Experience the resilience and romance of Vietnam & Cambodia.
Two of the most beautiful, historic, and friendly places in all of Asia, dynamic Vietnam and pastoral Cambodia are intriguing studies in contrast. Each possesses its own unique charm and social traditions, its own tragic history and complex past. In many ways, a visit here is less about the sights you see and more about the experiences you have and the people you meet along the way. It all makes for a fascinating, rewarding, and multi-layered travel experience.
Your journey starts in Ho Chi Minh City—once known as Saigon and the “Paris of the Orient”—now a bustling economic boom-town that offers a heady mixture of old and new. Delve into the Vietnam War’s infamous Cu Chi tunnels before boarding your comfortable ship. Visit artisan workshops and a lively floating market via a traditional wooden sampan, as well as a tribal village and local fish farm. After crossing the border into Cambodia, enjoy an exhilarating cyclo tour of the capital city, Phnom Penh, and stop at the city’s Genocide Museum to learn more about the dark events of the 20th century. Take a scenic cruise to see a “floating village” on the Tonle Sap River, and visit a hilltop monastery where local monks will bestow a special Buddhist blessing upon you.
One of the many highlights of your Uniworld journey will be two full days at Cambodia’s spectacular UNESCO-designated Angkor Wat temple complex, one of the world’s largest and most important archaeological sites and the former epicenter of the Khmer empire. Explore Ta Prohm, with its massive stones smothered under the roots of giant banyan trees, and Bayon Temple, famous for its immense and enigmatic stone faces. Your journey concludes in historic Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, where your city tour features the former prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton” by American POWs, a cyclo tour of the colonial district, and a traditional water puppet show.
Who will enjoy this cruise/tour
Guests who crave a more rigorous and expeditionary type of travel experience will enjoy cruising along the Mekong River through Vietnam and Cambodia.
Highlights
YOUR CRUISE/TOUR PACKAGE INCLUDES:
TRAVEL
7-night Mekong River cruise in a riverview stateroom onboard the River Orchid*
7 nights in deluxe hotels, including buffet breakfast and all service charges, taxes, and porterage*
Tips for local experts and drivers
All transportation throughout your trip, including flights within Vietnam and Cambodia
All transfers on arrival and departure days
TASTE
14 buffet breakfasts, 9 lunches, 10 dinners
Welcome and Farewell Dinners with wine and live entertainment onshore
Complimentary house wine, local beers and spirits, and soft drinks throughout the cruise
Onshore dinners include complimentary house wine, local beers, or soft drinks
EXPLORE
12 days of captivating, fully escorted excursions with English-speaking local experts
Services of an experienced Uniworld Cruise/Tour Manager throughout your trip
State-of-the-art portable audio-headset system on all excursions throughout your trip
EXPERIENCE
Flowers and fruit plate upon arrival
Private check-in with a welcome drink at each hotel
Onshore cultural highlights: Apsara dance performance with dinner and Thang Long water puppet show
Angkor Archaeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
*Ship and hotels are subject to change.
You will visit the following 8 places:
Siem Reap
Siem Reap is the capital city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia, and a popular resort town as the gateway to Angkor region. Siem Reap has colonial and Chinese-style architecture in the Old French Quarter, and around the Old Market. In the city, there are museums, traditional Apsara dance performances, a Cambodian cultural village, souvenir and handycraft shops, silk farms, rice-paddies in the countryside, fishing villages and a bird sanctuary near the Tonle Sap Lake. Siem Reap today, being a popular tourist destination, has a large number of hotels, resorts, restaurants and businesses closely related to tourism. This is much owed to its proximity to the Angkor temples, the most popular tourist attraction in Cambodia.
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh City, formerly named Saigon, is the largest city in Vietnam. It was once known as Prey Nokor, an important Khmer sea port prior to annexation by the Vietnamese in the 17th century. Today, the city's core is still adorned with wide elegant boulevards and historic French colonial buildings. The are so many prominent structures in the city center to be amused at. Some of the historic hotels are the Hotel Majestic, dating from the French colonial era, and the Rex Hotel, Caravelle hotel some former hangouts for American officers and war correspondents in the 1960s and 1970s.
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, the city has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic activities. The city has grown to become the industrial, commercial, cultural, tourist and historical center of Cambodia. Once known as the “Pearl of Asia”, it was considered one of the loveliest French-built cities in Indochina in the 1920s. Phnom Penh, along with Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, are significant global and domestic tourist destinations for Cambodia.