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THE ORIGINAL TOUR | ||
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EMERAUDE CLASSIC | ||
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BAC HA EXTENSION | ||
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CHU CHI TUNNELS | ||
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OPTIONAL TOURS | ||
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| 13 Days & 12 Nights |  |
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| DAY 01 : HO CHI MINH CITY (D) After clearing customs, you will be met and taken to our hotel to check in for three nights. NOTE: Before dinner, there will be an orientation meeting with the tour leaders. DAY 02 : HO CHI MINH CITY (B L D) Today starts with a visit to the Ben Thanh Market, the city’s largest market where you will be introduced to the essential ingredients used in Vietnamese cuisine. This will be followed by a hands-on class at the Vietnam Cookery Centre where you get to cook what you’ll eat for lunch. The afternoon features a tour of Vietnam’s largest and busiest city, including the Giac Lam Pagoda, believed to be the oldest Buddhist pagoda in the city, the War Remnants Museum and the Taoist-inspired Jade Emperor Pagoda. |
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| DAY 03 : HO CHI MINH CITY/MEKONG DELTA/HO CHI MINH CITY (B L D) Embark early for a full day excursion to the Mekong Delta. After boarding a motorized boat at My Tho, cruise among the Dragon, Unicorn, Tortoise and Phoenix Islands. Enjoy a typical Vietnamese lunch, then travel along smaller creeks by sampan. Disembark to see the variety of handicrafts made from local coconut trees, a bee-keeping farm, a factory where coconut candy is made and enjoy a traditional music performance. DAY 04 : HO CHI MINH CITY/HUE (B L D) Today, fly very early to Hue - Vietnam’s former Imperial capital built along the beautiful Perfume River in the 1800s by the Nguyen Emperors that became a household name during the 1968 TET offensive in the Vietnam War. After checking into our hotel for two nights, we will have lunch, then tour the Citadel and the moated ruins of the Forbidden Purple City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Dinner tonight is a Royal Feast. DAY 05 : HUE (B L D) Visit the mausoleums of Nguyen Emperors Tu Duc, a picky eater who insisted every meal have 50 dishes and that none be served more than twice a year, and Khai Dinh. Then board a dragon boat for lunch and a cruise along the Perfume River to the exquisite Thien Mu Pagoda, a working Buddhist monastery and school. DAY 06 : HUE/DANANG/HOI AN (B L D) After breakfast, drive south past farming communities, Lang Co Beach and lagoons of oyster beds before climbing to the Hai Van Pass, meaning Ocean Clouds, which on a clear day boasts a panoramic view of Vietnam’s central coast. Continue driving south along one of the most spectacular drives in the world to Danang where we stop to visit the Cham Museum before continuing on to Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is a bona fide living museum. Check into our hotel for three nights. DAY 07 : HOI AN (B L D) The morning is free. Take an optional trip to see the ruins of My Son, the 16th Century Cham Holyland that is Vietnam’s equivalent of Angkor Wat, or to climb Thuy Son, the tallest of the five Marble Mountains, which is honeycombed with caves that were used as Hindu, later Buddhist shrines. After lunch, take a walking city tour of Hoi An, which miraculously escaped any real damage during the Vietnam War despite being located just 30 kilometers south of Danang and China Beach. The result is an architectural treasure trove of lovingly maintained Chinese, Japanese and French merchant homes and places of worship. DAY 08 : HOI AN (B L D) A day free to laze around the hotel pool. Or continue checking out the scores of art galleries and tailor shops where custom-made clothes can be made in just a few hours. Or ride a xe om, (a motorbike taxi) past shrimp farms and rice paddies to Cua Dai Beach. Tour a pottery-making village or a boat-building village or a silk factory or the local orphanage. Take an optional cooking class that explains the cultural significance of the tasty, but complex, Vietnamese cuisine. Or if you haven’t done it already, visit My Son or the Marble Mountains. DAY 09 : HOI AN/DANANG/HANOI (B L D) After a leisurely breakfast, drive to Danang for our flight to Hanoi - Vietnam’s utterly bewitching capital city which curls itself around tree-fringed lakes and boasts a fascinating hodgepodge of French colonial and traditional Vietnamese streetscapes. Upon arrival, you will be met and taken to our hotel to check in for four nights. After dinner, attend a performance of the internationally acclaimed Thang Long Water Puppets. DAY 10 : HANOI (B L D) Start becoming acquainted with Hanoi, home to the best selection of museums in the country. Today tour the stately Presidential Palace where Ho Chi Minh’s austere Stilt House is located, the One Pillar Pagoda and the idiosyncratic museum dedicated to the life and times of Uncle Ho. After lunch, take a cyclo ride through the clamorous streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter where it is possible to buy anything from a coffin to sunglasses to fine silks and jewelry. DAY 11 : HANOI/HALONG BAY/HANOI (B L D) Depart early for a 2½ hour drive northeast from Hanoi through the rice paddy-embroidered countryside to Halong Bay, another UNESCO World Heritage site. Board our private junk and sail among some of the 3,000 plus limestone islets that jut dramatically out of the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Eroded by time and weather into bizarre shapes, these limestone outcrops can morph - with a little imagination - into fighting cocks, dragons and even French General Charles de Gaulle's nose. Stop to visit some spectacular caves and, if the weather cooperates, enjoy a refreshing swim off the side of the junk.Comback Hanoi in the late afternoon. Overnight at hotel in Hanoi. DAY 12 : HANOI (B L D) Continue exploring Vietnam’s charming capital with visits to the Museum of Ethnology, a state-of-the-art facility that celebrates the ethnic, religious and cultural diversity of the 54 minorities that live in modern day Vietnam, the Confucian Temple of Literature, site of Vietnam's first university, and the Museum of Fine Arts. After lunch at KOTO, a restaurant dedicated to teaching street kids hospitality skills, the afternoon is free to pick up last minutes treasures and gifts. The day ends with a farewell banquet. DAY 13 : HOMEWARD BOUND (B) After breakfast, you’ll be taken to Noi Bai airport for your flight back home. |
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Copyright 2008 JethmalChoice Travel Pte. Ltd.
