Sapa and Halong Bay Tour: 7 Days in Northern Vietnam from Hanoi

A driver waits for you outside the arrivals hall at Noi Bai International Airport and brings you by private car to your hotel in the Old Quarter, a drive of around 45 minutes. Check-in is from 2:00 PM, and if you land earlier reception can keep your bags.

There is nothing on the programme today, so take the city at your own pace. The Old Quarter is a grid of narrow streets, each once named for the trade sold there, and an easy place to wander for an hour or two, with its local markets and the shore of Hoan Kiem Lake close by (optional, on your own). Then sit down for a Vietnamese coffee, brewed slowly through a metal filter and often served over sweetened condensed milk. Our team usually suggests an egg coffee as your first one in the capital.

Between about 6:30 and 7:00 AM a shared bus pulls out of Hanoi for the expressway to Lao Cai, then climbs into the hills to Sapa, a town at about 1,500 metres. After one rest stop it gets in at roughly 1:00 PM, and your English-speaking guide is there to meet you.

In the afternoon you walk downhill into the Muong Hoa valley to Cat Cat, a village of Black H'mong families. The path passes their wooden houses, you see the weaving and embroidery they still do by hand, and you reach Cat Cat Waterfall at the foot of the village, with Fansipan rising beyond. The way back climbs steadily, and you are in Sapa again by about 5:00 PM. The evening is free for Sapa market or a stroll through the town (optional, on your own).

At 8:00 AM you and your guide set off on foot down the terraced slopes of the Muong Hoa valley, the landscape Sapa is known for. The first village is Lao Chai, home to the Black H'mong, named for the indigo-dyed clothing the women still weave and wear. Around 10:30 AM the trail reaches Ta Van, where most families are Giay, living alongside H'mong and Dao neighbours.

A bus carries you back up to Sapa Town, where you have free time until 2:15 PM. The shared bus then winds down the mountains, reaching Hanoi at some point between 8:45 and 9:15 PM, in time to check in for the night.

In the morning the cruise shuttle, shared with other passengers, collects you from your hotel for the drive east across the flat farmland of the Red River Delta, about two and a half hours on the expressway to the pier at Ha Long. You board and head out between the limestone islands. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site with well over a thousand of them.

In the afternoon you explore one of the bay's large limestone caves, then take a kayak out near a floating village, or swim in the calm water if you prefer. The boat anchors in a sheltered spot for the night, and you have the evening to relax on deck.

Get up early and you can watch the sun rise over the islands from the deck, when the bay is at its quietest. The boat then moves on to a traditional floating fishing village, where families live on rafts and keep their catch in pens under the walkways, and the boat's guide explains how fishing life on the bay works.

The cruise sails back to Ha Long City's pier, and the shared transfer gets you to your Old Quarter hotel at about 3:30 or 4:00 PM, with a free evening in Hanoi to follow (optional, on your own).

Between 8:00 and 8:30 AM your English-speaking guide collects you from the hotel for a full day in the capital. The first stop is Tran Quoc Pagoda, founded in the sixth century, on a small island in West Lake. Next is the Ho Chi Minh complex: the mausoleum, the simple houses where the president lived and worked between 1954 and 1969, and the One Pillar Pagoda beside them.

The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology follows, with the stories of the country's 54 ethnic groups; on Mondays the Vietnamese Women's Museum takes its place. In the afternoon you see the Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first university, founded in 1070, and end at Hoa Lo Prison, built by the French and known to American pilots as the Hanoi Hilton, now a museum. You are back at your hotel around 4:30 PM.

Your last morning in Hanoi is free. If there is time before your flight, the markets around the Old Quarter are the place for final souvenirs: Dong Xuan is the largest, and the smaller street markets are good for coffee, tea and lacquerware. Many guests end the week with a bowl of pho, Hanoi's own noodle soup, before the driver collects you in the centre and takes you to Noi Bai International Airport.

If you want to stay longer, we can add nights in Hanoi or an extension to Ninh Binh or Ha Giang.