Vietnam Less Traveled

Day 1: Arrival in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Touchdown, Vietnam! Ho Chi Minh City kickstarts this trip with its trademark buzz. Fresh off the plane, you’ll meet up with one of our team members who’ll weave through streets jam-packed with scooters as the smells of soy, ginger and gasoline fill the air. You’ve arrived, and dang it feels good! Your driver knows just how to handle this hectic town, so you’ll be at your hotel in no time for a hard-earned R&R session before meeting your fellow ‘Hatties’ (Harriet Adventurers) and local trip leader.

No stress needed about that meet-up, by the way. Your path to long-lasting friendships is smooth with a Saigon Sour or two while your guide helps you discover some secret speakeasies and sidewalk bars of HCMC. This is the recipe—cocktails, camaraderie, and the electric energy of one of Asia’s most enthralling cities.

Accommodation: Amanaki Saigon Hotel (or similar), Ho Chi Minh City
Included: Dinner

Day 2: Explore Saigon

The morning starts the local way—with an iced egg coffee. You’re just going to have to trust us on this one, folks. Once you egg, you won’t go back—seriously!

Pumping with caffeine, we once more dive headlong into the high-octane heart of Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon. The headline act today—Chinatown. The largest Chinatown in the world, period. Hear the rhythmic chants and smell the incense at the Quan Am Pagoda. Dodge flying, stir-frying noodles at the Binh Tay Market. Wander beneath dangling Chinese lanterns on Luong Nhu Hoc Street. These aren’t the organized strip malls you get back at home, are they?

You should have time to peer into some secret military bunkers and grab another (egg?) coffee at a nifty new shopping mall before dark sets in. But don’t get back too late, because there’s a special treat this evening, in the form of an À Ố Show. You’ll gasp, and be perched on the edge of your seat as daredevils perform gravity-defying acts on toothpick-thin sticks of bamboo.

Accommodation: Amanaki Saigon Hotel (or similar), Ho Chi Minh City
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 3: Delve into the Cu Chi Tunnels

You might have only been in Vietnam two full days, but you’ll surely have noticed by now that there’s more to see, do, and experience than you can shake a bowl of pho at (but don’t do that—it’ll get messy). That’s why we waste no time this morning as the group zooms up the Saigon River on a VIP speedboat, right to the entry point of the Cu Chi Tunnels.

If you haven’t already heard of them, these subterranean passages were tactical hideouts for soldiers during the Second Indochina War. The Cu Chi tunnels were also pivotal hiding spots for the guerrilla warfare during the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese call it “the American War”). You’ll clamber through them and get a first-hand account of life in the tunnels from a real veteran of the conflict.

We’ve got a treat on the way back into the city. No spoilers, but we will say it’s a rather relaxing one!

Accommodation: Amanaki Siagon Hotel (or similar), Ho Chi Minh City
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 4: Into the Mekong Delta

Calling all Hatties—it’s time to live up to your name! Leave the big city in a haze of stir-fry smoke and tooting traffic early this morning. A boat awaits to whisk you into the wild world of the Mekong Delta, a 15,000-square-mile cutout of Southeast Asia that’s all twisted banyan trees and lanky palms and winding waterways the color of tea.

We’ll take breaks… a slurp of coconutty-freshness, an all-amble-no-puff bike ride through Huu Dinh village, a chance to try homemade rice paper at Sau Tuong’s house in the meantime. But, mainly, the day will slowly disappear in a montage of little river hamlets, lush jungle, and the hypnotic movements of the water… perfection.

Accommodation: Mango Home Riverside (or similar), Ben Tre
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 5: Can Tho

Hear that? It’s the sound of a spoon-billed sandpiper chirping on the riverside, and they’re singing a song of pure relaxation. Yep, today you’ve got some chill time. You’ve earned it—the last five days have included speedboats, trips into wartime tunnels, and the heady hecticness that is Ho Chi Minh City. Here, beside the gurgling Mekong River, take a whole morning to laze and lounge and catch up on your vacation reading.

