South Vietnam Tour Package: A Soul-Stirring Exploration

Arrival Flight: Guest’s tickets

Xin Chao! Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Upon arrival at Hanoi Airport, your private guide and driver are waiting to meet you, holding up a welcome signboard with your names on it and take you directly to your hotel in the city center.

After checking-in, you will have time to relax and adjust to the pace of Ho Chi Minh City, still called Saigon by the locals. There will be a short tour briefing this evening with your guide followed by a welcome dinner at a local Vietnamese restaurant.

Please note: Your travel documents contain a Visa-on-Arrival letter (unless otherwise arranged). Please ensure to pack this in your carry-on luggage. Your Visa-on-Arrival letter must be presented to Customs upon entry into the country.

Overnight in Ho Chi Minh City.

Morning
Start the day with visiting some of Ho Chi Minh City’s key highlights. We’ll tailor your tour to suit you, but we particularly recommend visiting the Notre Dame Cathedral, the ornate City Hall (Hotel De Ville), the old Opera House, the historic Rex Hotel, the Central Post Office, renowned for its architecture, and Ben Thanh Market, where vendors display a vast array of goods and handicrafts, appealing to every taste.

Later stop at the Reunification Palace and the moving War Remnants Museum to for an insightful, yet sombre, look into Vietnam’s military history and turbulent past.

Proceed to the atmospheric Jade Emperor Pagoda before finishing the day in fine style with a sundowner at the top of the Bitexco Tower, the tallest building in Vietnam

Afternoon
After enjoying lunch at a local restaurant you will be transferred to Cu Chi, a small community located northwest of Ho Chi Minh City, known for its network of deep tunnels that provided shelter and an effective source of infiltration for the Vietcong during the later years of the Vietnam War.

Upon arrival, you will watch a short introductory video from the period before exploring the tunnels, the most famous battlegrounds in the world. The hidden network of Viet Cong tunnels is believed to stretch to “hundreds of miles,” in total length, housed living quarters, storage rooms, makeshift hospitals, and kitchens…etc. Although originally very narrow, some parts have been widened for the tourists and you have the opportunity to explore parts of the system.

Please note that these tunnels will be hot and can get claustrophobic, so there is an option if you’d like to view from above ground. 

Try some of the main food of the Viet Cong Soldiers with a cassava tasting served with tangy tea. After experiencing the Cu Chi Tunnels, return to Ho Chi Minh City where the remainder of the day will be at your leisure.

Overnight in Ho Chi Minh City.

Morning
After breakfast, your private guide and driver will take you out of HCM City in a private vehicle and onto some beautiful country roads to Ben Tre Town in the Mekong Delta, famous for its vast rice fields, numerous waterways, and beautiful landscapes. Known as the ‘rice bowl’ of Vietnam, this region produces most of Vietnam’s fruit, rice, sugar cane, and coconuts.

After the two-hour drive through the lush farming land, you will arrive in Ben Tre where you will set out on a motorized boat trip on narrow channels winding through the coconut forest. During the boat ride, you will stop at the local cottage industries to see how the local people make bricks and weave sleeping mats by hand. Learn about their craft handed down through generations.

Take a leisure walk along the village lanes, visiting the local homes to try fresh fruits, taste delicious honey tea while enjoying a local Tai Tu music show. Continue to visit another workshop where the local delicacy of coconut candy is produced and a wide range of coconut husk and fiber products are skillfully handcrafted.

Next, take a small sampan through palm-fringed back canals, gliding peacefully along the hidden waterways surrounded by an immense variety of tropical plants. The quiet, rural setting is a welcome and restorative retreat to the frenetic buzz of HCM City which seems far, far away.

Enjoy sitting in the back a Motor Cart (xe lôi) passing local hamlets, rice fields, coconut groves, and lush orchard farms while meeting with local people.

Afternoon
After enjoying lunch at a local restaurant you will return to Ben Tre town and continue the drive through the fields and towns of the Mekong to Can Tho city, stopping at the Vinh Trang Pagoda if time permits.

Evening
Spend the evening at your leisure. Explore Can Tho night market by yourself and try some local food. The market streets come alive with dozens of bustling food stalls selling grilled meats and tofu on skewers, as well as grilled rice-paper banh trang nuong(‘Vietnamese pizza’), etc.

 Overnight in Can Tho.

Morning
Rise early for a boat trip to Cai Rang market, the biggest floating wholesale market of the Mekong region. The market is filled with hundreds of small boats darting through the water as vendors sell their wares. Glide through the matrix of boats to see how the locals trade their fruits and vegetables and learn more about the floating marketing culture and the floating life on the boats. After that, you will be treated with a delicious local breakfast (rice noodle soup) on the boat just like the way the local people do. You will also have a chance to stop at a local boat to enjoy some of the succulent fruit in the season.

Leaving the market, continue your boat ride along narrow canals to visit a traditional homemade rice noodle factory where you can see how the locals make rice noodles, and enjoy the homemade “rice noodle pizza”.

Get back to the city to visit Binh Thuy Old House where you will meet the present owner of this beautiful home and its furnishings.

 Afternoon

After lunch, you will return to Ho Chi Minh city and spend the rest of day at leisure or you can go shopping for souvenirs at Ben Thanh market…

Overnight in Ho Chi Minh City.

Breakfast at the hotel. Your private driver and guide are waiting for you at the hotel and transfer to Ho Chi Minh City International Airport for a short flight to Phu Quoc island.

Landed at Phu Quoc international Airport, you will be welcomed and transferred by private car with driver to your hotel. Be free at your own leisure or discover the town yourself.

Overnight in Phu Quoc.

You’ll be picked up at your hotel then transferred by car to the port for embarkation. Leave the harbor and board the speedboat for Turtlehead Rock Beach. Enjoy beach activities, get yourself acclimated to the water, snorkel gears, listen to guidelines and safety briefs before heading to the next two snorkeling spots.

Start snorkeling at Phu Quoc Half-moon reef or Northeast Coral Reef. This an ideal coral reef for you to do free-dive or just simple snorkel on the surface (within your ability) to explore a great variety of coral species, anemones, schools of fish and other sea creatures at different depth ranges from 2 to 9 meters, namely: Phu Quoc Golden Anemone garden, Big Helmet-shaped Honeycomb coral, Coral-covered Canyon, Coral-covered Cliff, Anemone Ground, Ocean Flower…

Continue to head for Coral Mountain – Coral Hill. It has a great clarity of the water which is in favor of us in exploring the largest Cactus Coral grove in Phu Quoc Island (Coral Mountain).

Re-charge energy taken for snorkeling on a peaceful island with fruit and fruit juice served. Strolling along the beach or leisurely sitting in a beach chair facing the blue sea, you relax with a drink (fruit juice or beer).

Leave the island and back to the harbor for speedboat ride back to your hotel.

Overnight in Phu Quoc.

Start your day with a delightful breakfast at your hotel. Then, savor the freedom of a leisurely day on the island, surrounded by its serene and tranquil ambiance until your guide and driver pick you up to the airport for a short flight to Ho Chi Minh city.

Overnight in Ho Chi Minh City.

Departure Flight: Guest’s own tickets

Your private transfer greets you at the hotel after breakfast and escorts you to Ho Chi Minh International Airport where you board your flight home or travel on to more adventures, we will help you with the planning.