Cambodia & Vietnam

[Tulipomania]

Planning a trip later this year with DH to celebrate a milestone birthday.

Have always longed to see Angkor Wat. And thought it would make sense to combine with Veitnam too.

Advice welcomed on any aspects of planning the trip. Probably November/December.

Particularly keen on ethical/responsible/sustainable tour operators.

Thanks for any advice on what to include - or avoid.

I can’t help, but I’m sure others will be along who can. I’m also planning for Cambodia. I be arriving in Bangkok by train and thought it made sense to visit Cambodia since it’s so close.

It could be v v v wet in Nov/Dec.

Feb would be a better month.

Pay attention to the seasons. Vietnam has very different conditions N, central and S at different times of the year, avoid rainy season. The rain is torrential, flooding usual etc.

Agree on the weather.

in Angkor Watt I can highly, highly recommend the Jaya House Park Hotel. They can help with drivers and tours etc.

We found it to be a magical place 😀

My daughter went on a diving course and then volunteered at the coral reef sanctuary in Cambodia. She was warned to get a solar powered mobile phone charger as their electricity supply was regularly off.

Cambodia is beautiful in places but has an extremely harrowing history of course. It’s traumatic and you’re surrounded by it. You can’t escape it.

even on the Angkor Watt/temples part of our tour it was always there in the background.

they drive like maniacs and our boat journey out to the islands was terrifying!

The history is harrowing of course. Many of the tour guides have first hand stories, which are very sad but also valuable to understand.

There are many land mines still, and you can support the efforts to clear these by visiting a small place in the town which shows the rates they train to help clear the countryside.

Oh and on a more flippant note, the Angkor Zipline was excellent and very well run. Would recommend, and after being hit so hard by covid business can do with all the help they can get.

Look carefully at heat/humidity & rainfall for specific areas. Vietnam is vast and has a massively varying climate at different points in the year. There are various boat options between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City - a few nights with stops along the way or a 6 hour speed boat starting or finishing a couple of hours drive away from HCMC. Watch the episodes covering those areas on Race across the World on BBC iPlayer, Grand Tour (Amazon Prime) & Jack Whitehall Travels with my Father (Netflix) for some inspiration. Plan it yourself, you'll end up learning so much from the research and have a trip tailored to your exact requirements.

Thanks, some useful advice here. Am well aware of the history of both Cambodia & Vietnam and understanding that better is an important part of the whole travel experience for us.

We went to Vietnam with Freedom Asia. Hanoi to Hue to Hoi An via Halong Bay. Can't recommend them enough. They picked us up from the airport and moved us from place to place and then left us alone to explore. Halong Bay is heaven on earth. I could quite happily have puttered around those islands for weeks.
We went late October and had fantastic weather. It rained once.

I went to Angkor Wat at the beginning of December and the weather was lovely. I did a half marathon around Angkor Wat, they run them every year so could be worth either avoiding that time (as it will be busy) or signing up if you enjoy running!

We did Hanoi > Nha Trang > Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) > Phnom Penh > Angkor Wat in just over two weeks in 2015. Plus Bangkok at the end.

How long are you going for? There’s actually quite a distance to cover and internal flights are quite unreliable so we found the travel between places quite hard, if we did it again we would go for longer or do less places. Don’t underestimate the jet lag and the humidity - Try to allow time for this.

If you go to Hanoi, it’s definitely worth going to Ho Chi Mihn’s mausoleum which is just the most surreal
experience. In Hanoi we also did a tour where university students take you around the city for the day in exchange for lunch and a chance to practice their English, which I would recommend. In Phnom Pehn we did Tuol Sleng and the killing fields and I’m glad we saw it.

We didn’t go to Halong Bay because it’s actually quite a long journey to get there. We did take a ‘night bus’ from PP to Angkor Wat which was an experience - basically a bus full of beds that travels through the night and you get to Siem Riep at around 6am.

Angkor Watt is great but you probably want around 3 days there - there are a number of sites in the area worth visiting, and Siem Reap is a nice place to stay. The elephant wall and Bayon are definitely worth visiting. Look into tickets for Angkor Wat carefully; our taxi driver pressured us hard to buy tickets via him but it all felt a bit dodgy.

Let me know if I can help with info about any of the places. It was the most amazing trip and I would love to go again.

That's what was so great about Freedom Asia. They drove us up to Halong Bay and back to Hanoi, then to Hue and down to Hoi An. We flew into Hanoi and out of Danang.

I can highly recommend About Asia as a tour operator if you did want someone to plan it for you. They can do custom trips to fit whatever you want

If November/ December, it will be better to start from Hanoi (North) to Saigon (South) in Vietnam and then move to Cambodia.

If you go on tripadvisor they have a sticky board with "JBRs" (I think it stands for "just got back" reports ) quite helpful, as well as other helpful posts. Enjoy xx

My daughter spent 3 months in Phnom Penh 10+ years ago. Every November they have a massive festival celebrating the date when the river feeding the huge lake Tonle Sap, changes direction. Think massive crowds, fantastic fire works. People visit the city from all over the country. This year it is around Nov 9th. Also check the weather. The rainy season is very wet. I think it ends around November.

Thanks. Plans have now changed and we are looking at doing this trip maybe in a couple of years.