Vietnam

Halong Bay: Sleep on the Water

The Halong Bay overnight cruise is the thing you came for. Around 1,600 limestone islands and islets rising out of jade-green water, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and you're in the middle of it, kayaking into caves, jumping off the top deck, eating dinner on deck as the sun drops behind the rocks. Day trips exist, but skip them. The magic happens after the crowds sail home: a sky full of stars, breakfast on deck with mist rolling through the karsts. Book a boat with other backpackers on it and the night sorts itself out. It's about four hours east of Hanoi, and most cruises include the transfer.

Hoi An: Lanterns, Tailors and the Best-Preserved Town in Asia

Hoi An's Old Town is a UNESCO-listed trading port that stopped changing about 200 years ago, mustard-yellow shophouses, the Japanese Covered Bridge, and silk lanterns strung across every alley. Come dusk, the whole place glows and the Thu Bon River fills with candle-lit paper boats. By day, get a suit or dress tailored for a fraction of home prices (allow 24–48 hours for fittings), rent a pushbike and ride through rice paddies to An Bang Beach, or do a cooking class and finally learn how to roll a proper fresh spring roll. Our Vietnam Adventure, 9 Days Hanoi to Hoi An, from $1,599, ends here for exactly this reason, with a basket boat ride, a cooking class and a lantern-making class on the last two days.

Day Trips: The Mekong Delta and Beyond

From Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta tour is the classic, floating markets at dawn, coconut-candy workshops, and narrow canals you drift down in a sampan under nipa palms. It's a different Vietnam: slow, green, wet, and everyone's got a boat. Also within striking distance of Saigon: the Cu Chi Tunnels, the wartime tunnel network you can actually crawl through (tight, not one for the claustrophobic). Up north, Ninh Binh is Halong Bay with rice fields instead of ocean, two hours from Hanoi, and criminally under-visited. Hire a scooter, climb Hang Mua's 500 steps, and earn the best viewpoint in the country.

Hanoi and Ninh Binh: the north, properly

Hanoi is the capital that still feels like a thousand villages: the Old Quarter's 36 guild streets, Hoan Kiem Lake at dawn full of tai chi, French-era boulevards, and traffic that runs on motorbikes and faith. Do the street food on foot, learn to cross a road (walk slowly, don't stop, the bikes flow around you), and climb to a rooftop café above the lake for the view. Two hours south, Ninh Binh is the north's other limestone landscape: the same karsts as Ha Long Bay but rising out of rice paddies and rivers instead of the sea. Row boats glide through caves at Trang An and Tam Coc, the roughly 500 steps up Hang Mua end at a dragon statue and the best viewpoint in the country, and a bicycle is the right speed for the lanes between. Both of our Vietnam trips spend a night in a Ninh Binh homestay with a local family dinner, then cycle and row the next day.

Getting to Vietnam and getting around

Fly into Hanoi (Noi Bai) for a north-to-south run or Ho Chi Minh City (Tan Son Nhat) for the reverse; direct flights from Sydney and Melbourne take around eight to nine hours, and budget carriers connect through Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok for less. Most travellers fly into one city and out of the other. Check the current e-visa requirements for your passport before you book flights.

Overland, Vietnam runs on three things. Sleeper buses: flat-ish reclining bunks, cheap, and the standard way between Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An and the south (Hanoi to Hue is roughly 12 to 14 hours). The Reunification Express: the single railway line from Hanoi to Saigon, 32 to 36 hours end to end, best taken in overnight chunks in a soft-sleeper berth; our trips use the overnight train from the north down to Hoi An. Domestic flights: an hour or two between the big cities when time matters, which is how the 12-day trip gets from Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City. In the cities, Grab (ride-hailing, cars and motorbikes) is cheap and takes the haggling out of taxis.

Our Vietnam trips, and which one to pick

Both trips start in Hanoi with a group leader meeting you at the airport, and both share the same first eight days: a walking and rickshaw tour of Hanoi with a night out, an overnight boat on Ha Long Bay with cave kayaking, a Ninh Binh homestay, a cycle to Dragon Mountain with river row boats, the overnight train south, and Hoi An's old town, tailors, basket boats, cooking class, lantern-making and a beach club afternoon. The Vietnam Adventure, 9 Days Hanoi to Hoi An, from $1,599, finishes there with eight nights and 11 meals included. The Vietnam Adventure, 12 Days Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, from $2,199, flies south on day nine for rooftop bars, a day of village life in the Mekong Delta and the Cu Chi Tunnels, with 11 nights and 17 meals included. Pick the 9-day if you're carrying on under your own steam to the south or to Cambodia; pick the 12-day if you want the whole country done in one booking.

Two weeks in Vietnam: a sample plan

Days 1 to 2, Hanoi: Old Quarter on foot, street food, Beer Corner. Day 3: Ha Long Bay overnight boat. Days 4 to 5: Ninh Binh homestay, bikes and row boats, Hang Mua at sunset. Day 6: overnight train to Da Nang and on to Hoi An. Days 7 to 8: Hoi An old town, a tailor fitting, a cooking class, An Bang Beach. Day 9: fly to Ho Chi Minh City, rooftop bars in District 1. Day 10: Mekong Delta. Day 11: Cu Chi Tunnels, last night on Bui Vien. Days 12 to 14: your choice of a Phu Quoc or Mui Ne beach wind-down, or a bus to Cambodia. Days 1 to 11 are the Vietnam Adventure, 12 Days Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City almost exactly, from $2,199; the extra days are the reason to leave your flight home open.

What Vietnam costs

Vietnam is one of the best-value countries on the South-East Asia trail: street food costs a few dollars, bia hoi in Hanoi is well under a dollar a glass, and dorm beds, sleeper buses and Grab rides are all a fraction of Australian prices. The things that add up are the big experiences, an overnight Ha Long Bay boat, the train, domestic flights, cooking classes and guided days, which is exactly what our trips bundle. The Vietnam Adventure, 9 Days Hanoi to Hoi An, from $1,599, includes eight nights (hotels, the bay boat, the homestay and the overnight train), 11 meals, all transport between stops and every activity, with no pay-on-arrival extras. The Vietnam Adventure, 12 Days Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, from $2,199, includes 11 nights, 17 meals and the flight south. Budget separately for international flights, the meals that aren't included, drinks and tailoring.

The Social Scene: Beer Corners and Rooftop Bars

Vietnam's nightlife starts at street level. In Hanoi, that means Ta Hien, 'Beer Corner', where you sit on tiny plastic stools drinking bia hoi, fresh-brewed draught beer that costs less than a dollar and gets poured until the keg runs dry. It's the easiest place in Asia to make mates: everyone's crammed knee-to-knee anyway. Down in Saigon, the energy flips, Bui Vien Street is a wall of neon and bass, and the rooftop bars above District 1 serve skyline views over the Bitexco tower. Hoi An sits in the middle: riverside bars, backpacker-run pool parties, and everything winding up by midnight so you can hit the beach hungover.