Vietnam, A Pretty Long Way 26 Days

In the Morning

• You will start with the Ho Chi Minh Complex including his Mausoleum, the Presidential Palace, the historic Stilt house, and the One Pillar Pagoda.
• We take a short drive to the outskirt of Hanoi to visit the Museum of Ethnology exhibiting the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam. Some of them we will meet during our trip to Sapa.
• Today we will have Pho for lunch, a Vietnamese Noodle shop. Some of the local people call this world-famous Noodle soup “Mac-Noodles” since it is as popular here as Mac Donald’s is in other parts of the world! At the restaurant your tour guide will explain the routine during Vietnamese meal times, and also tell you which special ingredients are needed for you.

In the Afternoon

• After lunch you will visit the Temple of Literature, a Confucius temple and also the first University of Vietnam.
• Continue Tran Quoc Pagoda (which means “Stabilizing the Nation”), the oldest pagoda constructed in the sixth century in the Westlake and also a famous attraction for pilgrims.
• Then we visit Hoan Kiem Lake & Ngoc Son Temple. Enjoy a cup of Egg coffee at Pho Co Café with stunning view of Hoan Kiem Lake and the surroundings.
• Relax 01 hr cyclo tour around Old Quarter (optional, if time permits)

Breakfast at hotel in Hanoi.

• About 08.00am: Pick up from hotel & transfer to Halong Bay (about 3hrs driving, including breaks on the way)
• Arriving in Halong Bay around noon time, you will board a Cuise, begin a relaxing and unforgettable cruise around the breathtaking and unique limestone karsts and islets.
• A delicious fresh seafood lunch will be served as you cruise this spectacular bay, a UNESCO listed site.
• Towards the end of the day the boat sets anchor for the night.
• As the sun sets over the bay, dinner is served with fresh seafood, salad, and fruit

• Enjoy breakfast on the Cruise.
• Follow cruise’s itinerary.
• Brunch or Lunch on Cruise (depending on cruise’s services)
• Disembark at around noon time and take shuttle bus back Hanoi.

• Breakfast at local restaurant.

• Heading to Bac Ha Market (About 2.5hrs driving). Opened every Sunday at the center of Bac Ha township, this is the biggest ethnic market in Lao Cai Province and probably among some most interesting ones in the northern mountains. Peoples from ethnic groups including Black Zao, Tay, Phu La and Flower H’mong wearing their best traditional clothes attend the market to turn it into a kind of festival. Commodity sold at the market is varied from embroidered clothes, handicraft, farming products, food… to poultry and cattle such as vegetable, spices, chili, chicken, cat, piggy, doggy… At the market place, after finishing their shopping, peoples gathered into groups at footstalls or restaurants enjoying “Thang Co” a kind of H’mong traditional specialty, drinking corn wine and talking cheerfully. Not far away from the main market place, there is the buffaloes and horses’ market and it is really interesting to see the buyers carefully searching in order to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the animals before buying because a buffalo or horse is a real important property in their farming work. The best time to join the market is from 09.00 to 12.00 but it is fascinating to spend few hours earlier to see the people along the trail to the Bac Ha Market.

• Lunch at a local restaurant.

• After Lunch and short rest, we take a short visit the ancient house of H’Mong King – Hoang A Tuong, before leaving Bac Ha for Sapa town (about 3hrs driving).

• From Sapa town, it is open for your choice to take a trek to your special lodge in Y Linh Ho village, or access by car. Check in a local lodge in Y Linh Ho Village. Located about 7km to the southwest of Sapa Town, alongside Muong Hoa River, Y Linh Ho is a small commune composed by a dozen of small hamlets scattering on the harsh mountain terrain with high and steep mountains, offering spectacular landscapes and cultural experiences.

• Enjoy breakfast then say goodbye the host, we start a new day with more interesting trek.

• We can start a bit later today, from Y Linh Ho village to the Black H’mong village of Lao Chai. Black H’mong is one of the biggest minority groups in the Sapa area. They are proud of their culture and keep their traditions and way of living. They have their own language and wear traditional indigo blue clothing. The H’mong peoples have just recently changed their living way from sifting style into the sedentary one. So there are still a lot traces of the past time can be seen: rudimentary houses, stone wall around homes…

• We continue trekking to Ta Van village (1.200 m) to visit Zay people. Zay is a fairly small minority group of about 38.000 people who live mainly in the mountains in Northwest Vietnam. The development has meant that some of their old customs have been lost but many women still wear traditional shirts with a purple, blue or green color. The Zay houses are built of wood and bamboo with a clay floor.

