VIETNAM LIFESTYLE

VIETNAM LIFESTYLE 18 DAYS
These 18 days with orientation more to local service and style. This makes your holidays to Vietnam the best local approach

THE CLOSE TOUCH TO VIETNAM LIFESTYLE

the most close-up to the local daily life

START HANOI, MAI CHAU, NINHBINH, HALONG BAY OVERNIGHT CRUISE, HUE, HOIAN, SAIGON, CU CHI TUNNELS, TAY NINH, VINH LONG, CHAU, FINISH

Your holidays to Vietnam delves deeper into Vietnam lifestyle by using more homestay, by going to the trips that less tourists choose, by experiencing the local service like public train, or by getting engaged more the local belief with Buddhism and Caodaism. Beyond the cities of Hanoi and Saigon, and popular World Heritage listed Halong Bay, Hue and Hoi An, stay with a hill tribe family in the upland valley of Mai Chau. Take a romantic boat trip thru a rice paddy field in Ninh Binh or switch boats at Mekong canal mazes; find yourselves local with floating market exchanging agricultural products, or find peace at the view over the huge rice field under the magical sunset over the border of Vietnam Cambodia, and so much more

The local flavors in the tour make the holidays to Vietnam a journey of a lifetime.

The tour level is a bit close to adventure. There are more walking, more boat boarding, more exercise like pushing bikes, little boat swimming or arranging the picnic place.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE HOLIDAYS TO VIETNAM

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HANOI OLD QUARTER CYCLO

architecture, people, trafic, smell, sound and life style

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WATER PUPPET SHOW HANOI

fun, culture, special

MAICHAU HOMESTAY

culture, family, local, nature

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HALONG BOAT OVERNIGHT

landscape, peace, food, beach, swimming

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SAMPAN THRU RICE FIELD

landscape, beauty, boat, peace

HUE IMPERIAL CITY

royal, food, peace, oriental architecture, life style, landscape

Vietnam Discovery - Vietnam Tours - Vietnam Travel Hoian

HOIAN NO POWER NIGHT

culture, people, life style, food, architecture, ambiance

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CUCHI TUNNEL TRIP

history, works, life stories

MEKONG HOMESTAY

nature, family, local, food, fruits, music

CAI RANG FLOATING MARKET

boat, fruit, trading culture, market, canals, orchard

YOUR DISCOVERY

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ITINERARY OF THE HOLIDAYS TO VIETNAM

DAY 1: HANOI ARRIVAL

Start your holidays to Vietnam by meeting our tour guides at the airport. Join with his driver and take a transferring to your hotel right in Hanoi center. Get refreshed after checking in and have a drink with our local guide to run some tour briefing. After finishing the briefing and you still have time, make your own free at leisure time by walking along streets full of the authentic life in Old Quarter.

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DAY 2: HANOI CITY

After a very short drive from hotel, we can stand in the Ba Dinh square and learn all about the life and stories of ‘Uncle Ho. His mausoleum is also at the place. You can even enjoy the guard changing parade in front of the mausoleum. This is great and unique experience, might be only in some countries like Vietnam. Have some walking in the ancient Temple of Literature and find the answer how university in a Kingdom happened a millennium ago. We visit another well know place nicknamed ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison for more angle of the war stories. Next, we end the morning trip at KOTO restaurant where your food is cooked and served by former street children. Get your free time in the afternoon for your own exploration.

There is a lovely optional tour we often suggest to go further into by Hanoi Old Quarter on Cyclo. That’s a trip of relaxing on a rickshaw seeing a bustle life passing by your nose, passing by the ancient windows along the streets and passing by a the slow living style of Hanoians.

In the evening enjoy the water puppet show describing the cultural activities of Vietnam on water.

DAY 3: HANOI – MAI CHAU

Mai Chau is a community in Hoa Binh province, approximately 135 km from Hanoi and 60 km from Hoa Binh Town. It is the closest destination from Hanoi where we can and admire the superb panorama surrounded by green valley’s with spectacular karst scenery, with rice farm terraces and with stilt houses. Utmost, we meet the ethnic minority Thai people who are of very different feature to Vietnamese in language, dress, customs, etiquettes, singular blend of belief, worship and myth.

