Vietnam Food Tour 12 Days: Hanoi, Ninh Binh, Hoi An and Saigon

Your driver is waiting at Noi Bai with a name board, and the run into the city takes around 45 minutes across the Red River when the traffic behaves. Nothing else is booked today, so sleep off the flight or go out as soon as you have dropped your bags.

The Old Quarter is a few streets from most central stays and is best taken on foot at this hour (optional, on your own): narrow lanes north of Hoan Kiem Lake, each once given over to a single trade, now lined with low stools and pavement cooking. Look and smell, but save your appetite. Tomorrow's programme is eating from midday until late.

A car collects you for a coffee workshop in the city. At the bench you brew five Vietnamese coffees yourself: the egg coffee Hanoi invented, coconut coffee, the salted coffee that came out of Hue, the traditional dark roast dripped through a metal phin filter and a pour-over, with the instructor correcting your technique as you go. A table of five regional dishes follows, with soft drinks, beer and local wine poured without limit, and the car returns you to the centre afterwards.

In the evening a food guide meets you for the Flavour Quest walk through the Old Quarter. You move from stall to stall and taste a little at each: pho, bun cha grilled over charcoal, a banh mi, steamed banh cuon, a crisp banh xeo, green papaya salad with dried beef, pork skewers, sweet sesame doughnuts, a bowl of che and an egg coffee to finish.

An early start for the drive east across the Red River Delta to Tuan Chau pier, where the cruise boat waits. After the welcome drink and the safety talk the boat sails out into the bay, close to 2,000 limestone islands that UNESCO lists as World Heritage, while the first meal on board is served.

The afternoon is spent on the water: a kayak or a bamboo rowing boat into a lagoon ringed by cliffs, a swim from a quiet sand beach or a cave hung with stalactites, depending on the route the crew runs that day. Back on board the chef shows how a spring roll is filled and rolled, and you try one yourself. At sunset the boat drops anchor in a quiet cove, the bar opens for happy hour, and a multi-course Vietnamese meal closes the day. Tai chi and the sun loungers on the top deck are there for anyone who wants them (optional, no extra cost).

The light comes up over the islands while most of the bay is still quiet, and the morning excursion follows: either the chambers of Surprising Cave and the low arch of Luon Cave, or Ti Top Island with its steps to a viewpoint and a small beach, with a kayak or a bamboo boat for the parts on the water. A light morning meal and an early second one are taken on board as the boat returns to Tuan Chau.

From the pier your car turns south-west across the delta to Ninh Binh, around three and a half hours, where limestone towers stand straight up out of the rice fields. The night is at Trang An Peaceful Homestay, a family house near the Trang An caves. The evening meal is cooked by the family and eaten at one table with them, the home cooking of the delta rather than restaurant food.

The day begins on two wheels: an easy bicycle ride along lanes between the rice paddies to Hoa Lu, where the Dinh and Early Le dynasties ruled a thousand years ago, and the two temples that honour their kings inside the old citadel. A midday meal at a local restaurant in Ninh Binh follows. Then a rower takes you through the Trang An Landscape Complex, a UNESCO site, under the karst and through Sang, Toi and Nau Ruou caves, where the roof drops low enough to duck.

The last climb is the Dragon Mountain viewpoint, several hundred stone steps to a carved dragon on the ridge and the whole Tam Coc valley spread out below. Your car then drops you at Ninh Binh railway station, where you board the Reunification Express, the line that runs the length of the country, for a night in a soft sleeper berth as the train rolls south along the coast towards Quang Nam.

The train reaches Tra Kieu, a small station in Quang Nam province, and your driver is on the platform for the road transfer into Hoi An, under an hour away. The rest of the day is yours, and after a night in a berth most guests take it slowly.

The old town, UNESCO-listed, is a grid of wooden shophouses, the assembly halls of the Chinese congregations and the Japanese Covered Bridge, and it comes into its own after dark, when the lanterns are lit along the river and the streets are closed to scooters. Options for the afternoon, all at your own cost: hire a bicycle and ride the back lanes out to An Bang Beach for a swim and a cold drink at a beach café, have a shirt, a dress or a pair of shoes made at one of the tailors, or catch one of the street performances in the old town in the evening (optional, extra cost).

