Vietnam & Cambodia Tropics 9 Day Tour

Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City, the modern metropolis of fast-growing Vietnam. The driver will be the first to meet you as you step out of the airport and will transfer you the short distance to the city centre. Here, we find your hotel and you can check in, taking the rest of the day as free time to either relax or explore.

Enjoy your first breakfast in your hotel. The driver will be along shortly afterwards to pick you up and take you about 60km to the northwest of Ho Chi Minh City, where we find a jungle hiding an incredible 250km network of underground tunnels.

Before stepping inside, we watch a short video and listen to a brief introduction of the tunnels, which were dug by the hands of Vietnamese farmers sympathetic to the communist North. We climb into the tunnels after this and take a walk with the guide around this amazing relic of the Vietnam War, finding rooms where injured troops were treated, weapons were stored and Viet Cong soldiers took brief naps between conflicts.

We head out onto the jungle floor after this and have a go at finding some of the entrance holes and booby traps that are dotted around in perfect camouflage. Up here, we also find crater holes from bombing runs and the remnants of a burnt-out American tank.

Lunch will be served before we begin our drive back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Upon our arrival, we begin our half-day city tour, starting at the beautiful and ancient Giac Lam Pagoda. This comes before a trip to Chinatown, where we can find more attractive and colourful architecture, shown best at Thien Hau Pagoda, which honours the Chinese goddess of the sea, Mazu.

At Ben Thanh Market, we walk around and find some of the products for which Ho Chi Minh City and its surrounding areas are known. Try out your bargaining skills here as we delve straight into the local Vietnamese way of life.

End of Ho Chi Minh and Cu Chi Tunnels Tour

Take your breakfast in the hotel early today, as we need to head out to the Mekong Delta For Day Tour in time to reach Cai Be, a floating market operating on a run-off of the Mekong River.

We arrive at Cai Be and find a vibrant and lively scene in front of us, full of vendors and buyers haggling over prices and a social, laidback atmosphere. We board a boat and head out into the market, looking around the fabulous floating stores full of clothing, electronics, souvenirs and delicious exotic fruit.

Once we are satisfied with our purchases, we continue cruising to Tan Phong Island, one of the many spits of land sprouting out of the Mekong River. This is one of the larger islands here, with plenty of space for us to walk and cycle uninhibited along its paths. Here, we find attractively modest architecture and abundant fruit orchards, along with workshops where we can see how rice paper and cottage roofs are made from all-natural materials.

After this, we climb back into our boat and head down narrow canals flanked by thick and healthy vegetation. Our next stop after this is An Binh Island. Home to the Ut Trinh Homestay, which is where we will settle down for lunch. This ancient house is built from wood and stands before a lovely green garden where we can relax, sip on tea and listen to southern Vietnamese music as we do so.

Throughout the rest of the island, we find more workshops and villages, these specialising in coconut candy, rice popcorn and ornate ceramics. Once we are content with our time on An Binh, we take the boat to Vinh Long city and the transfer to Can Tho, the country’s fourth-largest city, for free time spent at your will.

Wake up in Can Tho and enjoy another early breakfast, we head out this morning for a different floating market in the Mekong Delta.

We end our short transfer at Cai Rang Market, a market full of more exciting scenes. Find more deals and shop for different types of exotic fruit, all of which are picked freshly from the orchards of the islands we cruise around.

After this, we make our way back to land and take the transfer to Chau Doc. This town is one of the closest to the Cambodian border and is connected to the neighbouring country by the Bassac River.

Once arrived, we enjoy lunch together before you can take the rest of the day as free time. 

Of course, you could simply relax at your hotel, but there is always the option to go to Sam Mountain instead. This ‘mountain’ is actually more like a hill, measuring 230 metres in height and offering panoramic views of rice paddies reaching across the flat fields below. You could take the walk up this highly religious mountain and stop at some of the pagodas, shrines, tombs and temples along the way. Each of these is of a noticeable Chinese influence, beautifully summed up at the multi-tiered Temple of Lady Xu.

Have breakfast at the hotel in Chau Doc before we catch the speedboat that will take us into Cambodia. This is a very unique way to cross the border and a thrilling ride alongside fresh and untouched scenery.

We arrive in Phnom Penh just after midday and take the transfer from the wharf to your hotel. From here, you can start your free time in Cambodia’s capital.

