What do you actually see on a two-week trip to Vietnam?

Vietnam is long. More than a thousand kilometres separate Hanoi from Saigon, and the mistake most first-time visitors make is trying to see the country from one base. Two weeks is enough to cross it properly, but only if the internal flights are already built into the programme.

The north: a city, a valley and the bay

You start in Hanoi — the 36 streets of the Old Quarter, Hoan Kiem Lake, the Temple of Literature and an evening of water puppetry, the oldest form of theatre in the country. The road then heads west to Mai Chau, the White Thai valley, where the walk between villages runs along the rice terraces.

Ninh Binh follows — the “Halong Bay on land”, seen by bicycle and then by sampan between the limestone peaks. And then the bay itself: a full 24 hours aboard a traditional junk, with the Luon cave by rowing boat, a swim at Ti-Top island when the weather allows, and dinner on deck.

The night on the junk is the part people describe when they get home. Build the trip around it rather than treating it as a day excursion.

The centre: two very different old towns

Hue was the imperial capital: a morning sampan on the Perfume River, the Thien Mu pagoda, the Minh Mang mausoleum and the Imperial City. Hoi An, reached over the Hai Van Pass, is smaller and gentler — the Japanese Bridge, the Fujian assembly hall and a boat on the Thu Bon river at sunset. One free day here is deliberate; it is the town people most want time in.

The south: the Golden Bridge, Saigon and the Mekong

On the way south you stop at the Golden Bridge in the Ba Na hills, held up by two giant stone hands. Then Saigon — the Central Post Office, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Chinatown — with a day in the Mekong Delta at My Tho, by boat and tuk-tuk through the workshops, and a day at the Cu Chi tunnels, ending with a dinner cruise on the Saigon river.

What the programme includes

Return flights with Turkish Airlines, both internal flights, twelve nights in five-star hotels plus the night on the junk, a French-speaking guide throughout, a private vehicle, all listed entrance fees and the meals set out day by day.