Essential Vietnam

Arrive into Ho Chi Minh City, still known to locals as Saigon, where your driver and guide will be waiting to welcome you into the city in comfort. The rest of the day is yours to settle in before the journey begins in earnest tomorrow.

Once called the Pearl of Indochina, Saigon wears its colourful history in layers, from pagodas and colonial architecture to a fast-growing skyline. Spend a full day exploring the city with a private guide, beginning at the FITO Museum, a fascinating private collection tracing the history of traditional Vietnamese medicine. Continue into the historic centre on foot, passing City Hall, the grand Dong Khoi Street, the Continental Hotel and the Saigon Opera House, all echoes of the city's French-colonial years, before reaching the Central Post Office and catching a glimpse of the former CIA building, the site of one of the last helicopter evacuations in 1975. After lunch, visit Reunification Palace, its war rooms and basement preserved like a moment frozen in time, then choose between the War Remnants Museum, tracing the country's wartime history, or the Fine Arts Museum, a showcase of Vietnamese art and design. The day closes at Ben Thanh Market, still a working neighbourhood market at its heart.

Head into the Mekong Delta on a full day exploring life along the water, starting with a private boat through the canals around Cai Be, with fresh local fruit to taste as the breeze rolls off the river. Go ashore to cycle through a village and its fruit orchards, stopping to meet families who specialise in traditional handicrafts. Continue by sampan through narrow canals around a quiet island, then out through a busier stretch of river lined with local trade and boat traffic. Arrive at a house that has belonged to the same family for more than four generations, a fine example of traditional Mandarin-style architecture, for a home-cooked Mekong lunch, followed by a walk through the family's fruit orchard. Return to Ho Chi Minh City as the afternoon draws to a close.

Fly north to Danang, then transfer to Hoi An, one of Vietnam's most picturesque towns and once a major Asian trading port in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Settle in before the evening's adventure begins. As evening falls, hop on the back of a Vespa for a food-driven tour of Hoi An after dark. Start with a welcome drink at a rooftop bar overlooking the Thu Bon River, then ride out to Cam Nam Island for a fresh seafood feast at a local riverside restaurant. Back in town, learn to make two of Hoi An's signature dishes, white rose dumplings and fried wontons, under the guidance of local experts, before a final snack stop for banh can, a savoury rice cake served with quail egg, pork roll, green papaya and herbs. The evening winds up at a restaurant tucked among the rice paddies, before the ride back to your hotel.

Spend the morning uncovering a different side of Hoi An's old town with a local guide: former merchant houses, colourful communal halls, and the narrow backstreets tourists rarely find, including the iconic Japanese Bridge. Meet a local family who have passed down a martial-arts-based healing practice through several generations, blending Qigong, Tai Chi and traditional Vietnamese Vo, with the chance to try a few basic steps yourself. The morning closes with a visit to a cosy local home to taste a traditional Hoi An dessert. The rest of the day is free to relax or continue exploring at your own pace.

Transfer to Danang and fly north to Hanoi, then settle into your hotel before a half-day introduction to the city. Hanoi rewards a slow look: centuries-old temples and colonial facades sit blocks from motorbike-thronged boulevards that never quite go quiet. Begin at the Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first university, founded in 1076 to educate the country's royalty and elite for eight centuries. From here, choose between the Vietnam Women's Museum, celebrating the role women have played in Vietnamese society, or the Hoa Lo Museum, once a wartime prison for American POWs and known to many as the Hanoi Hilton, before finishing with a stroll through the tangled lanes of the Old Quarter, home to the city's historic 36 guilds. Alternatively, spend the afternoon at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex, the stilt house where Ho Chi Minh lived from 1958 to 1969, and the eleventh-century One Pillar Pagoda.

Drive from Hanoi to Halong City to board your boat, the perfect way to see the UNESCO World Heritage waters of Halong and Lan Ha Bay. Here, close to two thousand islands and islets crowd the bay, their limestone peaks rising steeply from the water and topped with pockets of forest, a landscape that feels like nowhere else in Vietnam. Settle into your cabin as lunch is served, with the afternoon free for onboard activities before the boat anchors for the night among the karsts. Round off the day with a sunset cocktail on deck and dinner as evening settles quietly over the bay.

Wake to a final breakfast among the bay's limestone islands before disembarking and transferring back to Hanoi for your onward flight home.