Cambodia and Laos in twelve days

Day 1

Arrive in Siem Reap

The new airport sits well east of town, so the transfer is about an hour rather than the fifteen minutes the older guidebooks describe. Nothing is scheduled. An early night is the sensible plan, because the first temple morning starts at half past five.

Day 2

Angkor, in the right order

The Bayon before eight

Angkor Thom before Angkor Wat. The Bayon’s faces are best in the first two hours of daylight and the walled city absorbs a crowd better than anywhere else in the park. Then Ta Prohm for forty minutes, early. The middle of the day is off — it is genuinely unpleasant on open stone by eleven. Angkor Wat late in the afternoon from the west, which is the direction it was built to be approached from.

Day 3

Banteay Srei, and the lake or another temple

The carved lintels at Banteay Srei at seven in the morning

Banteay Srei is thirty-seven kilometres out and carved more finely than anything else in Cambodia; go at opening, when the pink sandstone is still cool. Preah Khan and Neak Pean on the way back are quiet at midday. If three temple days is one too many, we take the afternoon to Kampong Phluk on the Tonle Sap instead, and we will tell you honestly which boat operations there we will and will not use.

Day 4

South to Phnom Penh

Five and a half to six hours by road, flat and straight, or forty-five minutes by air. We fly it unless you want Battambang, which breaks the drive at three hours and is the best hour and a half of street architecture in the country — say so and we will add the night. The afternoon in Phnom Penh is the riverfront and nothing harder.

Day 5

Phnom Penh, and the two hours that are difficult

The seventh-century Khmer statuary at the National Museum

Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek in the morning, in that order, with a guide who will not perform them. Four hours together, and they are the reason to stop in this city rather than fly over it. The afternoon is lighter: the Royal Palace and the silver pagoda, then the National Museum, which holds the pre-Angkorian and Angkorian sculpture that is not at Angkor.

Day 6

Up the river to Kratie

The dolphin pool at Kampi in the last hour of light

Five to six hours north along the Mekong, through rubber country and small river towns. Kratie is a single row of French shophouses facing the water with almost nothing to do in it, which is the point after Phnom Penh. Late in the afternoon a small boat goes out from Kampi, fifteen kilometres upstream, to a deep pool where the last Irrawaddy dolphins in the river live. There are very few of them and no guarantee; the boat keeps its distance and its engine off.

Day 7

Over the border at Trapeang Kriel, and out to the islands

Coming out onto the islands by boat in the late afternoon

The border day. Three hours north to Stung Treng, then about an hour more to the gate. You clear Cambodian exit control at Trapeang Kriel, walk across, and clear Lao entry at Nong Nok Khiene — and here the asymmetry matters: the Lao e-visa is NOT valid at this gate, so you take a visa on arrival, in US dollars cash with a passport photograph. Allow 45 minutes to an hour and a half; this is a quiet crossing and the queue is usually short. A Lao vehicle meets you and Si Phan Don is about an hour further, with a boat at the end of it.

Day 8

Si Phan Don

Khone Phapheng in the morning, when the spray still catches the light

Fourteen kilometres of river, hundreds of islands, and two waterfalls that could not be less alike. Li Phi, beside Don Khon, is a chaos of channels rather than a single drop. Khone Phapheng, on the mainland bank, carries more water than any other fall in Southeast Asia and is the reason no boat has ever been able to run the Mekong from the sea to China. Between them is the French railway bridge, built to portage cargo around the falls and now the road between two islands. We do not sell dolphin trips on this side: the Lao pool is effectively empty and saying otherwise would be dishonest.

Day 9

North to Pakse, by way of Wat Phou

The view back over the plain from the top of Wat Phou

Three hours north along the river, stopping at Champasak for Wat Phou. The sanctuary climbs six terraces up a hillside below a spring and a mountain the Khmer took for a lingam, and the earliest stonework here is seventh century — older than anything at Angkor. Start early enough and the upper terrace is yours, with the Mekong plain laid out below. Pakse by late afternoon.

Day 10

North to Luang Prabang

A flight north — direct when Lao Airlines schedules it, otherwise connecting in Vientiane, which costs the middle of the day either way. We keep the afternoon free rather than promise it. Luang Prabang in the late afternoon is the town at its best: the peninsula between two rivers, low tiled roofs, and the light going off the Mekong.

Day 11

Luang Prabang and Kuang Si

The lower pools before the minibuses arrive

The royal palace museum and Wat Xieng Thong in the morning, whose roof reaches almost to the ground and is the best piece of architecture in the country. Kuang Si after that, twenty-nine kilometres out and about forty-five minutes, where limestone pools step down through the forest in a turquoise nobody believes in photographs. Swim in the lower ones. Back in town for the evening with nothing scheduled.

Day 12

Luang Prabang, and home

The airport is fifteen minutes away. The morning market before seven is the last genuinely local thing on this itinerary and it is worth getting up for.