Ms. Saigon

Vietnam in twelve days asks your group to hold two very different cities in mind at once: Hanoi, the north's French-colonial capital where the smell of pho drifts through narrow Old Quarter streets, and Ho Chi Minh City, the south's kinetic commercial engine where motorbikes outnumber stoplights by a comfortable margin. The route between them is the point. Your group moves steadily south, and by the time you arrive in Ho Chi Minh City on Day 9, students have already gathered enough context — ancient trading port, imperial capital, jungle-covered bay — to understand why this country has absorbed so much history and emerged from it looking entirely like itself.