Was quite disappointed with this tour. We were taken to 3 villages, which were more like the outer suburbs of Hanoi, but just saw a few dirty, messy workshops without much going on. The pottery making was all being done by machines and we didn't see any finished products in the lacquering village, although that was probably the most interesting to learn about how they do it. Embroidery village was just one house with several women sewing and a display of framed embroideries on the walls that were for sale. After having seen the silk embroidery done in parts of China, this was rather underwhelming. The guide was pleasant, but his English was not very good, so a bit hard to communicate. Finally, we were told we would have a picnic lunch included and weren't sure what that meant. We were taken to a dingy restaurant and the guide ordered vegetables and rice for us. When we asked for an additional dish, we were told it was not in the budget, so we would have to pay for it, which we did. The food was disappointing. Only the dish we paid for was half decent. Maybe my expectations were too high, but this tour was not what I expected.

Great tour to get to the grass root levels of the handicraft villages.

Hands on experience for the pottery village as well as a great lunch