



Odynovo Vietnam 13 Day Private Tour - Part 2 (Hue, Da Nang & Hoi An) & Part 3 ( Hanoi, Halong Bay)
My Partner and i travelled to Vietnam in March 2026, and we had Odynovo design and book everything for our 13 day Private tour, Odynovo were really good for the most part, almost everything was organized and pre-paid. Our First part was in Ho Chi Minh and Can Tho (Reviewed Under Odynovo Ho Chi Minh) Part 2: We arrived in Hue from our Domestic Flight and were greeted by our guide with no issues and transferred to our Hotel by our driver Mr Luv who skilled and professional, We opted for 4-star accommodations and every where we stayed was great with all the facilities and services we required, we found Hue to be significantly quieter than Ho Chi Minh. On our next day our guide took us to explore some sites in Hue (Imperial Citadel, Forbidden City, Thien Mu Pagoda & Emperor Tu Duc's Tomb), followed by a quick ferry down the perfume river to a delicious lunch. We spent our free night in Hue exploring the closed market streets in the Centre of Hue and some dinner - the atmosphere was delightful, quite busy too. The following day we were travelling down to Hoi An, on the way we drove down the road of tombs filled with hundreds of old Vietnamese graves and took a quick trip to a local fishing farm to try our hand at some traditional net fishing - no luck! We stopped at a lovely little lagoon freshwater pearl lagoon / restaurant for a delicious lunch, then drove down along the bay, up through the Hi Van Pass (an old Vietnamese fortification) and through Da Nang to arrive at our Hoi An Hotel - Lasenta (the best of our entire trip). The next 3 days were in Hoi An, 2 site-seeing with our guide and 1 free day. For the guided days we visited a local mini-farm to witness the farming of the land followed by a wonderful cooking class experience for our lunch, this was at 11:30am, and we had only just eaten Breakfast at 9:00, so the timing was unfortunate. After the cooking class the guide seemed pretty eager to be on his way so we had the afternoon at leisure to explore nearby - we visited Hoi An Memories Land in the evening which was a nice change of pace. The 2nd guided day was a short 2 hour tour of Ancient town (Japanese Bridge, Chinese Temple & Merchants House), afterward the guide left us again for the afternoon, after some relaxing we headed back to Ancient town for dinner and the night markets. We spent our free day walking through the town / rice fields before an Amazing spa experience at the hotel. The following morning we were picked up by our guide to travel to Da Nang for our Flight to Hanoi, this unfortunately had some errors / confusions. The itinerary stated our flight was indicated to leave at 11:05am, but was actually 10:15am (this seemed to be the standard time for this flight run) our guide had the wrong information as well and we almost missed our flight - some definitely unneeded stress for this part - so double check all your flights yourself! Reflecting on our experience for our Hue / Hoi An guide, we were a little disappointed. He spoke English really well and was generally fun to be around, but he just didn't seem too interested or invested in enriching our experience. For attractions we would get a little information then he would let us walk around ourselves while he used his phone and had a cigarette. I also assume they get paid by the day and was intent on spending as little time as possible with us and didn't share with us any information on sites/experiences we might be interested in for our free time periods. Part 3: We arrived in Hanoi, met our guide Bom and our driver Mr Duc who were both lovely and went out of their way to enrich our experience. After we were picked up our guide Bom showed us to Ho Chi Minh tomb and historical site which was immense and interesting, Bom did his best to explain the history and culture with his limited English skill, we were really grateful. We were then transferred to our Hotel in the center of Hanoi, the accommodation was spectacular as always. The evening was a quick rickshaw ride around the old Quarter and then dinner and some self exploration. The following day was a 3-hour drive to Halong Bay for our Halong Bay Cruise for the night, we stopped at a Saltwater Pearl Farm on the way to experience how they perform non-intrusive micro-surgery to seed the oyster to produce pearls without hurting it. Afterward we arrived at Halong for our Overnight cruise with Athena Signature Cruise - the cruise boat, the staff, the food everything was fantastic, they took us further over to Bai Tu Long Bay where we dodged a lot of the crowds and it was much more serene - a great choice! Overnight on the Boat among the limestone pillars, in the morning more delicious food, a kayak through a remote floating fishing village and a quick cave visit before heading back the Mainland and drive back to Hanoi for evening leisure. Our last day was a free day in Hanoi where we did some shopping, and exploration ourself. Finally transferred to the Airport in the morning for our flight home. Our guide and Driver for Hanoi were lovely, Mr Duc was professional and safe on the chaotic roads, and Bom our guide tried his very best to enrich our travels - once he has improved his English skills further he will make an exceptional guide! Overall our trip was great, everything was organized and paid for in advance, we got unlucky with a guide and some errors on the itinerary but otherwise it was smooth sailing and a bit of a whirlwind! This was our first ever organized tour, so i have nothing to reference against but we saw and did everything we expected to! Thanks Vivian at Odynovo