Vietnam Classic For Family Tour

Today, meet our guide at your hotel to transfer to Vinh Long, a riverside town in the vast Mekong Delta. Then embark a boat cruise to lively Cai Be floating market where sellers and buyers bargain and exchange goods from their boats. Stop at some local workshops to see how people make rice paper, coconut candy and pop-rice, pop-corn. Lunch will be served at a local house.

After lunch, continue to travel by boat to go deeper into the country side through maze of canals, visit some local famers’ homes, interact with warm-hearted hosts and learn about their trade and daily life. Have some fruits and tea while enjoying the traditional music at a local house.  Another activity is biking around the village. And you can also join in some cooking with the host.

Check in Ut Trinh homestay (or other similar home-stay on An Binh Island) for overnight.

After breakfast, free at leisure before continue your boat trip to visit the brick kilns where you can see how the local people create beautiful potteries from clay. Move on to visit a floating village and the local market in the town. The cruise will end at Vinh Long city.

Meet our guide at your hotel and transfer out for a half day tour around the town. Once a bustling maritime commercial port of Asia between 15th and 19th centuries, Hoi An, recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, is now a peaceful town of exceptionally well-preserved architecture, lifestyles and traditions. The town exemplifies a fascinating fusion of cultures between Vietnam and the outside world including China, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Your sightseeing will include the iconic 400-year-old Covered Bridge with a small temple attached to one side as a prominent example of Japanese architecture, the Museum of Trade Ceramics which is an elegant Vietnamese style wooden house built in 1858 showcasing antique ceramic artifacts, the 200-year-old Tan Ky House typifying an ancient Chinese merchant residence, the Ong Temple built in 1653 by Chinese settlers to worship Guan Yu, an ancient Chinese general whose character stands for loyalty, bravery and justice and the local market vibrant with colors and activities.

Afternoon, we take a cycling tour to a lantern-making family. Colorful lanterns are an unmistakable part of Hoi An’s visual identity as the craft of lantern making has been passed down to present town dwellers from generations of their ancestors. Spend half a day observing and learning how to make lanterns the traditional way under the guidance of friendly and skilled hosts. Practice all production steps including whittling bamboo into splints and bending them into a frame, cutting fabric to size and gluing it to the frame to complete a lantern. You’ll receive this meaningful souvenir, what you made with your own hands from the host family as a local present when you say goodbye.

Morning meet our guide at your hotel and transfer out to a local market. A guide from the local cooking school will take you on a tour through the market to learn about the ingredients to be used in your recipes. After the market, aboard a boat to ride along Hoi An river for about 25 minutes, watching local fishermen casting nets as part of their daily routine. Arrive at a small township and walk to the cooking school. The class starts in an open-air pavilion by the river under the instruction of an experienced chef. Observe, practice, sample and bring out a good lunch cooked the local style to your own taste. Enjoy it yourself.

Afternoon, take a haft-day biking tour to Kim Bong – a 600 year woodworking village located just outside the town famous for its carpentry and traditional woodworking products. Established in the 15th century, it reached its peak in the 18th century, during which time the village craftsmen contributed their skills in woodworking to many different projects, including the Imperial capital in Hue. Walking down the village you'll see two parallel streets with low open-fronted buildings.  You can also see the artisans working with their skillful hands on the crafts.

Free at leisure until transfer to Da Nang international airport for flight to Hanoi. Arrival at Hanoi, welcomed by our guide & driver then transfer to the city.

Hanoi or “River-bound City” as its name literally means is Vietnam’s capital with a thousand-year-old history dating back to 1010. The city’s fascinating beauty which is characterized by unique cultural relics, ancient streets of antique houses, elegant French colonial buildings, tree-lined boulevards and romantic lakes has made it one of the most charming cities of Asia.

Start a half day city tour beginning with the Ho Chi Minh Complex which features the life of Ho Chi Minh, the nation’s founder. At the complex, visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where the nation’s founder’s body is preserved (closed on Monday, Friday and through October - November), the colonial Presidential Palace, originally the French Governor Office and a fine example of French architecture in Hanoi, and the rural style Ho Chi Minh’s house on stilts where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked. Stop by one of Hanoi’s icons, the One Pillar Pagoda, built in the 11th Century in dedication to Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara or Buddha of Compassion and reminiscent of a lotus blossom rising from a pond. Continue to the Temple of Literature, known as the first university of Vietnam built in 1070 by the Ly Dynasty to honor Confucius, sages and outstanding Vietnamese scholars.

Morning, leave Hanoi for a 1.5-hour drive west of Hanoi to Duong Lam village, a typical agricultural village of the Red River Delta still preserves many hundred-year-old houses. Visit Mong Phu communal house in Mong Phu village - the only hamlet whose original village entrance remains intact. Continue on through the narrow alleys to see the old laterite houses which make up this charming village.

Morning pickup at 8:00 AM from your hotel for transfer to Ha Long Bay, which is about 160 km or 3.5-hour drive away. On the way, you will see some rural areas of the Red River Delta with plenty of chances to take photos of Vietnamese farmers working in paddy fields. Stop half way to visit a handicraft workshop of fine clothes and embroidered paintings. Arrive in Ha Long City at 11:30 AM and check in aboard the booked junk right after the welcome drink is served. Start cruising while having lunch on board and enjoy the mighty bay view.