Echoes of the Wild: Conservation in North Vietnam and Laos

Welcome to Vietnam! Once you’ve cleared immigration and collected your bags at Noi Bai airport, you’re met by your guide and driven about 50 minutes into central Hanoi, a city that is both modern and traditional, chaotic and serene. Hotel check-in is from 2 pm.

Meals: None today

From 8 am, stroll around Hoan Kiem Lake to St Joseph’s Cathedral, then walk the Old Quarter along Phung Hung Street beside the French-built railway, where locals have turned their homes into cafés right beside the tracks. Escape the bustle in a local home over strong green tea and hear about the lives of the family who have lived there for generations, then try a Hanoi coffee speciality such as egg, salt or coconut coffee.

In the afternoon, take a cyclo to Dong Xuan Market, then continue to a peaceful garden house for a hands-on cooking class. Learn how Vietnamese cooks balance herbs, spices and fish sauce as you make Hanoi fried spring rolls, beef noodle salad and chicken pho, then sit down to enjoy the feast you’ve cooked.

Meals: Breakfast, dinner

Leave Hanoi at 8 am for the 3-hour drive to Ninh Binh Province and the Bear Sanctuary run by Four Paws, the global animal welfare organisation. A member of the team takes you through the bear kitchen, vet clinic and semi-wild enclosures and shares the bears’ rescue stories, followed by a fresh vegetarian lunch at the centre.

Continue to Cuc Phuong National Park and the Endangered Primate Rescue Center, home to some of Asia’s rarest langurs and gibbons, then the Carnivore and Pangolin Education Centre, where pangolins, binturongs and civets that can’t return to the wild now live. Finish at the Cave of Prehistoric Man, where human remains and stone tools about 7,500 years old were found, before driving to Tam Coc.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch

Head to Thung Nham, an ecotourism area known for its birdlife, for a 2-hour sampan boat trip past the Grotto of Buddha to the bird station. Storks, egrets, herons and Asian openbills are among the 40 to 50 species found here.

Then drive about 3 hours, swapping Ninh Binh’s limestone karsts for the forested mountains, stilt-house villages and terraced rice fields of Pu Luong Nature Reserve.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch

After breakfast among the fields and mountains, walk down through the valley past farmland and rice terraces to Lan Village, a weaving community where fabric is still made on traditional looms. Have lunch in a local home, then cool off with a swim at Hieu Waterfall before you’re driven back to your lodge.

The walk is 6 to 12 km of easy walking (3 to 5 hours) and can be adapted to suit your fitness.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch

Follow mountain roads past ethnic Thai villages to the Na Meo border, where you complete formalities and meet your Lao guide and driver. Continue to Viengxay, where between 1964 and 1973 more than 20,000 people lived in a hidden city of schools, hospitals and government offices built inside limestone caves. An audio tour, including interviews with locals who lived there, brings the story to life. Overnight in Sam Neua.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

Browse Sam Neua’s market for Houaphanh textiles, then drive about an hour to Ban Son Khoua, gateway to the Nam Et–Phou Louey National Protected Area, Laos’ largest national park and a refuge for gaur, sambar deer and white-cheeked gibbons. A 1.5-hour longtail boat trip takes you to the park substation, where you hear about the work to protect tigers and their prey and enjoy a picnic dinner by the campfire. After dark, float silently downstream with the engines off, spotlighting nocturnal animals such as sambar deer, otters, civets and slow lorises. Overnight in a simple eco hut in the park.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

Before breakfast, walk in the jungle with a local guide to learn about medicinal plants and the area’s Secret War history. Float back to the village, try some lao hai (jar rice wine) and fill out a wildlife monitoring form, which sets the bonus paid into the village development fund from your visit. After lunch, it’s a long drive (about 7 hours) to the sleepy riverside town of Nong Khiaw.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch

Drive to the dam and board a boat down the spectacular Nam Ou River, with a picnic lunch on the way. Stop at the Pak Ou Caves, where thousands of gold-lacquered Buddha statues fill two caves in the limestone cliffs where the Nam Ou meets the Mekong, then continue to Luang Prabang. Climb Mount Phousi for sunset over the city and stop at the evening market on the way back to your hotel.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch

Visit Wat Visoun, Wat Aham and Wat That, then the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre to learn about Laos’ hill tribes. Lunch is at Tamarind, one of Luang Prabang’s most celebrated restaurants. In the afternoon, tour the former Royal Palace, now the National Museum, and walk to Wat Mai, Wat Sensoukaram and Wat Xieng Thong, the city’s most revered temple, built in 1560.

Meals: Breakfast, lunch

Early risers can watch the dawn alms giving, as lines of orange-robed monks walk barefoot through the streets collecting offerings. After breakfast, drive 45 minutes through the countryside to Kuang Si Waterfall to walk in the forest and swim in the turquoise pools. On the way back, there’s an optional stop at the Free the Bears sanctuary and a visit to the Lao Buffalo Dairy, a social enterprise farm, for homemade ice cream. The rest of the day is free.

Meals: Breakfast

Free time to wander or shop before your transfer to Luang Prabang airport for your onward flight.

Meals: Breakfast

Flights not included.