Vietnam Food and Culture Tour 11 Days: Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Saigon

Your driver is waiting for you at Noi Bai and drives you into Hanoi, roughly 45 minutes across the Red River. There is nothing on the programme today, so you can land at any hour and rest first.

With daylight left, the Old Quarter lies a few minutes' walk from most central stays and is the place to get your bearings (optional, on your own). The pavement kitchens set out their low stools from late afternoon, and a first bowl of pho or a plate of grilled pork with cold noodles, eaten at a plastic table, is as good an introduction to the trip as any. Tomorrow you cook rather than just eat.

The class is private to your party. It starts at Vinh Phuc, a neighbourhood market away from the tourist streets, where Chef Ai walks you between the stalls and picks the herbs, fish, meat and vegetables for the menu you have chosen.

Back in her kitchen you make a starter, a main and a dessert and then eat them. There are three menus: pomelo and prawn salad, the city's turmeric and dill grilled fish and an egg coffee; a country-style beef salad, fried spring rolls and jackfruit fritters in coconut milk; or a mango salad, mushroom curry and banana fried in sticky rice, the meat-free choice. The team's tip is the fish menu on a first visit, as cha ca is the dish Hanoi is proudest of. The afternoon is free for the lakeside cafés and the Old Quarter shops (optional, on your own).

A driver collects you for the expressway east to Tuan Chau pier, around two and a half hours, where Le Journey Cruise waits with a welcome drink. The boat heads out between the limestone pillars of Ha Long, on the UNESCO list since 1994, and the afternoon follows the tide: a kayak or a bamboo rowing boat into lagoons walled in by rock, a swim off a sandy beach, and a walk through a cave hung with stalactites. The crew sets the order by the weather on the day.

Food stays on the theme even here: before the evening meal the chef gives an informal demonstration of how to roll spring rolls, and you can try your own. Tai chi on the top deck is offered too, and the sun loungers are there for anyone who would rather watch the islands. The boat anchors in a quiet corner for the night.

Early risers get the best of the bay, when the water is flat and the islands are still in shadow. After a light first meal the boat makes its morning excursion, which depending on the day's programme may be the three chambers of Sung Sot Cave, the steps up Ti Top Island for the view, or a small boat under the low arch of Luon Cave. Brunch is served as the cruise returns to Tuan Chau.

Your driver then returns you to Noi Bai Airport, outside Hanoi, for the flight to Hue, about an hour and ten minutes in the air; this ticket is not in the tour price. At Phu Bai Airport in Hue another driver meets you for the short run into the former imperial capital, and the evening is free to walk the south bank of the Perfume River.

From 1802 to 1945 the Nguyen emperors ruled from Hue, and the day moves through what they built. You begin inside the Imperial Citadel, the walled palace city on the north bank that UNESCO listed in 1993, with its gates and restored halls. A cyclo then pedals you through the old streets past Tinh Tam Lake, where the court kept its lotus ponds, and on to Thien Mu Pagoda and its seven-tier tower above the river.

In the afternoon you drive out to two tombs: Tu Duc, a poet emperor's park of pavilions and pines, and Khai Dinh, a concrete mausoleum on a hillside whose inner walls are covered in mosaic. The day ends at Ngoc Son Princess House, an ancestral garden home, where a private meal in the Hue royal style is laid out course by course and the hosts tell the stories behind the dishes and the family.

The road south runs about 130 km and climbs the Hai Van Pass between Hue and Da Nang, 21 km of hairpins between the East Sea and the hills; your driver can pull over at the viewpoints for photographs (optional, no extra cost). The pass marks the old line between the northern and the central climate, and it is often clear on one side and in cloud on the other.

You reach Hoi An in the afternoon with nothing else scheduled. The old town has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999 and is flat and compact, so the easy options are a slow walk between the merchant houses and assembly halls, a cafe on the Thu Bon riverfront, or a bicycle ride to An Bang Beach, about 4 km away (all optional, on your own). The lanterns come on at dusk.

No guided programme today, which is deliberate: Hoi An rewards time. Early morning is the quietest hour in the old town, before the day-trippers arrive from Da Nang, and the best time to rent a bicycle and ride the back lanes between the vegetable gardens and the river (optional, extra cost).

Later choices run from a few hours on An Bang Beach with its row of beachfront cafes, to the tailor shops that take your measurements in the morning and fit a jacket or a dress by evening, to the covered market for a bowl of cao lau, the town's own noodle dish, made nowhere else. After dark the centre closes to traffic, the lanterns are lit over the water and there are folk games and small performances along the river (all optional, at your own cost).

A driver takes you up the coast road to Da Nang International Airport, about 45 minutes from Hoi An, for the flight to Ho Chi Minh City, roughly an hour and a quarter in the air; the ticket is not in the tour price. At Tan Son Nhat you are met again and driven into District 1, the old heart of the city that locals still call Saigon.

The rest of the day is open. The city is louder and faster than Hanoi, and a short walk around District 1 is the way to tune in (optional, on your own): Nguyen Hue, the wide pedestrian boulevard between the city hall and the river, Ben Thanh Market for a first look at the southern fruit, and a glass of iced coffee at a pavement table. Tomorrow's food tour covers the districts the tour buses rarely reach.

You ride pillion behind a local driver, helmet on, for a morning in the parts of the city tour buses do not reach. The first stop is Nguyen Thien Thuat, a backstreet of low apartment blocks that locals call old Saigon in miniature, with a workshop where guitars are made by hand and noodle stalls that have fed the street for decades. At Ban Co Market you taste che, the sweet soups of beans, jelly and coconut milk that the south eats against the heat.

The route then runs through Districts 10 and 5 into Cholon, the Chinatown, where Hai Thuong Lan Ong and Trieu Quang Phuc streets are lined with traditional medicine shops. Thien Hau Temple, built by Cantonese migrants for the goddess of the sea, comes before a southern midday meal at a neighbourhood eatery: broken rice with grilled pork, or a bowl of bun bo. A walking version is available on request.

The drive southwest to My Tho takes about two hours, and there you board a boat on the Tien River, one of the Mekong's main branches, and pass the islands the delta people named after the four sacred animals. On Unicorn Island you walk through the orchards, taste the fruit of the season and listen to the folk songs of the south played live, then a hand-rowed sampan takes you along the narrow canals of Thoi Son between the water palms.

A family bee farm serves tea with its own honey, and in a nearby workshop you watch coconut candy boiled, cut and wrapped by hand. The midday meal is in a garden restaurant among the orchards, after which there is a bicycle ride along the lanes of Tan Thach Village, with a hammock in the shade for anyone who would rather sit it out, before the drive back to Saigon.

The drive out to Tan Son Nhat is the last item on the programme, 30 to 45 minutes from District 1 depending on the traffic, timed to your flight. The hours before it are yours. Two suggestions (optional, on your own): a last turn through a market near your stay for coffee beans, dried fruit, fish sauce and the small things that pack well, and a final Vietnamese coffee, dripped slowly through a metal filter onto condensed milk and ice, the way the south drinks it.

If you want more, the beaches of Phu Quoc or extra nights in the city can be added to the end of the booking; tell us when you book.