Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in fifteen days

Day 1

Arrive in Bangkok

Met at Suvarnabhumi and driven in, about an hour depending on the traffic and the hour. Nothing is scheduled. Dinner beside the Chao Phraya and an early night is the gentlest way into a fifteen-day trip.

Day 2

Bangkok by water

Wat Arun from the water at the end of the afternoon

The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo at opening, before the heat and the crowd, then Wat Pho next door for the reclining Buddha. Cross to Wat Arun by ferry in the afternoon. We move between these by river rather than by road deliberately: the boat is faster, cooler and the better view of the city.

Day 3

Ayutthaya

Wat Chaiwatthanaram in the last hour of light

An hour and a half north, the capital that preceded Bangkok and was destroyed in 1767. Brick prangs, a row of headless Buddhas and one head held in the roots of a fig tree. Half a day of ruins and half a day of river, back in the city by early evening.

Day 4

Fly to Siem Reap

An early night before the first temple morning

About an hour in the air. This leg used to be driven through Poipet; the land border has been closed to tourists since June 2025 and the flight is now the only sensible way between the two countries. Cambodian entry is at Siem Reap–Angkor airport, where the e-visa is accepted and a visa on arrival is also issued. The airport is well east of town, an hour’s transfer, and the afternoon is free.

Day 5

Angkor, in the right order

Bayon before eight, and Angkor Wat after four

Angkor Thom first, not Angkor Wat: the Bayon’s faces are best in the first two hours and the walled city absorbs a crowd. Then Ta Prohm, forty minutes, early. The middle of the day is off. Angkor Wat late in the afternoon from the west, the direction it was built to be seen from.

Day 6

Banteay Srei and the outer temples

The lintels at Banteay Srei at seven in the morning

Thirty-seven kilometres out, Banteay Srei is small, pink and the finest carving in Cambodia; go at opening. Preah Khan and Neak Pean on the way back are quiet at midday. This is the day the closed border bought you, and it is the best-spent day on the itinerary.

Day 7

South to Phnom Penh

Forty-five minutes by air, or five and a half to six hours by road. We fly it unless you want Battambang, three hours down and the best street architecture in the country, in which case we add the night. The afternoon in Phnom Penh is the riverfront.

Day 8

Phnom Penh

The Angkorian sculpture in the National Museum, which is not at Angkor

Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek in the morning, in that order, with a guide who will not perform them. Four hours together and the reason to stop here rather than fly over. The afternoon is the Royal Palace, the silver pagoda and the National Museum.

Day 9

Overland into Vietnam at Moc Bai

The change of country, which happens in about two hundred metres

The border day, and the only one on this route. Three to four hours southeast from Phnom Penh to Bavet, where you clear Cambodian exit control on foot with your luggage, walk the hundred metres or so across, and clear Vietnamese entry at Moc Bai. Allow 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on coach traffic. Your Vietnamese e-visa, if you are on one, must already name Moc Bai as the entry gate and Noi Bai as the exit — decided at application and unchangeable. A Vietnamese car and guide meet you; Ho Chi Minh City is two hours on, with the Cu Chi tunnels roughly on the way if you want them.

Day 10

Saigon

The basement situation room at the Reunification Palace

The War Remnants Museum in the morning — uncomfortable, one-sided, and the most honest two hours available to a visitor here — then the Reunification Palace with its 1960s interiors untouched since the day it fell. The afternoon is Cholon: the Binh Tay market, Thien Hau temple and the streets between them. The evening is yours.

Day 11

North to Hoi An

An hour and twenty in the air to Da Nang and 45 minutes by road. Hoi An in the late afternoon is at its best, and the first evening is free among the lanterns with nothing arranged.

Day 12

Hoi An old town, and then nothing

The assembly halls before ten

A guided morning through the Japanese bridge, the assembly halls and two merchant houses that are still lived in. The old town stopped being a working port in the nineteenth century and was never rebuilt, which is why it reads as a whole. The afternoon is free — tailors, the market, or twenty minutes by bicycle to An Bang beach.

Day 13

North to Hanoi

A slow morning in Hoi An, then Da Nang and an hour and twenty in the air. Hanoi in winter is fifteen degrees under low cloud and feels like a different country from the one you left at breakfast, which is the correct note to end on. A loop of Hoan Kiem lake at dusk.

Day 14

Hanoi on foot

Cha ca, on the last evening

The Temple of Literature at opening and the Museum of Ethnology mid-morning, which between them explain a good deal of what you have been looking at for a fortnight. The afternoon is free. In the evening an eating walk through four or five pavement kitchens, which is the right last night: northern food is the least exported of the three cuisines on this trip.

Day 15

Hanoi, and home

Noi Bai is about 45 minutes out. If the flight is late we will hold the room and put the morning to use.