Our chauffeured luxury car is waiting when you arrive at Noi Bai airport. The one hour trip into Hanoi takes you past cornfields, ancient villages, and a flood plain of rice paddies, before you reach the city’s ancient, narrow streets. The rest of the day is free for you to explore the Ancient Quarter, or take a twilight cyclo (pedicab) ride around Hoan Kiem Lake.

The Metropole’s pastry chefs are at work before dawn to make enough breads and croissants for Hanoi’s most fabulous breakfast buffet. At 9am your private guide escorts you by cyclo to enjoy Hanoi's most important sites: Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum (if open), the One Pillar Pagoda, Temple of Literature, Hoan Kiem Lake, Ngoc Son Pagoda, and the meandering streets of the Ancient Quarter. Tonight you have tickets to the Water Puppet Theater - a uniquely Vietnamese art form combining puppetry, water ballet, and folk music.

After an early breakfast you drive deep into the countryside. Along the way you get an intimate view of rural life in northern Vietnam. Around noon you board a beautifully appointed teakwood junk and sail silently into mystical, magnificent Halong Bay, dotted with dramatic dragon-teeth islands, one of Asia's most photographed natural wonders. You anchor in a quiet cove as twilight paints the bay purple against a flaming orange sky. Sleep aboard as the water slaps softly against the vessel. All meals (including wine at dinner) aboard are included.

Wake at dawn to enjoy an unforgettable sunrise. This morning you sail to a different corner of Halong. Maybe you will stop to explore an island cave or two, or anchor for a leisurely swim in a secluded cove. Time seems to disappear here. After a huge lunch of fresh seafood you will return to Hanoi. Tonight is a perfect opportunity to make an appearance at Apocolypse Now, or one of Hanoi's other hopping night spots.

If you are an early bird, you may enjoy a morning walk around Hoan Kiem Lake before breakfast. Hundreds of people come here to take their morning exercise; older people practice Tai Chi, shirtless young athletes jog or play badminton. It's a beautiful way to begin the day (be sure to bring a camera). Your chauffeur will deliver you to Noi Bai Airport in time for your flight, or why not continue your grand adventure with some of our great side trips in North Vietnam, or a short flight to sizzling Saigon or historic Hue and Hoi An?

Includes private airport transportation; hotel accommodation with tax, service, and daily breakfast beginning on day 2; personal guides; sightseeing with admissions and evening water puppet performance; round trip transportation to Halong Bay and boat cruise with overnight accommodation on board; Day 4 lunch. Not included: airfare; local transportation; other meals and drinks; other admissions; gratuities; features not specifically mentioned in the itinerary; or items of a purely personal nature.