Northern Heritage — Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh City → Hanoi
The Northern Heritage is SJourney Vietnam Luxury Express's flagship eight-day journey from the electric streets of Ho Chi Minh City to the ancient heart of Hanoi — a 1,726-kilometre sweep through the full length of Vietnam aboard the country's first purpose-built luxury train. Travelling northward, guests experience the nation's tapestry in reverse chronological order: from the French-colonial south, through the Cham coastal kingdoms and the imperial Hue heartland, past the limestone wilderness of Quang Binh, and finally into the millennia-old capital of the north.
Each night the train rolls quietly through the darkness while guests sleep in private en-suite cabins; each morning the doors open onto an entirely different landscape and culture. Days are unhurried and purposeful — a sampan through a UNESCO karst waterway here, a rickshaw through royal streets there, a cooking class beside rice paddies, a lantern-lit stroll through a four-hundred-year-old trading port. All excursions, all meals crafted from local produce, all beverages, and all guides are included, so the journey asks nothing of you except to look out of the window.
SJourney is operated by the team behind Vietnam Luxury Express and pairs the romance of the historic North–South Railway with the privacy and gastronomy of a boutique river cruise. The Northern Heritage itinerary is a mirror image of the southbound Southbound Legacy, offering the same programme of stops for travellers who prefer to finish in Hanoi — and it sells out quickly. Contact Palace Trains for current availability and pricing.
- ✦Sampan journey through Trang An's UNESCO karst waterways in Ninh Binh
- ✦River-boat exploration of the ancient Phong Nha Cave system in Quang Binh
- ✦Full-day immersion in Hoi An's UNESCO World Heritage Ancient Town
- ✦Imperial Citadel, royal tombs, and Incense Village artisans in Hue
- ✦Ancient Cham Poshanu Towers and Fish Sauce Museum in Phan Thiet
- ✦Craft village workshops in Phu Yen — Gothic Mang Lang Church and mat weavers
- ✦All-inclusive luxury with private en-suite cabins and gourmet dining throughout
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 — Ho Chi Minh City (Departure)
Guests are collected from their Saigon hotel at 4:30 PM and transferred to the departure station for VIP lounge check-in. A welcome celebration with Champagne and canapés precedes boarding, and as the train eases north through the city's outskirts, dinner is served in the Bistro Car — a multi-course menu of Vietnamese and international cuisine paired with fine wines. The evening is the perfect moment to settle into your private cabin, unpack, and watch the city lights fade into the tropical night.
Day 2 — Phan Thiet
The train reaches Phan Thiet in the morning, a coastal city famous for its fish sauce industry and its Cham heritage. Guests visit the Poshanu Cham Towers — a cluster of brick temples from the eighth to ninth century perched on a hilltop with sea views, among the best-preserved Cham structures in Vietnam. The day also includes a visit to the Fish Sauce Museum, which illuminates Phan Thiet's identity as the fish-sauce capital of Vietnam, and lunch at an oceanfront restaurant. In the afternoon the train continues north, and dinner is served onboard as the coastline scrolls past.
Day 3 — Phu Yen
Phu Yen is one of Vietnam's least-visited provinces and one of the most scenically dramatic — a coastline of dark basalt headlands, turquoise coves, and sleepy fishing villages. The morning excursion visits Mang Lang Church, a 19th-century Gothic structure that is a listed national historical monument and the site where the Vietnamese romanised script (quoc ngu) was first printed. Guests then observe master weavers at the Phu Tan Mat Weaving Village, a tradition passed down through generations of artisans producing the colourful rush mats for which the province is known. A fresh seafood lunch at a local restaurant follows before guests return to the train for an afternoon of rest in the observation car or at the bar.
Day 4 — Hoi An (via Quang Nam)
The train arrives in Quang Nam province and guests travel to Hoi An, the UNESCO World Heritage Ancient Town that was one of Southeast Asia's busiest trading ports in the 15th–19th centuries. The day begins creatively: a woodblock painting session at Au Lac Wood Art studio and a hands-on pottery class at Thanh Ha Pottery Village, one of Vietnam's oldest ceramic traditions. A home-hosted lunch introduces regional cuisine before the afternoon is given over to free exploration of the old town — the lantern-hung merchant streets, the Phuc Kien Chinese Assembly Hall, ancient merchant houses, and the iconic Japanese Covered Bridge (built circa 1593). Guests return to the train for dinner as the locomotive heads north through Quang Nam.
Day 5 — Hue
Hue was Vietnam's imperial capital from 1802 to 1945 and remains the country's cultural and spiritual centre. The day opens with a rickshaw ride through the early-morning streets — one of the most atmospheric ways to enter the city — before a full morning inside the vast Imperial Citadel of the Nguyen Dynasty, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of palaces, throne rooms, and ornamental gardens within triple concentric walls. After lunch the excursion visits the Tomb of Tu Duc, the most elegant of the royal mausoleums, set among pine forests and lotus ponds. Guests then spend time at an Incense Village where artisans hand-roll incense sticks infused with cinnamon, agarwood, and lotus — a sensory highlight of the entire journey. The train departs in the evening, crossing the Lang Co Lagoon — a strip of turquoise water between the sea and the mountains — as dusk turns to night.
