Tour Highlights

1: a side car tour of Hanoi to see the French Old Quarter, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and the Army Museum.

2: the charming hill tribe village of Mai Chau where you can experience rural lifestyles mostly unchanged in over 500 years.

3: the Dong Loc intersection, or km 0 of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was a heavily bombed staging area where Vietnamese trucks and troops began their journey southwards.

4: the Mu Gia and Ban Karai passes, where much of the Trail's truck traffic passed into Laos.

5: the UNESCO World Heritage Phong Nha Cave, that housed a North Vietnamese Army field hospital and ferry that enabled heavily bombed truck and troop traffic to cross the Son River.

6: the UNESCO World Heritage listed Khe Bang National Park where numerous arms of the Trail, including the critical route 20, crossed over into Laos. See the original cobblestone track that marks the Trail and ride through some of the most delightful jungle in Southeast Asia.

7: the former US Marine base of Khe Sanh, site of the famous siege, that was a prelude to the Tet Offensive in 1968.

8: the former DMZ (de-militarised zone), straddling the border between former North and South Vietnam, where destroyed bridges and former US artillery bases still exist.

9: the Vinh Moc tunnels, where entire villages lived underground just north of the DMZ in a maze of tunnels for the entire war.

10: the former imperial capital of Hue, whose emperor's palace still bears the scares of the fierce battles that took place there during the Tet Offensive.

11: the infamous A Shaw valley, where Hamburger Hill is, that witnessed many fierce search and destroy missions in efforts to lock down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

12: the charming 15th century UNESCO World Heritage listed fishing town of Hoi An, famous for its fantastic shopping and wonderful architecture.

13: the delightful Hai Van pass, that looks out over China beach, where US Marines first landed in force in 1965.

14: the former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, where the gates of the former Presidential Palace were broken down by North Vietnamese Army tanks at the war's conclusion. Enjoy the view from the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel, popular with wartime journalists.