8.00: We 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. Then we visit the President Ho Chi Minh’s stilt house where he lived off and on from 1958 to 1969. You’ll also go to the Ho Chi Minh Museum where you can learn about this remarkable man and what he did for Vietnam and the region.

Next, 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 the Tran Quoc Pagoda on the Shore of West Lake. From there you’ll go to the Temple of Literature which was Vietnam’s first university and is dedicated to Confucius.

Alternatively you can choose to have lunch at a restaurant in the Old Quarter. Afterwards you’ll walk through the Old Quarter where you’ll get a sense of the daily life of this busy city on your way to Hoan Kiem Lake – the heart and soul of Hanoi. This is the part of town where the commercial streets of modern Hanoi meet the ancient 36 streets and numerous alleys amongst temples, pagodas and lakes.

Finally you’ll stop at 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 labeled in Vietnamese, French and English. Displays portray a typical village market, the making of comical hats and a Tay shamanic ceremony, 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.