The following day, we will be taking a half-day tour of Phnom Penh’s ancient sites, so we suggest that you use your free time today to check out a few of the other attractions, some of which are regarding the horrific regime of the Khmer Rouge. This is a critical part of Cambodian history and its recent occurrence still means that the country is very much shaped by it, so you can learn more about this at the Choeung Ek Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Enjoy breakfast at the hotel and head with the guide into central Phnom Penh. Our half-day city tour will start at the grandest of the capital’s sites, the Royal Palace.

We take a walk around the palace, which still stands as the current residence of the royal family of Cambodia. The golden architecture shines from many different angles, so we will take a walk around its grounds and its accompanying Silver Pagoda, adorned in remarkably intricate decorations.

Afterwards, we move the tour to Wat Ounalom. For the 97% of Cambodian citizens who are Buddhists, this temple is the home of Buddhism in the country, so many have made the pilgrimage here since its construction in 1443. We walk around the hallowed grounds of Wat Ounalom and note the magnificent architecture across the 44 separate buildings here.

Lunch will be served in a local restaurant as you enjoy the last of your time in Phnom Penh.

We follow this with the 6-hour drive to Siem Reap, passing through humble countryside scenes en route. Once in the tourist hub of the country, we drop you off at your hotel and you can relax into the evening. Alternatively, you can check out the centre of Cambodian street food, followed by a night at some of the many bars here.

Breakfast will be served early today so that we can enjoy the majesty of the Angkor Wat temples over the course of a full day. The driver will arrive at your hotel and take you directly north of the town, where we find the largest religious site in the world awaiting our entrance.

After collecting our ticket, we will take the drive straight to Ta Prohm, one of the most famous sites of the temple complex. Ta Prohm shot to fame in 2001 when it was used as a set in the Tomb Raider Movie, with the temple’s snaking jungle vines and evocative state of ruin making it a wonderfully mystical asset to Angkor Wat’s appeal.

We drive around the remaining 400 acres of Angkor Wat, finding examples of beautiful architecture at every turn. The sheer scale of the UNESCO World Heritage Site amazes most visitors, but also the incredible number of temples, both enormous and intricate, offer a staggering amount to see here.

We reach the main temple of Angkor Wat, the one that postcards throughout the country depict. This is one of the most special temples of the complex, standing as a magnificent entrance point behind a lotus lake. The stone steps to its upper reaches provide excellent views over much of the complex.

Lunch will follow this at a local restaurant, giving us a chance to catch our breath after a morning of exploration.

Afterwards, we continue onto quite possibly the apex of the Angkor kingdom’s achievement – the royal city of Angkor Thom. This stone enclave in the middle of the jungle is the ruins of the entire capital city of the Angkor kingdom, which has stood since the 12th century. Inside the city’s walls, we find Angkor’s most ambitious and unique temples, starting at Bayon Temple, which proudly displays 216 stone faces depicting Avalokitesvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion.

We visit more awe-inspiring temples of Angkor Thom, including the Royal Palace, Terrace of the Elephants and Baphuon Temple, all of which instill a similar feeling of wonderment, no matter how many other temples we have seen today.

The Angkor Wat tour ends with the drive back to Siem Reap, where you can enjoy another evening at your leisure.

Our half-day tour starts today after breakfast at your hotel, where the guide will take you to the shores of Tonle Sap Lake.

Once arrived, we climb into a local boat and head out on the flat, shimmering surface, noting the distant mountains and scenes of lush vegetation around us. After some time, we reach Me Chrey village, where we find rows of stilt houses rising directly out of the water. The locals here have to contend with rising water levels in the wet season when the lake can almost quadruple its volume. 

We cruise around the village for a while, enjoying the attractively laidback existence of the locals and their fishing exploits. We can watch some of the residents craft fishing rods as well as watch monks perform their daily prayers at the floating pagoda.

After making our way back to town and enjoying a joint lunch together, we split up and leave you to an afternoon of free time, potentially spent in the spa or at the bar for total relaxation.

Enjoy your final breakfast in Cambodia and savour the last of the magical aura of Siem Reap. The driver will come to your hotel about three hours before your international flight, ready to take you to Siem Reap’s international airport.

Once here, wave goodbye to the driver and catch your flight to your next destination.

It was a real pleasure to serve you over the nine days of our tropical tour of Vietnam and Cambodia. We thank you for your time and wish you well for your onward travels!

Vietnam Escape Tours with many excellent reviews left on Tripadvisor and other forums is happy to arrange the trip for you in Vietnam and Cambodia.