The Best Of Vietnam, Cambodia And Laos – 22 Days

Enter the walled city of Angkor Thom through its South Gate, lined with stone gods and demons and crowned with colossal carved faces. At its centre stands the Bayon, a temple of towers where more giant faces smile serenely in every direction. Walk on to the Royal Enclosure and the temple-mountain of Phimeanakas, then along the Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King, their walls alive with carved elephants, warriors and mythical beings.

After lunch, turn to Angkor Wat itself, the largest and most complete of all the temples, built in the 12th century as a vast representation of the Hindu universe. Stroll through its long galleries of carved columns, past libraries, pavilions and courtyards, to the ponds where the five towers are reflected in the still water.

Dinner is served at a restaurant in town.

Visit Ta Prohm, where enormous fig trees and giant creepers have wound their roots through the stonework, so that the temple seems to be slowly reclaimed by the forest. Continue to a cluster of smaller temples nearby: Banteay Kdei and the royal bathing pool of Srah Srang, the unfinished temple-mountain of Ta Keo, and the twin temples of Thommanon and Chau Say Tevoda.

After lunch, drive to Chong Khneas on the shore of the Tonle Sap and board a boat to see a community that lives entirely on the water. Houses, schools, shops and even clinics float on the lake, and fishing families go about their day between them by boat.

Return to Siem Reap for dinner.

Drive out of town on a quiet country road to Banteay Srei, the Citadel of Women, a small temple of pink sandstone carved so finely it looks almost like lacework. Stop along the way at Preah Dak village, then visit Banteay Samre, whose reliefs tell the legends of Vishnu and Krishna.

After lunch, fly to Phnom Penh. Your driver meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel. Later, visit Wat Phnom, the hilltop temple that gave the city its name, then take an hour-long cruise on the river as the sun goes down.

Dinner is at a local restaurant in the city.

Begin at the Royal Palace, with its golden spires, the Throne Hall and the royal residence still in use today. Within its grounds, the Silver Pagoda takes its name from the thousands of silver tiles that cover its floor. It is less a working temple than a treasury, home to the Emerald Buddha and many other precious statues.

Continue to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former school that became the S-21 prison under the Khmer Rouge, and then to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek outside the city. Both are deeply moving places that help you understand what Cambodia lived through in the late 1970s.

Transfer to the airport for the flight to Ho Chi Minh City, where your driver meets you and takes you to your hotel.

Drive out to Cu Chi, where a vast network of narrow tunnels allowed Viet Cong fighters to live, fight and hide beneath the forest during the Vietnam War. See the trapdoors, kitchens and meeting rooms, and crawl through a short section if you are curious.

Back in the city after lunch, set off on a tour of Ho Chi Minh City’s best-known sights: the red-brick Notre Dame Cathedral and the old Central Post Office across the square, the Reunification Palace (also called Independence Palace), where the war came to an end in 1975, and the War Remnants Museum. Finish among the stalls of Ben Thanh Market.

Leave Saigon for the delta. Here you board a sampan and wind along narrow canals, gliding past fruit orchards, rice paddies and sleepy villages.

Lunch is served along the way.

Visit a floating market, where vendors pile their boats high with the delta’s fruit and vegetables. However busy they are with buying and selling, they always seem to have a smile and a wave for passing visitors. Continue to Can Tho, the largest city in the delta, for the night.

Head down to the quay before dawn for a boat ride of around 40 minutes, watching the sun come up over the river on the way to Cai Rang Floating Market. Boats laden with every kind of fruit and vegetable crowd the water, and you see up close how the merchants of the Mekong do business.

Transfer to Can Tho Airport for the short flight to Phu Quoc. Your hotel’s shuttle meets you at the airport for the ride to the beach.

The day is yours. Stretch out on the beach, swim in the calm emerald water or explore the island at your own pace.

Spend the day as you please, perhaps with a long swim, a massage or a drink at a beachfront bar as the sun sets into the sea.

Transfer to the airport for your flight to Da Nang.

Your driver meets you on arrival for the short drive to Hoi An, an old port town with a rich cultural heritage. The rest of the day is at leisure to settle in.

Wander the picturesque streets of the old town with your guide, where Chinese, Japanese, French and Vietnamese styles sit side by side. Visit the Chinese assembly halls, where merchant communities once met and worshipped, among them the Phuc Kien Assembly Hall, then step inside the ancient Tan Ky House and cross the Japanese Covered Bridge. Finish with a walk through the central market.

The afternoon is yours for shopping, a visit to one of the town’s tailors or simply relaxing.

Leave Hoi An for Da Nang, stopping at the Marble Mountains, five limestone hills riddled with caves and shrines, and the Cham Museum, home to the finest collection of Cham sculpture in the world.