• The Lunch today will be served in a local restaurant in Ta Van Village, offering a great view over the paddy rice terraces.

• After Lunch and short rest, we get on van to get back Sapa town.

• You can climb up Ham Rong mountain or take a leisure walk to nearby Cat Cat Village.
• Or take the train over Muong Hoa Valley to Fansipan Cable Car base, from here take cable car to Fansipan Peak (it is about USD 10/person for the train, and USD 35/person for cable car to Fansipan peak, and you can buy tickets yourself on spot).
• Or just hanging around Sapa market

Today we will take you to one of the villages in the North of Vietnam where life goes by more slowly and above all with more smiles than in the city. The village is far from the noisy world of motorcycles, where time seems to be stopped, where the locals greet you with a smile and where you can enjoy the pure atmosphere of Vietnamese rice paddy countryside.

• We leave the hotel at 8:30am, where the host family is waiting for you. We will take a tour of the area and we will set up the bicycles to reach nearby rice fields, where you can see on your eyes the real life of farmers here, their fields, their buffalo and their fish ponds, talk with them to learn more about their life, their culture. In the rice season, you even can join with them in the farming activities.

• If you don't like riding a bike, you can get around on foot. It is not a long stretch.

• We return the local host to join Lunch with the family, you also can join with them for cooking, a great chance for you to learn about daily local life of a real Vietnamese family.

• After Lunch and a rest, we say goodbye the family and we'll take you for a relaxing boat ride around the Van Long Nature Reserve.
  
  Located amongst the valley, surrounded by spectacular ranges of limestone, Van Long is a captivating ecotourism destination. Nature lovers will not be disappointed by Van Long, the fauna and flora in Van Long typify the ecosystems of limestone mountains and Red River Delta wetlands. The park has 39 fauna species and 722 flora species, many of which are listed in the Red Book of endangered species. A hundred bird species live there. When taking a boat trip on this “wave-free bay”, we can contemplate the calm and quiet water surface like a gargantuan mirror. The water is so clear that we can see layers of mosses and algae on the bottom. The relaxing boat trip will take us to Hang Ca Cave which is 250m long, 8m high, 10m wide. This cave is unique in its way: half-submerged, half-dried, with a lot of fish swimming up inside. After reaching the other side of the cave, you can catch a glimpse of a small valley. If fortunes smiles on you, you will also witness cauldrons, storks and langurs while traveling by boat

• We return Hanoi, make a stop at mountain temple in Dich Long Cave (if time permits)

After breakfast at hotel in Hue, it is open for your choice of day train time from Hue to Danang, that leaves at 09.30am or 11.00am, in sitting cabin with air-conditioner. The train ride takes about 2.5hrs, offers you great scenery of countryside, cities, coastline and over Hai Van Pass (Cloudy Pass)

• The tour guide and drive are happy to welcome you at Danang train station to take you to charming ancient Hoi An town, the UNESCO Heritage town.

• On the way we can make a stop at Marble Mountain in Danang.

• We arrive in Hoi An in the afternoon, check in hotel before exploring this beautiful town on foot.

• We take a walking tour through the winding narrow streets of the Ancient Quarter, visits Chua Ong Pagoda, The Assembly Hall, The 200-year-old Tam Ky house, and The Japanese Covered Bridge. During the walk, you will also have a chance to attend a cultural show with traditional music and dance performances.

• This ride starts right from a meeting point near the old quarter and wanders the streets lined with old shop houses before passing the bridge to Cam Kim Island. Once on the island we start biking through small villages and rice paddies on narrow roads and dirt trails. Boat making can be seen right from the trail as many of the local fishing vessels are made here. From here the scenery opens up and the countryside becomes more rustic. The road remains flat throughout this section of the ride as we pass by duck farms, farmers out in the field and fisher man in the river casting nets
  
  
• After 30 minutes or so on the trails we stop for a quick rest and take the opportunity to soak in the silence, and refuel with a couple of snacks.
  
  
• After the break, we catch a local boat back over the river towards Cam Thanh village (30 mins riding)
  
  
• Our next stop is a lantern factory, where we learn the various steps in producing a traditional Hoi An lantern. We make one of our own as a keepsake.
  
  
• The ride continues on a remote countryside road for another 20 to Tra Que vegetable village. Once arriving at Tra Que Village, we have a chance to learn the traditional farming methods of the locals as well as the cooking class (Banh Xeo) and have a light meal. It is said that the vegetables here are special because the farmers do not use any pesticides or chemical fertilizer at all. We get to prepare a meal with the produce that is grown here.
  
  
• The ride finishes with a pleasant 15 minutes pedal into town on back roads, and we end right where we started.