Of course, we’ve got a marvelous lunch lined up, which you’ll enjoy before hopping in your bus to Can Tho. Step out there, and you’ll be glad of the earlier downtime, for you’ll find yourself in the commercial hub of the Mekong Delta. That means street food stalls that sizzle on every corner. It means floating markets. It means temples that loom above the water. Don’t worry—you have a local guide at hand to help you navigate.

Accommodation: Victoria Can Tho Resort (or similar), Can Tho 
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 6: Floating markets & Hue

Can Tho is the perfect jump-off point for the Cai Rang Floating Market, which will have been buzzing since the early hours of the morning. You’ll breakfast on the go to get there with the local crowd, slipping through clusters of ghe bầu (flat-bottomed boats) weighed low with fruits and veggies. It’s a chance to buy weird and wonderful fruits the likes of which have never seen the inside of a Walmart. Just make sure your haggling skills are up to scratch!

Then it’s time to say tạm biệt (goodbye) to the far south of the country, for we’ve got a plane to catch. Destination: Hue, the Imperial City, sitting right on the Perfume River. And what wonders await there…

Accommodation: Moonlight Hotel Hue, (or similar), Hue
Included: Breakfast and Lunch 

Day 7: Hue, under the surface

Every tourist that sets foot in Vietnam wants to see Hue. It’s got pagodas spurting from its streets and ancient imperial palaces lining that uniquely-named Perfume River. But you’re not every tourist—you do things the Harriet way. Here, that means handing the keys to the locals of this great city.

You’ll travel to the craft village of Phuong Duc, where you’ll meet bronze casters who have been creating intricate sculptures shaped by skill and ancestral alchemy since the 1800s—the time of Vietnam’s Nguyen Dynasty. Following lunch, you’ll cross the deep moats and thick defensive walls into Hue’s Imperial City, reserved for the emperor and his family. You’ll go behind the scenes of this complex of palaces, temples, shrines and gardens with the help of a real-life princess from the same dynasty. Finally, we head to Kim Long ancient village, where you’ll get busy making pork dumplings with local chefs.

Accommodation: Moonlight Hotel Hue (or similar), Hue
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 8: The allure of Hoi An

Your group will have a few hours’ ride on the bus this morning. Either spend it with your eyes glued to the window as the gleaming bays and jungle-tufted coastline of Central Vietnam whiz by (yeah, it’s a pretty highway). Or catch some Z’s to keep dreaming of those tasty pork dumplings from yesterday. Somewhere along the way, we’ll meet the villagers of Lang Co, who have a few salty tricks up their sleeves—they serve up some ridiculously good seafood.

The final destination for the day? None other than Hoi An. We won’t waste words trying to distill quite what a wonder it is. Instead, we’ll give you the whole afternoon off to dip your toe in, perhaps literally—the South China Sea sloshes up against the town’s golden beaches. Or you can cycle through the rice paddies to find old Japanese bridges and weather-worn coffee houses on the riverside. Take me there now!

Accommodation: La Siesta Hoi An Resort (or similar), Hoi An
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 9: The Secret Side of Hoi An

Shock the senses awake this morning by ducking into the ramshackle Hoi An Central Market. Just imagine the smells and the sights. Stacks of river fish next to spiky durian, rolls of napa cabbage here, deep-fried shrimp cakes there. It’s a real Vietnamese way to start the day, and we get there early, just as the locals do.

The Old Town quarter beckons you after that. It’s a maze of winding alleys and riverside streets that’s abuzz with life, featuring almost 1,400 historic structures dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries, when Hoi An port was at its peak. Craft workshops are everywhere, which should get you in the mood for this afternoon’s activity…

Lantern making! Don’t worry, you’ll have help from a local family who’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. And there’s a reward, in the form of Hoi An’s specialty cao lau, a noodle soup topped with bursts of coriander, mint, and green chili.

Accommodation: La Siesta Hoi An Resort (or similar), Hoi An
Included: Breakfast 

Day 10: Go Noi Village

Today begins in a way that’ll have you smiling from ear to ear. After a short transfer out of Hoi An, you’ll feel the warm breeze in your hair as you pedal through the farm plots of Go Noi. You might recognize some things—Thai basil here, chili plants there. Others will be strange and new—the clumps of water bindweed, the chrysanthemums grown for cooking.

