A Week in Vietnam

Fly into Hanoi - the Delhi nonstop runs about 4.5 to 5 hours, and Vietnam is only 1.5 hours ahead, so you arrive fresh. Ease in through the Old Quarter on foot, watch the train street from one of the sanctioned cafes, and order the city's oddball classic: egg coffee.

Hanoi proper: the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex and the Temple of Literature in the morning, Hoan Kiem lake as the light softens, and a water-puppet show to close - an art form that exists nowhere else. Cross roads slowly and predictably; the scooter river parts around steady walkers.

Day trip to Halong Bay: about 2.5 hours to the coast, then hours among the limestone karsts with a cave stop and kayaking on the calm stretches. If the bay grabs you - it usually does - the overnight-cruise version is the single best upgrade in Vietnam, and we can fold it into your final quote.

Fly the 80-minute hop to Da Nang and reset to beach mode on My Khe's long sand. Central Vietnam runs warmer and brighter than the north; dinner options cluster along the beach road, several of them Indian. The evening is best spent barefoot: walk the shoreline as the fishing boats come in and pick a dinner table at strolling pace.

Ba Na Hills early, on a weekday if you can: the record-setting cable car up, the Golden Bridge held in giant stone hands, the French village at the top - and down before the afternoon clouds swallow the views. Evening in Hoi An, 40 minutes away, where the lantern-lit old town earns every photograph.

Fly south to Ho Chi Minh City, the country's commercial heart, and feel the tempo change again. Take the evening on foot downtown - broad boulevards, French-era facades, and food streets that keep going long after the offices empty. Save the heavier history for tomorrow; tonight is for getting the measure of the city from a pavement table.

Morning at the Cu Chi tunnels, the war-history site that explains more about Vietnam than any museum caption, then back for the city's museums or markets. Treat the war exhibits with the gravity locals bring to them; this is living memory here.

A last bowl of pho, a final Vietnamese coffee - the condensed-milk kind - and out through Tan Son Nhat. The Delhi run home is about 5 to 5.5 hours; a week in three cities somehow always ends a day too early.