Continue over the Hai Van Pass, the Pass of the Ocean Clouds, with the sea on one side and forested mountains on the other, and arrive in Hue to check in at your hotel.

Visit the Imperial Citadel, the walled home of Vietnam’s last dynasty, modelled on the Forbidden City in Beijing, with its palaces, temples and gates.

End the day with a royal-style dinner, a showcase of the refined, elegantly presented cuisine once served at the imperial court.

Board a boat on the Perfume River and stop first at Dong Ba Market to shop for the ingredients you will cook with later. Visit Thien Mu Pagoda, whose seven-storey tower is the symbol of Hue, then cruise upriver to the village of Thuy Bieu. Here you visit a traditional garden house, old ancestral temples and a family that makes incense by hand.

At a village restaurant, join the chef for a cooking class and prepare your own lunch, then relax with a herbal foot bath and massage.

Visit the tomb of Emperor Tu Duc, a peaceful complex of pavilions and lotus ponds among the pines, and stop to photograph the bundles of colourful incense sticks drying in the incense village before returning to your hotel.

After breakfast, check out and transfer to the airport for your flight to Hanoi.

Your driver meets you on arrival and takes you to your hotel, with the rest of the day to rest and settle in.

Begin at the Ho Chi Minh Complex: the granite Mausoleum, the museum, the modest stilt house where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked, the yellow Presidential Palace and the One Pillar Pagoda, which rises from its pond like a lotus flower. Continue to the Temple of Literature, founded in the 11th century and home to Vietnam’s first university.

Learn about Buddhist practice at a serene lakeside pagoda, then visit the Museum of Ethnology, which brings to life the traditions of Vietnam’s many ethnic groups.

Return to the Old Quarter to walk its narrow streets, once home to specialist craft guilds and still named after the goods that were made and sold there.

End the day at the water puppet theatre, where wooden puppets glide across a stage of water to tell Vietnamese folk tales and legends.

After breakfast, leave Hanoi for the drive to Halong Bay.

Board your boat and enjoy lunch as you cruise out among the islands.

Visit a fishing village and meet some of the families who have made their lives on the bay for generations.

Back on board, sip a cocktail or join a cooking class as the sun sets, followed by a lavish dinner. Afterwards, choose between a movie night, board games or a treatment at the spa before turning in for the night.

Start the day with tai chi on deck and watch the sun rise over the islands.

After a light breakfast, explore a beautiful limestone grotto, then return to the boat for brunch and a final look at the bay as you cruise back to the dock.

Drive back to Hanoi.

The rest of the day is yours to enjoy Hanoi at leisure, from a late-afternoon stroll to the city’s lively nightlife.

Enjoy the morning in Hanoi at leisure before your transfer to the airport for the flight to Luang Prabang, where you are met and taken to your hotel.

Visit Wat Visoun, with its distinctive rounded stupa, and the shrines of Wat Aham and Wat Mai. Then climb the steps of Mount Phousi to the gilded stupa at the summit and watch the sun set over the town and the Mekong.

Wander through the Night Market, where Hmong and Lao craftspeople lay out handwoven textiles, then sit down to dinner.

If you choose to rise before dawn, you can take part in the daily alms giving, when lines of saffron-robed monks walk barefoot through the streets to receive offerings of sticky rice from the townspeople.

After breakfast, visit Wat Sene and the magnificent Wat Xieng Thong, where the famous tree of life mosaic glitters in coloured glass on the back wall of the main hall. Then board a boat upstream on the Mekong, with the quiet countryside rolling by, to the Pak Ou Caves, two caverns in the cliffs filled with thousands of Buddha images. Along the way, stop at riverside villages including Ban Xang Hai, where rice wine is made.

After lunch, continue to Kuang Si Waterfall, where you can swim in the turquoise pools or follow the forest paths beside the cascades. On the way back to Luang Prabang, visit Ban Xang Khong, a village known for hand-weaving silk and making traditional saa paper from mulberry bark.

End the day with the sunset at Wat Phabath, beside the Mekong.

Drive to the Elephant Park Project on the banks of the Nam Khan River, where you meet the park’s protected elephants and take an elephant ride of about an hour. Then set off on a short, easy walk to a Khmu village within a Fair Trek project, where the villagers benefit directly from your visit.

Time permitting, a Lao-style lunch is served at Ban Houay Fai.

Return to Tad Sae Waterfall, whose terraced pools spill down towards the river, and take a boat back to the resort before the drive back to Luang Prabang.

Visit the National Museum in the former Royal Palace, whose collection reflects the richness of Lao culture through the ages, then the bustle of the Central Market.

Spend the time left wandering the shops and cafes of the old town.

Transfer to the airport for your onward flight.