Vietnam and Cambodia Overland Tour

Which are the most important annual festivals and celebrations in the Kingdom of Cambodia

See and do in Ho Chi Minh City We were going to title the post what to see and do in Saigon since for many, if not most, of its residents the pre-war name is still the commonly used one. For the purposes of our post, what to see and do in Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon are thus…

Going off-the-beaten-track half way round the World with people you don’t know, food you’ve never tried before and what appear to be extreme weather conditions. What can possibly go wrong?

A few tips on how to get the best out of your small group tour to Southeast Asia

Chenla The Chenla civilisation flourished from the late 6th to early 9th century occupying a large swathe of Southeast Asia including Cambodia, southern Laos, parts of the Mekong Delta and much of what is today central and northeastern Thailand. It was to give rise to the wonders of the Angkor empire – Bayon, Angkor Thom, Preah Vihear and of course…

Cai Rang Floating Market, Can Tho, Vietnam In former times every significant-sized Mekong Delta town would have had a floating market with Cai Rang, just outside, Can Tho being the largest and best-known. In more recent time it ought to come as no surprise to learn that Vietnamese shoppers, like their ‘Western’ counterparts, have come to appreciate the convenience of…

Capitals of Cambodia, Part II Part I of our capitals of Cambodia took us from the early Funan and Chenla periods up to the creation of King Indravarman’s city of Hariharalaya during the 9th century, at the site known today as Rolous, a short distance east of Siem Reap. We’ve already covered 6 different sites, with Hariharalaya appearing on two…

Capital Cities of Cambodia Off the top of our heads we’ve come up with no less than 11 different capital cities of Cambodia over the course of some 1500 years – although we may well have overlooked another one or two – while several of these sites have been the capital on more than one separate occasion. Many of the…

Angkor and Angkor Wat On our small group tours to Cambodia we often see, amongst first time visitors, a certain amount of predictable confusion between the names Angkor and Angkor Wat. They do, of course, refer to two different sites, so here’s a brief explanation on the differences between Angkor and Angkor Wat. It can certainly be somewhat confusing for…

Favourite Cambodian Museums As a relatively small country with a small, albeit rapidly growing, population Cambodia can’t compete in number of museums with its larger neighbours Thailand and Vietnam (see our recent Vietnam museums post), but it does make up for quantity with quality and our favourite Cambodian museums list includes a clutch of top notch sites, one of which…

Vietnam museums A rundown on some of the best-known, as well as a few of our favourite, Vietnam museums, plus a couple we’d personally probably skip over. The choice of adjectives is particularly subjective when it applies to museums and while there’s likely to be more of a consensus when faced with a picturesque waterfall or spectacular ancient temple, when…

Western support for the Khmer Rouge Not exactly our usual style of travel blog post, but this account of Western support for the Khmer Rouge between 1979 and the early 90s is nonetheless of great significance for, in particular, our Cambodia tours, and is a well-hidden aspect of history that remains, regrettably but not surprisingly, largely unknown. (In our opinion,…