Day 01
Hanoi City Highlights Tour
- 8.00 - 8.30 am: We'll pick you up from your hotel and take you to visit the Ho Chi Minh Complex, which includes Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum - the final resting place of the beloved national hero, Uncle Ho - and President Ho Chi Minh's stilt house, where he lived on and off from 1958 to 1969.
- 9.30 am: You'll visit the One Pillar Pagoda, which is actually a group of structures that collectively make up a pagoda built over the water in the middle of a square lake.
- After that, you'll have a chance to explore Tran Quoc Pagoda on the shore of West Lake. From there, you'll continue to the Temple of Literature, which was Vietnam's first university and is dedicated to Confucius.
12.30 pm: You will have lunch at a restaurant in the Old Quarter. Afterwards, you'll visit Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son Temple - the heart and soul of Hanoi. - Next, head to one of the following:
- OPTION 1: TUE, THU, SAT, SUNDAY
You'll stop at the Museum of Ethnology. This superb museum showcases the depth of Vietnamese cultural diversity with an astounding collection of 15,000 artifacts gathered from throughout Vietnam. Maps, displays, and dioramas are labelled in Vietnamese, French, and English. Exhibits portray a typical village market, the making of conical hats, and a Tay shamanic ceremony, while videos show the real thing. You can also check out a traditional Black Thai house reconstructed in the museum. There's also a centre for research and conservation where scientists from all over the world study traditional Vietnamese cultures. - OPTION 2: MONDAY, WED, FRI
Depart for Bat Trang ceramic village, which is about 20 km away from Hanoi. This is a pottery village with a half-millennium of historical development.
- OPTION 1: TUE, THU, SAT, SUNDAY
- 03.30 - 04.00 pm: Take the car and return to your hotel.
Trip ends.
Additional options: enjoy a Water Puppet Show from 15.30 to 16.15, or take an electric car or cyclo ride around Hanoi's Old Quarter.