You meet the chef at a café in the old town, then walk the central market together while she picks the day's prawns, pork, rice noodles and bunches of herbs, explaining what each is for as she buys it. Then you go by boat for 25 minutes on the Thu Bon River, past fishing boats and nipa palms, to the cooking school in its garden.

First a turn through the herb beds, learning Vietnamese basil, lemongrass and coriander by smell. Then two and a half hours at your own station: you make rice paper from scratch and roll it round prawns, fry the small Hoi An pancake with prawns and herbs, toss a seafood salad with Tra Que herbs, build a bowl of mi quang chicken noodles and carve a tomato into a rose. You eat the lot at the end, with lemongrass beef from the grill added, and the recipe notes go home with you.

A car collects you for a two-hour lantern workshop in the old town. The teacher explains where the lanterns came from and why the town hangs them, then you shape the bamboo ribs, fit the silk and finish a folding lantern of your own to carry home, with a second one made by the instructor as a gift and herbal tea on the table while you work.

The afternoon is free. An Bang Beach is a short ride away for a swim, a sunbed and a cold drink by the sea, and the spas in town are the easy alternative (optional, extra cost). In the evening the group gathers at a restaurant in the old town for a farewell meal, the last one together in the centre before the route turns south.

Your driver takes you up the coast to Da Nang International Airport, about 45 minutes, and from there you fly south to Saigon, a little over an hour in the air (the ticket for this leg is not in the price). On landing at Tan Son Nhat a second driver collects you for the ride into District 1, the old centre where the tour spends its last three nights.

Nothing is scheduled after that. The Independence Palace, where the war ended in April 1975, and the red-brick Notre-Dame Cathedral are a short walk from most stays in District 1, and Bui Vien, the backpacker street, is loud and lit until late (all optional, at your own cost). Tomorrow starts early for the delta, so an early night is no bad idea.

The road south-west to My Tho takes around an hour and a half, through rice and fruit country, to the bank of the Mekong, the river that rises in Tibet and reaches the sea here through the mouths the Vietnamese call the Nine Dragons. A wooden sampan carries you across to Unicorn Island, one of four islets named for sacred animals, where an orchard owner lays out the fruit of the season and a family group sings the folk songs of the south.

A hand-rowed sampan then threads the narrow canals of Thoi Son under water-coconut palms. On the way you stop at a bee farm for honey tea and at a workshop where coconut candy is boiled, pulled and wrapped by hand, with a taste straight from the tray. The midday meal is at a garden restaurant in Tan Thach, and afterwards you can cycle the village lanes or lie in a hammock until the drive back to the city.

You ride pillion with a local driver today, one guest to a motorbike, which is how the city itself gets around (a walking version can be arranged if you tell us before you travel). The first stop is Nguyen Thien Thuat, a back street of guitar makers who still carve and string instruments by hand in open-fronted shops. At Ban Co Market, a neighbourhood market few visitors find, you sit down for che, the Vietnamese sweet soup, here ladled over beans, jelly and crushed ice with coconut milk on top.

The ride continues through Districts 10 and 5 into Cho Lon, the Chinatown, where Hai Thuong Lan Ong street and Trieu Quang Phuc street are lined with traditional medicine shops, sacks of dried roots and bark out on the pavement. Thien Hau Temple, built by the Cantonese community in the eighteenth century, is the last stop before a southern-style midday meal. In the evening the group meets for a farewell meal, the final one of the tour.

Tan Son Nhat International Airport is where the tour ends, and the hours before the transfer are yours. If your flight allows, two small habits from our team to finish on (optional, at your own cost): a last walk through the market nearest your stay for coffee beans, dried mango and candied ginger to take home, and one more Vietnamese coffee, iced with condensed milk the way the south drinks it.

The drive from District 1 out to the airport is half an hour to 45 minutes in normal traffic, and your driver sets the pickup time to suit your flight. If you want more of the south, extra nights in the city, a night in the delta or a few days on Phu Quoc can all be added when you book.