Minh City. The city still called Saigon by everyone who lives in it is hotter, faster and taller than Hanoi; an evening walk along Nguyen Hue, the pedestrian boulevard down to the river, and dinner in District 1. · Ho Chi Minh City · Private vehicle, flight about 1 hour 20 minutes

Out to Cu Chi in the morning, to the Ben Dinh site nearer the city, where the guerrilla tunnel network that ran to 121 km under the war is opened up: the trapdoors, the kitchens with their smoke vents, the sections widened for visitors to crawl through. Back for lunch and the city's own history — the Reunification Palace kept as it was in April 1975, the War Remnants Museum, the Central Post Office and the cathedral square, and Ben Thanh market before it closes. · Ho Chi Minh City · Private vehicle, about 1 hour 30 minutes each way to Cu Chi

South-west, 70 km, to My Tho on the Tien river, the northern arm of the Mekong. A motor boat across to the islands — Unicorn, Dragon, Phoenix, Tortoise — for a coconut-candy workshop, a bee farm, fruit and tea in a garden, and then the rowing boat through the coconut canals, the part everyone remembers: a hand-paddled sampan under the palms in water the colour of milky tea. Lunch of elephant-ear fish on the island. The Vinh Trang pagoda on the way back, and a last Saigon evening. · Ho Chi Minh City · Private vehicle, about 1 hour 30 minutes each way; boats

A free morning — the Jade Emperor pagoda, the Binh Tay market in Cholon, or coffee on a rooftop — and the transfer to Tan Son Nhat, about half an hour from District 1, for the flight home. Departures from Hanoi instead can be arranged by running the itinerary in reverse. · Ho Chi Minh City · Airport transfer, about 30 minutes