Hanoi – Ninh Binh – Ha Long Bay – Da Nang – Ba Na Hills – Hoi An – Phu Quoc
A first half of walking, boats and mountains, and a second half at sea. Hanoi, Ninh Binh and Ha Long Bay come first, all worked from one hotel in the capital. A night flight takes you to Da Nang for the Ba Na Hills cable car and an afternoon and evening in Hoi An. Then the island: speedboats out to the An Thoi group, the cable car to Hon Thom, and the parks and night streets at the north end of Phu Quoc.
Day 1
Your guide meets the flight and a private car takes you into the Old Quarter. The afternoon is a walk rather than a drive, and it comes in two versions. The longer one goes down to Hoan Kiem Lake and Nam Huong Temple, over The Huc Bridge to Ngoc Son Temple, on to St Joseph's Cathedral for banh mi and sugarcane juice, thirty minutes among the boutiques, and finishes at Train Street at 16h00. The shorter one keeps the lake, the cathedral and Train Street, then drives a few minutes to a local coffee house for an egg coffee class, where you make it yourself rather than only drink it.
Meals: No meals included
Day 2
Ninh Binh is 110km south. You leave at 08h00, break once and reach Hoa Lu at 10h15, Vietnam's first capital, where the temples to the Dinh and Le kings date from the seventeenth century. Then bicycles, on flat lanes between the canals and the villages with limestone towers standing in every direction. Lunch is a buffet of goat, fried rice and other local dishes, vegetarian always available. In the afternoon a rower takes you through Trang An, UNESCO-listed in 2014 and the landscape used for Kong: Skull Island, into the Sang, Toi and Nau Ruou caves. Mua Cave is last, almost 500 steps up Lying Dragon Mountain, and you are back in Hanoi by 19h30.
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Day 3
The limousine leaves Hanoi at 08h30 and reaches Tuan Chau Island just before midday. Six hours on the water follow. Lunch is served on deck as the boat works past the Incense Burner and Fighting Cocks rocks; at 13h30 you are inside Sung Sot Cave, the largest in the bay, an 800-metre lit path through 10,000 square metres of chamber standing 25 metres above the sea. Luon Cave comes next, entered by kayak or bamboo boat, then Titop Island for a swim or the climb to the lookout. The sunset party on the sundeck starts at 16h30. Ashore at 18h00, hotel at 20h30, and the 22h00 flight takes you to Da Nang.
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Day 4
Nothing on the schedule. You arrive from Hanoi, a private car takes you to the hotel and your guide sees you through check-in. After that the time is yours and dinner is included. The gap is deliberate: the flight lands late, and tomorrow at Ba Na Hills begins before 08h00 and keeps going into the middle of the afternoon.
Meals: Dinner
Day 5
Ba Na Hills is a whole day. Pick-up is between 07h00 and 08h15, with a stop at a traditional craft village on the road while the guide sorts out the tickets. The cable car up is the longest single-rope line in the world and puts you in the French Village before 10h00. The rest of the day stays up there: Lunar Castle, Eclipse Square, a film at the Mat Bay theatre, buffet lunch from 11h45, then mini shows, the golden Sun World globe and Fantasy Park. At 14h45 a second, shorter cable car reaches the Golden Bridge and Le Jardin. You leave through the Time Gate from 16h15, and there is no shopping stop.
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Day 6
Nothing happens before 13h00, when the guide collects you for Cam Thanh. The coconut village is on the water outside Hoi An; the time there goes on the fishing methods the local families use and on turning a round bamboo basket boat where you want it. The old town starts at 14h30: Phuc Kien Assembly Hall, where devotees are usually making offerings at the family altar; a merchant house two hundred years old, Phung Hung or Tan Ky; the Museum of Folk Culture and a show at the Traditional Performing Arts House; the four-hundred-year-old Japanese Bridge and the carvings inside it. Dinner is local; at 18h00 you are out on the Hoai River with a paper lantern, and the night market stays open.
Meals: Breakfast, dinner
Day 7
A short flight to Phu Quoc. A private car takes you from the airport straight to the resort and your guide handles the check-in. Nothing else is scheduled and no meals are included. That is deliberate: the next two days are both full ones, the first at sea off An Thoi with an 08h00 pick-up, the second across the parks and night streets at the north end of the island.
Meals: No meals included
Day 8
Picked up at 08h00. First the Phu Quoc pearl farm, then An Thoi harbour at 09h30 to board the speedboat. May Rut Trong Island is the swimming and drone-footage stop; Mong Tay, also called May Rut Ngoai, is where lunch is served and where the paddleboards are; Dua, or Roi, is the snorkelling stop, coral in one to three metres of water. Coral Park and its sea walking are optional and cost extra. From there the boat runs to Hon Thom for the world's longest three-wire sea-crossing cable car and the Aquatopia water park. Between 16h00 and 16h30 you transfer to Sunset Town, and you are back at the hotel at 17h00.
Meals: Breakfast, lunch
Day 9
A shuttle takes you north to VinWonders, the largest theme park in Vietnam: the rides, the water park, the castle, the Fairy Tales garden, the Viking village and the aquarium with its mermaid show. Lunch is at a restaurant there. In the evening you cross to Grand World, the sleepless city, for the Bamboo Legend installation and, if you want it, the Vietnamese Essence show, which is not covered by the tour price. Dinner is bun quay, the noodle dish Phu Quoc makes its own way. The Teddy Bear Museum is open late, and the night finishes with The Colors of Venice on the water.
Meals: Lunch, dinner
Day 10
Breakfast at the resort, check out, and a private car to Phu Quoc airport timed to your flight.
Meals: Breakfast
Two domestic flights hold this itinerary together: Hanoi to Da Nang at 22h00 on day 3, and the onward flight to Phu Quoc on day 7. Neither fare is included. Day 1 runs in two versions, the full walking tour or a shorter walk finishing with an egg coffee class at a local coffee house.
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