Start our holidays to Vietnam by a drive to the beautiful upland valley of Mai Chau. As arriving, do the two and a half hour trekking trip to the villages of La Poon, La Thia and Poom Coong. This is great to understand their culture, to meet their happy faces and to take opportunities for great cameras short on the landscape. In the afternoon, we get back to Lac Village for refreshment and spend the night at a home-stay in a Thai family, mosquito net and family spirit provided.

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DAY 4: MAI CHAU – NINH BINH

Spend some hours exploring the surrounding Thai villages before enjoy a spectacular view from your bus to Ninh Binh. In Tam Coc, we take a rowing boat tour on the river which goes across the rice paddies, the karst mountain scenery, thru the caves under the mountains (still on sampan). This is one of the unforgettable moments of our holidays to Vietnam. In the late afternoon, make a bike ride to explore more the beauty of this scenery of rice.

DAY 5: NINH BINH – HALONG

You will enjoy the drive to enchanting Halong Bay as it goes pass by many villages and rice farm. Sitting on your van, you can relax and watch farmers working their land. Enjoy the great view of Halong Bay while you cruise amongst the thousands of limestone islands. Experience the freshest seafood lunches and dinners, the great beach, the lovely tea on board among the sunset and sunrise. Explore further your favorite activities like gathering at the roof top and drink, read your favorite book among the breeze and the fade run ray of a tropical region, swimming under the sky full of stars, or just do nothing.

Vietnam Discovery - Vietnam Tours - Vietnam Travel Halong

DAY 6: HALONG – HANOI – HUE (night train)

Wake up in the morning in your own room, open the window and listen to the sound of the wave splashing into your boat. Have breakfast then start to explore further by visiting the caves and going kayaking along the streams. In the afternoon going back to Hanoi for the overnight train to Hue, the former imperial capital and a window into Vietnam’s complex past.

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DAY 7: HUE

Hue Imperial city is famous with splendid tombs of the Nguyen emperors, notable pagodas and the remains of the Citadel. That’s why Hue becomes one of Vietnam’s biggest attractions to travelers from all over the world. They come to explore the traditional cultural values of Vietnam. Understand further the oriental belief and ancient architecture techniques by visiting the ancient Citadel, the emperor’s tombs and the royal monuments. Our holidays to Vietnam today will explore those highlights. Royal dinner is an option to get the ambiance of a dynasty entertainment only a century ago.

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DAY 8: HUE

Make a free day for your own exploration. We believe that a city full of oriental culture and values with the imperial city, monuments and fengshui arrangement, full of Buddhism spirits with a lot of pagodas, of more trees than peoples, of Vietnam specialized elegant etiquette is a right place for your free day exploration.

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Optional choice can be a cyclo tour taking you along the peaceful corners of this ancient citadel city.

DAY 9: HUE – HOIAN

Drive South to the lovely countryside and spectacular coastal scenery on your way to Hoian.

Hoian Ancient town is the living museum with charming traditional houses, temples, the iconic Japanese Bridge and especially the well preserved Vietnamese lifestyle from the 16th century. More feeling of old days will come with no-power nights (candles and lanterns instead), the night festivals, the street foods and other heavenly recipes.

Before that Hoi An town experience, the stopover at Marble Mountain will bring the enjoying of the Buddhism religious atmosphere of Vietnamese, the spectacular view to the China beach, and the cave exploration.

Check in hotel to have a rest, have a walking tour along the well preserved monuments and houses that are the hardware of the ancient town. Visit a handicraft producing center with the disadvantaged youth from the Streets organization.

Vietnam tour

DAY 10: HOIAN

Enjoy some free time in Hoi An for shopping at one of the many masterful tailors in town and further exploration like a short bicycle ride to the beach nearby.

Make an optional boat trip along the Hoai river to the land of coconut, the local farm and terraces. Party on the field with wine and BBQ among the Vietnamese countryside scenery is an unforgettable memory, before heading to Hoian Town for the fun cooking class.

