Breakfast at hotel.
8.30 am: Tran Quoc Pagoda & West Lake
The bus and tour guide will pick you up from hotel in old quarter about 8 AM, driving to Tran Quoc Pagoda is located on an island east of West Lake (Tay Ho District), with 1500-year history, which is considered to be the oldest in Thang Long-Hanoi. It was the Buddhist center of Thang Long citadel in the Ly and Tran dynasties. With its historical and architectural values, Tran Quoc pagoda is famous for its sacred Buddha land, which attracts many Buddhists and visitors to Vietnam.
9.30 am: Ho Chi Minh complex
Visitor to Ho Chi Minh complex (Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the presidential palace, house on stilts
the final resting place of Uncle Ho, where He lived and worked from 1954 - 1969).
11 am: Vietnam Museum of Ethnology
This is the most recent yet probably the largest and undoubtedly the most interesting Museums in Ha Noi and Viet Nam. There are both indoors and outdoors section, while the in – housed exhibition is particularly informative, the outdoors display and activities make the museum stand out from the rest. There are a number of houses modeling after the traditional architecture of ethnic minorities, especially those who live in Northern and Central highlands.
12.30 pm: Lunch Time
2 pm: The temple of literature (The first university in Vietnam)
Being an ancient school of Thang Long and the first university in Vietnam, Temple of Literature is acknowledged as an ancient historical-cultural heritage which gives tourists deeper understanding about Hanoi's years of culture and tradition.
3 pm: Hoa Lo prison
It was built in 1899. The French kept mainly political prisoners here along with those awaiting sentencing at the nearby Court of Justice, also where American pilots who had been shot down and captured were kept as prisoners of war. The pilots called it, sarcastically, the “Hanoi Hilton.” John McCain was held here at various times during his five and a half year as a POW.
3.30 – 4 pm: Take the car back your hotel.
Overnight in Hanoi.
Meal: Breakfast at hotel, Lunch at local restaurant.
Please note:
- On Monday and Friday morning Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and museum are closed, instead by Vietnamese women museum.
- Short/reveal clothing is not allowed to come in mausoleum and temple.