Vietnam & Cambodia Heritage 6 Day Tour

Touch down in Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport and meet our driver here. You can recognise them by the card they will carry with your name, after which you can take the drive with them into central Siem Reap. We arrive at your hotel and you can check in, taking the rest of the day to yourself as free time.

Enjoy an early breakfast and prepare to visit your first of two world wonders on the heritage tour. We head out in the car to the entrance to Angkor Wat, the largest religious site on the planet, starting with the temple of Ta Prohm. This exquisite temple perhaps encapsulates the beautiful aura of Angkor Wat best, as Ta Prohm has long been in a state of ruin and is still in the midst of a natural takeover by jungle vines and banyan roots.

We follow this with a trip to the main temple of Angkor Wat, where we can see phenomenal architecture standing well against the test of time, splashed across gates, ornaments, statues and the bridge that crosses the lily-filled pond. We can take a walk around the stone corridors here, as well as climb the stairs to the high turrets for panoramic views.

Lunch will be served at a local restaurant and will be a nice break from walking. Take in the incredible mixture of ancient buildings and their jungle borders while we dine.

We continue onto another of the fantastic highlights of the site, Angkor Thom. This elegant place was once the capital of the Angkor Kingdom, protected by walls decorated with intricate bas-reliefs. On a tour of the ancient capital, we find some of the kingdom’s finest construction, including at the Terrace of the Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King and the Bayon Temple.

The tour finishes here and we take the drive back to Siem Reap, where you will have the evening to enjoy as you wish. End of the day tour in Siem Reap.

Breakfast will be served in your hotel before we take the drive into Cambodia’s beautiful countryside. Here we find a humble world, scores away from the royal palaces and temples of Angkor Wat, where we can learn about the lives of Cambodian citizens living off the land.

Once we arrived at the village, we take a look around the farming and family activities on display. We stroll through and meet friendly villagers as they work in the orchards and on the farms dotted throughout. There is a very unique opportunity to ride in an ox-drawn cart, which will give us a small insight into the daily lives of the locals here.

Before we leave, we check out some of the local handicrafts and snacks made in the village, seizing the chance to get truly authentic souvenirs from the Cambodian countryside.

Following this, we move onto Tonle Sap Lake, where we take a boat out onto the water and begin our cruise across the gently rippling surface. The cruise will be one of pure serenity as we glide across the vast expanse and see wild greenery occupying the shores. We make our way to Me Chrey Village, one of the floating communes of fishing families here, who have built up a functioning village with shops and a Buddhist pagoda.

Returning to the shore after this, we take the drive back to Siem Reap and have lunch in the early afternoon.

Relax at your leisure until the driver arrives to take you to the airport, from where you can catch your flight to Hanoi. Once you arrived in the Vietnamese capital, your new driver will show you to your hotel in the centre of the city, leaving you to get acquainted with the very different but attractive pace of life here.

The tour will begin after your first breakfast in Vietnam and the arrival of our driver. We head first to the political centre of the country, Ba Dinh Square, where a famous speech from Ho Chi Minh declared independence from France in 1945.

Once arrived, we check out this hallowed site, as well as more at the mausoleum housing his body and his former stilt home, where the great leader’s later years were spent. We can learn a lot more about Ho Chi Minh throughout the complex, as well as take a step back to ancient history with the One-Pillar Pagoda and a glance at the vivid yellow Presidential Palace built by the French.

After this, we make a stop at one of the fantastic museums that reveal certain elements of Vietnamese culture or history. We can learn about the Vietnam War at the Military History Museum and Hoa Lo Prison, ancient Vietnamese sculpture and art at the Museum of Fine Arts, or the country’s current ethnic culture at the Museum of Ethnology. Choose the museum that you feel would be most interesting to you.

We take lunch after walking around one of these museums, where you can try a typical northern Vietnamese dish.

The Temple of Literature is our next stop, built in 1070 and acting as the first university in Vietnam. The verdant gardens, beautiful temple and proud stone gates and walls would have provided an excellent environment for students in the past, and we will get the same feeling on a stroll through. We see homages to Confucius, whose philosophies were the subject material here, as well as pay a visit to the stone turtles with plaques atop their shells, bearing the names of students who passed their final exams.

The tour finishes in the centre of the city, the magnificent and always active Old Quarter. Here, the culture runs deep and the ancient architecture that captures it all is a huge focal attraction of the capital. We walk around here for a while and our guide will point out some of the more interesting facets of its appearance, ending at your hotel afterwards.

Please Note: Different itineraries around Halong Bay are available, depending on the cruise that you select with us during your booking of this tour. The itinerary below is merely an example, so destinations and aspects of the ship may vary from your own experience.

Morning

Enjoy your breakfast at the hotel and get ready for your second heritage site of the tour, via an overnight cruise in Halong Bay. The 3.5-hour transfer to the bay will come before we board the boat and fully relax on the traditional wooden deck below the billowing sails.

Afternoon

Take lunch in the dining room as we begin our languid cruising through Halong Bay. Watch the limestone towers slip by beside us as we cruise through verdant waterways, admiring the tree-topped peaks of Halong Bay’s famous speckled islands.

After some time spent on the boat, we head out onto the water around Cua Van fishing village in our kayaks, paddling around this magnificent floating community of fishermen and their families. The 300 residents here live a highly unique life in the bay, utilising boats more than their legs to travel around.

Evening

Get back to the boat and cruise into the beautiful evening time. On the way to our overnight anchorage point, we will have a small party on the top deck, where you can enjoy happy hour and wide-spanning views of the incredible sunset.

Dinner follows this in the dining room, after which you are free to relax in whatever way suits you for the rest of the night.

The second day of your Halong Bay tour starts with tai chi on the sundeck, where you will gain the energy necessary for the day ahead. This continues with breakfast in the dining room and the cruising over to our final activity of the tour.

At Titop Island, we can relax on the beach or in the water. Views of the bay around us are fantastic from here, but are bettered by the panoramic viewing platform atop the island’s peak. We relax here for much of the morning before returning to the cruise and enjoying brunch as we head back to the harbour.

From here, take the drive to Hanoi airport and your flight onto your onwards destination.

Thank you for spending your time with us around the heritage sites of Vietnam and Cambodia. It was a pleasure to show you their beauty and we hope to see you back here again!