We’ve organized an introduction to local farmer Mr Phap, who’ll be happy to explain all the crops, and might even get you helping with turning the soil and picking the veg. And it doesn’t end there, because we delve deeper into these rural farmlands on a boat later in the day, to find fields of peanuts and sweet potato plantations that can only be accessed on unique bamboo walkways.

Accommodation: La Siesta Hoi An Resort (or similar), Hoi An
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 11: Hanoi

The north is calling, so head straight for Danang Airport after breakfast and jet up to the big city of Hanoi. It’s one of the great big-city hubs of Southeast Asia. You’ll get a taste as you head to the hotel, as you travel through old market quarters that buzz with life, purr with scooters, and teem with people.

We’ve lined up the most taste-bud-tingling introduction to the city possible—a food walk through the Old Quarter. The next few hours will be a stream of noodle soups, crispy green papaya salads, banh mi baguettes, and more. You’ll devour those as you hop the various trading streets—one dedicated to silver workers, another to silk emporiums, another to ancient medicines and herbal treatments. Souvenir shopping is everywhere between the street food.

Accommodation: GM Premium Hotel (or similar), Hanoi
Included: Breakfast 

Day 12: Going into the Country

Have you ever wanted to ride in an M151 US Army Jeep? (There’s a question you never thought you’d be asked, right?). Well… today is the day. Head out to the countryside in your group’s convoy of metal vintage rides left over from the conflict with America. Enroute, stop at Mia Pagoda in Duong Lam village. Constructed in 1632, it’s known for its 287 religious statues, depicting Buddha alongside dharma spiritual protectors.

Complete the adventure with a lunch at Moon Garden Homestay, before heading back to Hanoi and a free afternoon to do as much or as little as you wish.

Accommodation: GM Premium Hotel (or similar), Hanoi
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 13: Halong Bay

Italy has the Dolomites, California has Yosemite, Peru has Machu Picchu, and Vietnam, well… Vietnam has Halong Bay. This is the great wonder of the South China Sea, a forest of 2,000 karst mountains that rise straight from the sky-blue waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Today you’ll be sailing right through the middle of it on a luxury ship complete with its own piano lounge and swimming pool.

But we’re willing to bet that your attention won’t be on the ship’s fine amenities. Your afternoon could involve sea kayaking trips through huge Luon Cave, hikes up limestone mountains to get sweeping views of the bay, and visions of endless islands drifting by.

Accommodation: Heritage Binh Chuan Cruise (or similar)
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 14: Hanoi

What if we told you two weeks ago that you’d be doing Tai Chi on a ship’s sundeck as the light rose above the karst peaks of Ha Long Bay? Yeah… it’s been a loooong two weeks! After getting the Zen flowing, grab a quick pastry and espresso for an early morning dive into the largest cave in the whole bay. It’s got seas of stalactites, and stalagmites, and a flurry of a grand finale that has the whole group standing atop a limestone mountain surveying the rugged North Vietnam coast.

After a few more hours of watching the wonders of Ha Long roll by from the deck,  or the poolside (your choice), it’s time to bid goodbye to this incredible corner of the country and make the drive back to Hanoi. That’s where the group gathers for one last dinner together. It’ll be emotional. It’ll be sad. But kind of in a good way. The way that’s filled with memories, and spurred on by new friendships that you just know are going to last forever.

Accommodation: GM Premium Hotel (or similar), Hanoi
Included: Breakfast, Brunch and Dinner

Day 15: Farewell

There’s a Vietnamese proverb: Sông có khúc, người có lúc. It means rivers have meanders, but human life has phases. This phase—this incredible, boundary-breaking, pho-soup-slurping, vintage-army-jeep-riding, Mekong-river-riding phase—is now over, but you’ve made new friends that you’ll no doubt meet again on the road of life. So, head to the airport with a smile on your face and an egg coffee in hand. 

Included: Breakfast