9:00 am Escape to the countryside
Start the morning at Café SlowlyOpened since 2023 in Tra Que Groentendorp, where alleys are named after herbs and plants. The café, in a rustic wooden building, has veranda seating overlooking the vegetable gardens – ideal for sipping an Americano (45,000 dong) while listening to birdsong. Then go to A Nhana café and cultural space in a nha san (wooden stilt house), transported from Nghe An province. On the upper floor you will find handicrafts, including wooden sculptures, brocade fabrics and pottery, made by artisans from Vietnam’s ethnic minority groups. Enjoy a fresh mango smoothie (Dong 60,000) downstairs on ornate furniture, while the wind stirs the palm leaves in the green garden.
11:30 am Dine next to lush rice fields
Travel past coconut groves, waterways and buffalos cooling themselves in the mud until you arrive tok., in a quiet alley. What started as a pop-up restaurant – tok. stands for ‘take over kitchen’ – is now a refined eatery that combines Vietnamese ingredients with modern European cuisine. The stylish, open-plan dining space extends to outdoor tables and sunbeds overlooking a sea of gently undulating rice fields, a serene place to try dishes like grilled eggplant with minced beef, chickpeas and roasted sesame seeds (Dong 190,000) or torched snapper with apple, pomelo and hibiscus slaw (Dong 340,000).
12:30 pm Meet artists and silk weavers
Back in the Old Town, Le Dac Tu spends hours every day painting on the streets, creating impressionistic watercolours: delicate lines outline wires, bicycles and roofs, while soft brushstrokes capture the amber walls of old shophouses. Bee Tu Hoianits small gallery, buying postcards for 50,000 dong or larger originals from around 1.2 million dong. For a completely different craft, visit the Daisu Side workshop (free) to see how silk is woven on traditional wooden looms. You can also stay a little longer outside the old town to visit it Xuong Tai Sinhor “Rebirth Workshop”. The rusting corrugated iron walls, round windows and a roof opening through which rainwater feeds a tree reflect the eccentric, environmentally conscious works of Nguyen Quoc Dan: salvaged metal sculptures and eerie human figures formed from melted plastic waste (donations welcome; contact in advance).
1:30 p.m Relax during a Vietnamese tea ceremony
After days of exploring, take a break for a Vietnamese tea ceremony La.Kao tea housea cozy, personal experience in a quiet environment. La.Kao, open since 2023, offers dozens of teas; a tasting of three varieties takes about an hour (200,000 dong). The host uses a bamboo ladle to pour water from a Japanese cast-iron kettle into a Chinese porcelain teapot. Each tea is steeped three times, with the flavor changing with each brew: Dragon’s Tail, a delicate white tea, starts out sweet and floral before developing woody notes; Green Snail Spring, from old Snowshan trees, becomes slightly more bitter; and Putaleng Red Shan starts out cocoa-tinged and deepens with each infusion. You can also smell the leaves and learn the story behind each tea, often hand-picked from wild trees in Vietnam’s northern mountains.
