Vietnam UNESCO Heritage Tour: 10 Days, Ha Long, Phong Nha and Hue

A driver meets you at Noi Bai Airport and takes you into Hanoi. Nothing else is planned today, so you can settle in after the flight.

If you have the energy, walk the Old Quarter on your own. It grew up as a guild district beside the Red River, and many of its narrow streets still carry the name of the trade once sold there: Hang Bac for silver, Hang Ma for paper offerings, Hang Gai for silk. Look out for the tube houses and the temples squeezed between shopfronts, and finish at Hoan Kiem Lake and its small red bridge.

A car takes you between the capital's main historic sites. The Temple of Literature, built in 1070 and home to the country's first university, keeps its courtyards, gates and the stone turtles carrying the steles of doctoral graduates. From there you cross to Ba Dinh Square for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where the queue moves in silence past the body of the president, and the gardens, pond and stilt house in which he chose to live.

The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, in the west of the city, explains the 54 ethnic groups through costumes, tools and a garden of full-size houses, including a Bahnar communal house with a roof as tall as a church. The day finishes with a water puppet show, a Red River delta tradition in which puppeteers stand waist-deep behind a screen and work the figures across a pool.

You drive south out of the delta into Ninh Binh province, where limestone peaks stand in the paddies in the same way they stand in the sea at Ha Long. Bicycles take you along flat lanes through the rice fields to the old royal capital at Hoa Lu, where your guide shows you its temples.

At Trang An, part of the same World Heritage landscape, a rower takes you along the river and through three caves, Sang, Toi and Nau Ruou, where the water passes straight under the mountains. Last comes the stairway of several hundred steps at Mua Cave, which zigzags up the rock to the dragon-topped ridge of the Dragon Mountain viewpoint, with the Ngo Dong River bending through the fields below.

After finishing your journey through Ninh Binh, you return to Hanoi, bringing the day’s exploration to a close.

The road runs north-east from Ninh Binh to the coast, and at the harbour you board your cruise boat for Ha Long Bay. It sails out among the limestone islands and grottoes, with time on deck as the rocks slide past.

In the afternoon the boat stops at one of the bay's limestone caves, then anchors in calm water where you can take out a kayak or swim from the boat. The activities the crew run on board in the evening are optional and paid separately, and you sleep in your cabin on the bay.

The day starts early on deck, where you can join a tai chi session or simply watch the light come up over the islands. The boat then stops at a limestone cave hung with stalactites and stalagmites before it cruises back towards the pier by a different channel.

Ashore, your driver returns you to Hanoi, around three hours on the expressway, with time to collect your bag before the station. In the evening you board the sleeper train for Dong Hoi, the capital of Quang Binh province, roughly 500 km down the Reunification line. You share a four-berth compartment with bedding provided, and the train rolls through the night to arrive in the early morning.

A driver collects you at Dong Hoi station for the 45 km run inland to Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, a World Heritage site for its limestone that is among the oldest in Asia and for a cave system still not fully mapped. From the village jetty a wooden boat takes you up the Son River between the karst walls and, with the engine cut, drifts into the mouth of Phong Nha Cave.

The river runs more than a kilometre into the mountain, and the boat glides under hanging stalactites before you land on a sandbank and walk back through the dry chambers. Tien Son Cave sits in the same cliff but higher up, reached by a stairway of a few hundred steps, and is drier and more ornate, with formations that ring when tapped. The rest of the day is at your own pace in the village.

Leaving the park, you head south on the coast road through Quang Tri province, which was the demilitarised zone along the Ben Hai River from 1954 to 1975 and saw some of the heaviest bombing of the war. The first stop is Cua Tung, a long beach backed by casuarina trees that was once a summer resort for the Nguyen court and later sat right on the front line.

A few kilometres on is Vinh Moc, where a whole village dug itself underground to survive the bombardment. The tunnels run on three levels down to 23 metres, with family alcoves, a meeting hall, a well and a maternity room where 17 children were born; your guide walks you through the sections that are open and out to an exit facing the sea. You continue south to Hue for the evening.

Thirteen Nguyen emperors ruled from Hue between 1802 and 1945, and what they built is now a World Heritage group. The day starts inside the Citadel, where you pass the Noon Gate into the walled Imperial City, see the restored Thai Hoa throne hall and walk the long covered corridors and gardens that are being rebuilt stone by stone after the fighting of 1968.

Out of town, Minh Mang's tomb is the most orderly of the royal tombs, laid out on one straight axis of gates, courtyards and lakes in a pine wood. Nearer the river you walk through Phu Mong, a garden village of old houses behind hedges, and stop at either Thien Mu, the seven-storey pagoda on the bank, or the quieter Tu Hieu, where Thich Nhat Hanh was ordained. Dong Ba, the city's main market, closes the day.

Instead of the tunnel, you take the coast road to Hoi An with stops along the way. The first is Thuan An, the beach at the mouth of the Tam Giang lagoon just outside Hue, followed by a pause among the lavish tiled family tombs that villagers of this coast build for their ancestors, often bigger than the houses of the living.

The road then follows the Lang Co lagoon, a strip of white sand between the mountains and the sea, before climbing the Hai Van Pass. The pass tops out at about 500 metres with old French and American bunkers at the summit and a view back to the lagoon on one side and over Da Nang Bay on the other. You descend past Da Nang to Hoi An, with the evening free for the lantern-lit old town.

The last morning is free in Hoi An Ancient Town, the port where Japanese, Chinese and European merchants traded from the 16th century and whose yellow-walled shophouses, assembly halls and covered Japanese Bridge earned it World Heritage status. The streets along the Thu Bon River are closed to cars for much of the day, so it is an easy place for a last Vietnamese coffee by the river or some shopping on your own.

Your driver then takes you about 30 km north to Da Nang International Airport, where the tour ends. If you would rather stay longer, we can add nights on the beach at An Bang or in Da Nang when you book.