Day 6 — Quang Binh
Quang Binh is home to the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site protecting one of the world's most extensive cave systems. After a leisurely breakfast onboard, guests board boats for a tranquil cruise along the Son River, its jade-green waters flanked by forested limestone peaks and paddy fields. The cruise leads to the entrance of Phong Nha Cave, a vast river cave adorned with spectacular stalactites and stalagmites, first explored by a British team in 1990. In the afternoon there is the option to join a Vietnamese cooking class, or guests may simply relax in the observation car as the countryside changes. The evening features a memorable open-air dinner beside the rice paddies before the train continues north.
Day 7 — Ninh Binh
Ninh Binh is often called "Ha Long Bay on land" for its dramatic limestone karsts rising from paddy fields and river valleys. Guests board traditional sampan rowing boats for a journey through the Trang An Landscape Complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (both natural and cultural) of grottoes, temples, and waterways woven between the limestone formations — an experience of profound stillness and beauty. The excursion then visits Hoa Lu, the ancient capital of Vietnam in the 10th and 11th centuries, where the temples of the Dinh and Le dynasties still stand among the karst hills. Lunch and afternoon tea are served onboard as the train makes its final run toward Hanoi, and dinner is a celebratory affair with fine wine.
Day 8 — Hanoi (Arrival)
The train pulls into Hanoi at approximately 5:00 AM. Breakfast is served in the Bistro Car until 8:30 AM, and check-out is at 9:00 AM, allowing guests a gentle final morning onboard. Transfers are provided to Hanoi city-centre hotels or Noi Bai International Airport according to individual flight schedules — the perfect ending to a journey that has traced the entire length of Vietnam in eight unhurried days.
Destinations & Highlights
Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam's southern metropolis — known to its residents as Saigon — is a city of ten million people, perpetual motion, and layered history. French colonial architecture stands beside modernist towers; Buddhist pagodas face bustling markets. The War Remnants Museum, the Reunification Palace, and the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon are among the most visited sites. For the Northern Heritage traveller, the city is the launch pad — but its electric energy sets the tone for the contrasts ahead.
Phan Thiet & Cham Heritage
Phan Thiet's Poshanu Cham Towers are among the finest surviving monuments of the Cham civilisation — a Hindu kingdom that ruled central and southern Vietnam from the second to the 17th century. The towers, built from fired brick without mortar and still standing after twelve centuries, offer an atmospheric introduction to a culture that produced extraordinary sculpture and architecture across coastal Vietnam. The city's other claim to fame — its fish sauce (nuoc mam) — is celebrated at the Fish Sauce Museum, a quirky but genuinely fascinating window into Vietnam's culinary soul.
Hoi An Ancient Town
Hoi An's Ancient Town is one of Asia's best-preserved historic trading ports, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. At its peak in the 16th–17th centuries it was a major entrepôt where Japanese, Chinese, Dutch, and Vietnamese merchants traded silk, ceramics, and spices. The result is an architectural palimpsest: Chinese assembly halls, Japanese merchant houses, a covered wooden bridge built by the Japanese community in 1593, and French colonial shopfronts all within a few compact streets. The town's craft traditions — silk tailoring, lantern-making, woodblock art, and pottery — are still practised today, and the surrounding villages (Thanh Ha for ceramics, An Bang for the beach) enrich the experience further.
Hue — Imperial Capital
Hue served as the seat of the Nguyen Emperors from 1802 until the last emperor, Bao Dai, abdicated in 1945. The Imperial Citadel — modelled on Beijing's Forbidden City but distinctly Vietnamese in its integration with the landscape — covers nearly six square kilometres and contains the Purple Forbidden City, the throne room, and multiple ceremonial halls. Beyond the citadel, the royal mausoleums scattered in the pine hills south of the city are architectural masterpieces in their own right: Tu Duc's tomb is a romantic ensemble of pavilions, ponds, and frangipani gardens designed by the emperor himself as a retreat during his lifetime. Hue cuisine — considered the most refined in Vietnam — also deserves its own pilgrimage.
Quang Binh & Phong Nha Caves
The Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003 (extended 2015) and contains the world's largest known cave, Son Doong, as well as hundreds of other caverns. Phong Nha Cave, accessed by boat along the Son River, is the most iconic — a cathedral-scale river cave whose stalactite formations and Buddhist shrines have been attracting pilgrims and explorers since at least the 9th century. The surrounding karst landscape, draped in primary jungle and threaded by rivers, is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in Southeast Asia.
Ninh Binh & Trang An
The Trang An Landscape Complex became Vietnam's first (and so far only) UNESCO site to achieve dual inscription — as both a natural and a cultural World Heritage Site — in 2014. Its network of rivers, lakes, and caves threading between limestone tower-karsts was formed over 250 million years, and the area has been continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic. Hoa Lu, the 10th–11th-century capital of the Dinh and early Le dynasties, sits within the same landscape: its two remaining temples, Dinh Tien Hoang and Le Dai Hanh, stand in a broad valley ringed by karst peaks that served as natural fortifications for the earliest Vietnamese state.