Vietnam and Cambodia in fourteen days

Day 1

Arrive in Hanoi

Hoan Kiem lake in the last hour of light

You are met at Noi Bai and driven into the Old Quarter, about 45 minutes at most hours. The rest of the day is yours: the useful thing to do with it is walk one loop of Hoan Kiem lake at dusk and eat early, which puts you on local time by the second morning.

Day 2

Hanoi on foot

The stelae courtyard at the Temple of Literature, early

A morning at the Temple of Literature before the school groups, then the Museum of Ethnology, which explains the fifty-three minority groups you will otherwise meet only as a photograph. The afternoon is free. In the evening a guide walks you through four or five pavement kitchens — pho, bun cha, cha ca — and by the end of it you can order for the rest of the trip.

Day 3

Hanoi to Ha Long Bay, and on to the water

An hour of kayaking in a side channel with nothing else moving

Two and a half hours of expressway to the pier, boarding around midday. The afternoon is kayaking and swimming; the reason for the overnight is what happens after four o’clock, when the day boats go home and the bay empties. Dinner is on board at anchor.

Day 4

Off the boat, and south to Hoi An

The lantern-lit bridges on the first evening

Brunch as the boat comes in mid-morning, back in Hanoi by early afternoon, and an evening flight of an hour and fifteen to Da Nang. Hoi An is 45 minutes further by road. You arrive at night, which is the right way to see the lanterns for the first time.

Day 5

Hoi An old town

The Tan Ky merchant house, which is still lived in

The old town is a working port that stopped being one in the nineteenth century and was never rebuilt, which is why the Japanese bridge, the Chinese assembly halls and the merchant houses all still stand on the same streets. A guide takes the morning; the afternoon is free for the tailors, the market or the beach.

Day 6

My Son, or nothing at all

My Son at seven in the morning, before the coaches

Two ways to spend the day, and we book whichever you tell us. My Son is an hour inland — brick Cham sanctuaries from the fourth to the thirteenth century, badly bombed and still remarkable, best at opening before the heat. Or a cooking class in the morning and the afternoon on An Bang beach. There is no third option we would push you towards.

Day 7

Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City

The change in tempo between the two ends of the country

A morning in Hoi An, then Da Nang airport and an hour and twenty in the air. You land in a city that runs at a different speed from anywhere north of it, and the first evening is best spent in District 1 doing very little.

Day 8

Saigon, and the two hours that are difficult

The situation room in the basement of the Reunification Palace

The War Remnants Museum in the morning, which is uncomfortable and one-sided and still the most honest two hours available to a visitor here. Then the Reunification Palace, its 1960s interiors untouched since the day it fell. The afternoon goes to Cholon — the Chinese quarter, the Binh Tay market and Thien Hau temple — and the evening is yours.

Day 9

Overland into Cambodia at Moc Bai

Watching the delta give way to Cambodian floodplain through the window

The border day. You leave Saigon after breakfast, stop at the Cu Chi tunnels — which sit roughly on the way and save a separate half-day — and reach Moc Bai about two hours from the city. At the gate you get out of the car with your luggage, clear Vietnamese exit control, walk the hundred metres or so between the two posts, and clear Cambodian entry at Bavet, where the Cambodian e-visa is accepted. Allow 45 minutes to an hour and a half at the border depending on the coach traffic. A Cambodian car and guide meet you on the far side; Phnom Penh is three to four hours on.

Day 10

Phnom Penh

The pre-Angkorian galleries at the National Museum

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

Day 11

North to Siem Reap

An early night before the first temple morning

Forty-five minutes by air, or five and a half to six hours by road if you would rather have the country. We fly it unless you want to break the drive at Battambang, in which case tell us early and we will add a night there. The afternoon is free in Siem Reap, and we keep the first evening light because the temples start at half past five.

Day 12

Angkor, in the right order

Bayon before eight, and Angkor Wat after four

Angkor Thom first, not Angkor Wat. The Bayon’s faces are at their best in the first two hours of the day and the walled city absorbs a crowd far better than anywhere else in the park. Then Ta Prohm, forty minutes, early enough to have the trees to yourself. The middle of the day is off. Angkor Wat comes late in the afternoon from the west, which is the direction it was built to be seen from.

Day 13

Banteay Srei and the outer temples

The carved lintels at Banteay Srei, which are worth the early start

Thirty-seven kilometres out, Banteay Srei is small, pink and carved more finely than anything else in Cambodia; go at opening. On the way back, Preah Khan and Neak Pean are quiet at midday when everything near the centre is not. If you would rather spend the day on the lake than in another temple, we will take you to Kampong Phluk instead and say so plainly: the floating villages are real, and the boat operation around them is not always.

Day 14

Siem Reap, and home

The new airport is well east of town, so allow an hour for the transfer rather than the fifteen minutes the older guidebooks describe. If your flight is late we will hold the room and find you something to do with the morning.