Asia · Vietnam

Vietnam

Hanoi to the Mekong Delta in fifteen days. A night on a boat in Ha Long Bay, street food, and the train over the Hai Van pass.

We run Vietnam north to south, because that is how the climate and the cooking change and you feel it on your own skin. We start in Hanoi, 16 °C and damp in January, and finish in the Mekong Delta, where it is 32 °C all year. We move on domestic flights and, once, an overnight train.

In Ha Long Bay we sleep on the boat — one night, a cabin with a window, dinner of fresh seafood. At six in the morning there is mist on the water and almost nobody around, because most boats only leave port at nine. That is the entire reason we stay overnight. Next comes Hue with its imperial citadel, then Hoi An, the lantern town, where half the streets are tailors who will cut you a suit in 24 hours.

The food is a reason to come on its own. Pho is a breakfast dish, not a dinner one, and it is best eaten on a plastic stool on the pavement. Banh mi, the Vietnamese baguette, is a leftover from French colonisation and costs small change. Your guide will show you which stalls are sound, and the rule is simple: eat where the locals queue. In the south we finish in Ho Chi Minh City and the Cu Chi tunnels. Parts of the tunnels are seventy centimetres across and nobody claustrophobic should go in — we say so beforehand and nobody is pushed. The tour runs fifteen days with a group of twelve to fourteen, led by Simona. No vaccinations are required, but hepatitis A and typhoid are recommended; talk to a travel clinic a month before you fly.

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