Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi Tour in 10 Days: Mekong, Hoi An, Ha Long

Your driver waits in the arrivals hall at Tan Son Nhat, an airport that sits inside the city itself, so the ride to District 1 takes around half an hour with normal traffic. Nothing is planned for the rest of the day.

If you land early, the streets around Dong Khoi and Ben Thanh Market make an easy first walk, with the Opera House and the cathedral a few blocks apart (optional, on your own). Many guests simply pick a pavement café, order an iced coffee with condensed milk and watch the scooters go by until the heat drops in the late afternoon.

The road south-west to My Tho takes about two hours and ends at the Tien River, one of the Mekong's two main branches as it nears the sea. The first halt is Vinh Trang Pagoda, built in the 19th century, which mixes Khmer, Chinese and French lines in one building. A motor boat then takes you out to the four islands of My Tho, each carrying the name of one of the four sacred animals of Vietnamese belief (Dragon, Unicorn, Phoenix, Tortoise).

The landing is on Unicorn Island, where you walk through orchards and try whatever fruit is in season, see how a family keeps bees and watch coconut candy being boiled, cut and wrapped. A local rower then takes you down the narrow Thoi Son canal under the water palms in a wooden sampan. Before the drive back you can ride a bicycle along the lanes of Tan Thach village or lie in a hammock and do nothing at all.

A short film at the entrance explains how the tunnels were dug and why, then your guide leads you through the network the Viet Cong lived in during the war: sleeping chambers, kitchens with their smoke vented far from the stove, command rooms and trapdoors hidden under leaves. One stretch has been widened for visitors, and you can crawl it or walk over the top. Tea and boiled cassava, the tunnel diet, are served afterwards. The shooting range next door lets you fire a wartime rifle (optional, extra cost).

Back at Tan Son Nhat you board the flight north to Da Nang, roughly an hour and twenty minutes in the air. A driver meets you there for the 45-minute run down the coast to Hoi An.

The old town of Hoi An is on the UNESCO World Heritage list and small enough to see without a vehicle, so today is a guided walk. You start at the market by the river, busiest early in the day, and the town museum, which traces the port from Cham times through its Japanese and Chinese trading centuries.

The route then threads the yellow lanes to the Japanese Covered Bridge, put up by the town's Japanese merchants around 1600, the painted assembly halls that each Chinese clan built for its own people, and one or two of the old merchant houses, where the timber frames show Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese carpentry side by side. The last stop is a workshop where lanterns and other crafts are still made by hand. The evening is free, and the lantern-lit riverbank is the obvious place to spend it.

The morning is eaten rather than seen. Your guide takes you from stall to stall for the town's own dishes: white rose dumplings, cao lau noodles said to work only with water from a local well, banh mi, banh khot, banh cuon with pork, spring rolls, a dessert and a strong Vietnamese coffee somewhere in the middle. Come hungry.

In the afternoon a car takes you inland to My Son, a valley of brick towers built by the Champa kingdom between the 4th and 13th centuries and now a UNESCO site, some still scarred by the bombing of 1969. Your guide explains the Hindu carvings and you watch a short Champa dance performance. Instead of driving back, you board a boat on the Thu Bon River and drift downstream to Hoi An past fishing nets and bamboo groves.

No guide and no programme today, apart from the 30-minute drive up the coast to Da Nang. Da Nang is a modern city with a long sand beach, My Khe, running down its eastern side, and most guests use the day for exactly that: a swim, a walk along the sand and an early night before the flight north.

If you would rather fill the day, we can arrange a trip out of the city on request (optional, extra cost). Ask when you book so the driver's time is planned in, and the river bridges are worth a look after dark, when the Dragon Bridge is lit along its whole length.

A driver runs you out to the airport in Da Nang for the hop north to Hanoi, around 75 minutes in the air. At Noi Bai a second driver waits for the 45-minute drive into the Old Quarter.

The afternoon is a street food walk that doubles as a first look at the city. Over a few hours you eat your way through the dishes Hanoians argue about: beef pho, bun cha (grilled pork with noodles, the dish the city is proudest of), banh cuon steamed rice rolls, banh xeo pancakes, grilled pork skewers, nem ran fried spring rolls, banh mi, green papaya salad with dried beef, a sweet banh ran doughnut and a bowl of che to finish. Between bites you cut through markets and narrow alleys and stand at the edge of Train Street, where a railway line runs a metre from the front doors.

The expressway east gets you to Tuan Chau harbour in about two and a half hours, where the crew welcomes you aboard with a drink and a briefing before the boat heads out among the limestone islands. The first stop is Sung Sot, the Surprising Cave, a huge chamber with a vaulted roof reached by a stairway up from the water. Next comes Titop Island: a stairway leads to a lookout on the summit for the classic view across the bay, and there is a small beach below for a swim.

Back on board the day eases: cocktails on the sundeck at sunset, a cooking demonstration where you roll your own fresh noodle rolls, a barbecue on the open deck and a herbal foot bath before bed. Squid fishing from the stern and karaoke are there for anyone still awake (optional).

The bay is at its quietest at first light, so the sundeck is the place to be with a coffee. The boat then moves to a floating pearl farm, where the staff show how a bead is set inside each oyster and how the finished pearl is taken out, and after that you take to a kayak and paddle through the karst at water level, the best way to get close to the rock. A last cruise among the islands brings you back to Tuan Chau, and the car returns you to Hanoi by mid-afternoon.

The evening meal is the farewell of the tour: Tam Vi, a Hanoi restaurant with a Michelin star that cooks the home-style food of the north. It is the one evening of the trip where it pays to dress a little smarter.

Nothing is scheduled on the last morning before the 45-minute transfer to Noi Bai International Airport. With a later flight you still have time for a final turn through the Old Quarter for lacquerware, silk or a bag of beans from one of the roasters near Hoan Kiem Lake (optional, on your own).

Extra nights in Hanoi, or a side trip to Ninh Binh or Sapa, can be added at the end: mention it when you enquire and we quote the longer version.