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DAY 11: HOIAN

An easy ride of bike to countryside to get touched more to the daily life of Hoian people. The fishing village, the rice paddy fields, the coconut lands will make the day really Vietnamese authentic. Free in the afternoon for any further exploration or just relax by a pub along the river.

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DAY 12: HOIAN – SAIGON

Take a flight to Saigon, making a change from a quite city with cultural values to a bustling one with more historical imprint of the recent war. The days in Saigon will be very different from others at your holidays to Vietnam.

Saigon is a very fast growing city by the dynamics and easy open mindset of its people. The ongoing changes in economy have given the city a really cosmopolitan and dynamic character, with high buildings, big roads and business spirits. However, the city remains the important c Saigon city tour orners with colonial styles, reminding stories of Saigon 40 years ago, and before, when Saigon was the capital of Indochina under French time or capital of South Vietnam, later on.

Check in hotel, take a refresh and make a walking tour along the city highlights at the city’s historic Dong Khoi Street, the former Rue Catinat, to understand more of that history.

DAY 13: SAIGON

The half day tour makes introduction on the history of the former capital of South Vietnam by the monuments and architecture like the Reunification Palace and with the stories at War Remnants Museum in Saigon. The Saigon impression would be added more colors with visits to a lacquerware factory, a Taoism temple and a huge market for Vietnamese for their daily life. In the afternoon, take it free for further city exploration on your own, or just sit back by a coffee on the the city’s historic Dong Khoi Street, the former Rue Catinat for a stronger feeling of a fastest moving city of Vietnam.

DAY 14: SAIGON – CU CHI – TAY NINH – SAIGON

This day of your long holidays to Vietnam is made by a colorful image of a special religion for Vietnamese only, and a war story full of surprises and wows. The three hour drive take you to the North of Saigon to visit a temple with a special mass of Caodaism, the combination of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. The Great temple, the colorful dress codes, the friendliness of the Caodaism followers makes the great morning. The afternoon is a simple answer on what is guerrilla war techniques as visiting fighting , the entrances, the living spaces, the hospitals, meeting rooms and schools of the Cuchi Tunnel with underground system of over 200km long.

Holidays to Vietnam

DAY 15: SAIGON – VINH LONG

The Mekong Delta is always impressive with the natural scenery and lovely people that can only be fully discovered when traveling from place to place at a nice with a slow pace.

Heading to the wet land of Mekong Delta Basin and get inspired by Vietnam’s rural life with a day among the rivers, canals, water coconut, and orchards. Among the feeling of getting lost at the maze of water ways, your travel experience also gets enriched by the forklore music (which has been acknowledged by UNESCO as immaterial world heritage), local special dishes, or just a rest with a honey tea cup by a canal.

Overnight at the house of Mr Tam, enjoying the food cooked by his wife and the home made rice wine specially stilted by himself as a special treatment. Night life can be a visit to a neighbor or catching fire flights.

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DAY 16: VINH LONG – CHAU DOC

This day is started by a trip highlight and end by another. The first one is a place named floating market, where people living along the canal maze comes to the market to sell things cultivated from their garden, and buy things for their cooking and dishes. It is absolutely on the river with hundreds of boats, big or small. More experience with this agriculture can come later with boating along the canals, visit an orchard and hear the stories of the farmers.

Get up early to adapt the Vietnamese life style, take the boat trip, have lunch with local dishes, and travel deeper into Mekong Delta, up to the border of Vietnam and Cambodia. Take a bus drive up to a mountain to see the spectacular of a rice paddy stretching to the horizon, among the sunset and the sound of daily life echoing from the rivers and canals around. This is the second highlight of the day.

Get the cultural beauty of floating market

DAY 17: CHAU DOC – SAIGON

Mekong is well known for rice farms but also for the fish farms, making Vietnam – America farmer war on cat fish fights which is still on. Take a boat trip to visit those floating houses with catfish farm beneath and enjoy the peace at this floating village.

If you expect to extend your trip to Cambodia, this is a great opportunity to end the tour and connect to boat trip to Cambodia which departs daily.

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