Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in eighteen days
Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City the long way round: Lan Ha Bay, Luang Prabang and the Nam Ou valley, the Laos–China Railway, three days at Angkor, then down the Mekong into the delta by boat.
At a glance
- Days
- 18 days, 17 nights
- Party size
- 1 to 8, private
- Start
- Hanoi
- End
- Ho Chi Minh City
- Effort
- Moderate — two 5-hour drives, one overnight boat
- From
- USD 2,880 per person
Who this route is for
This is the trip for someone with three weeks of leave who wants to arrive in one country and leave from another, and who would rather cross a border on a boat than in an airport. It is the route we run most often, and it has been rebuilt twice since 2025 because the region changed underneath it.
It covers northern Vietnam, northern Laos and central Cambodia, then runs down the Mekong into the delta. It does not include central Vietnam — no Hue, no Hoi An — and it does not include Thailand. Both of those are deliberate. Adding Hoi An costs three days and turns Laos into a stopover; adding Thailand now costs a flight in each direction because the land border is closed.
We run this north to south. The Mekong speedboat from Phnom Penh to Chau Doc leaves in the middle of the day and arrives in time to reach Can Tho before dark; the reverse leaves Chau Doc at 07:30, which means a 05:00 start from anywhere you would want to sleep. Reversing the route is possible and costs you a morning.
Day by day
Arrive Hanoi
Most long-haul flights land in Hanoi in the early morning or late evening. Either way we meet you at Noi Bai and drive the 35 kilometres into the Old Quarter, which takes 45 minutes at night and up to 80 in the morning peak.
If you land before noon we will have a room ready rather than making you wait until 14:00. The rest of the day is deliberately empty.
Hanoi on foot
A full day walking, because Hanoi does not make sense from a vehicle. The Old Quarter street-trade grid in the morning, the Temple of Literature, then the French quarter and the long block of colonial administration around the Opera House.
We stop for lunch where the guide eats rather than where the coach parties eat, and the afternoon is loose enough to abandon if the heat is winning.
Hanoi to Lan Ha Bay
Leave at 08:00 for the coast. The expressway has cut the drive to Hai Phong to about two and a half hours, and we board at Got pier rather than at Tuan Chau, which is where the Ha Long day-boat crowd goes.
Lan Ha is the southern part of the same karst system as Ha Long, with a fraction of the traffic. Afternoon kayaking among the limestone towers, then dinner on deck and a night at anchor.
Lan Ha Bay to Hanoi
Early light on the water is the reason to be here, and it happens whether you get up or not. Breakfast under way, a last swim if the season allows, back at the pier by 11:00.
Back in Hanoi by mid-afternoon. The evening is yours; the water-puppet theatre is nearby, is 50 minutes long, and is a genuinely odd hour rather than a tourist trap.
Fly Hanoi to Luang Prabang
A short flight, usually early afternoon, and the whole character of the trip changes on the other side. Luang Prabang airport is four kilometres from town.
We keep the arrival day light: a walk to the Mekong bank at the confluence, and dinner. The town is small enough that orientation takes twenty minutes.
Luang Prabang
The alms round at first light is the thing everyone photographs and the thing most visitors get wrong. We watch it from a distance, standing, without a camera flash, and our guide will explain why the monks would rather you did not buy sticky rice from the woman who will sell it to you at the kerb.
Then the morning market, Wat Xieng Thong, and the Royal Palace Museum. Afternoon at the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre, which is the best single hour in Laos for understanding who lives in these mountains.
Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw
Four hours north on Route 13 and then Route 1C, through country that gets steeper and emptier as you go. The road is paved and slow rather than rough.
Nong Khiaw sits where the Nam Ou cuts through vertical limestone. Arrive early afternoon, walk to the viewpoint if legs and weather agree — it is 90 minutes up, genuinely steep, and worth it.
Nong Khiaw and the Nam Ou
A boat up the Nam Ou to Muang Ngoi, a village that had no road until 2013 and still has the feel of somewhere at the end of the line. An hour upstream, and the river does the work of a mountain pass.
Walk out to Ban Na through rice fields, lunch in the village, and back down river in the late afternoon when the light is doing something absurd to the cliffs.
Nong Khiaw to Luang Prabang
Back down the same road in the morning, arriving in time for lunch. The afternoon is genuinely free, which after four days of moving is the point.
If you want one more thing: Kuang Si waterfall is 45 minutes out and best after 15:00, when the day groups have gone.
Luang Prabang to Vientiane by train
The Laos–China Railway does in two hours what the old road did in nine, and it is the single biggest change to travel in Laos in a generation. Luang Prabang station is 12 kilometres from town, about 25 minutes.
In Vientiane by early afternoon. It is a low-rise capital that most people write off in half a day; the COPE visitor centre, which deals with unexploded ordnance from the American bombing, is not a half-day sort of place.
Fly Vientiane to Siem Reap
A morning flight, usually via a short connection, into Siem Reap Angkor airport — which opened in 2023 and sits 45 kilometres from town, about 55 minutes. Budget the afternoon for the transfer and a swim.
We buy your Angkor pass this evening. Passes bought after 17:00 admit you that evening and count from tomorrow, which is a small free gift the ticket office does not advertise.
Angkor: the central group
Out at 07:30, not 04:30. We do not do sunrise at Angkor Wat, and the reason is arithmetic: about two thousand people stand at the same two reflecting pools for forty minutes, and the temple is closed behind them until the gate opens anyway.
Angkor Wat when the sunrise crowd has left for breakfast, then the Bayon and the walled city of Angkor Thom. Back to the hotel from 11:00 to 15:00, because midday here is not sightseeing weather. Out again for Ta Prohm in the late afternoon.
Angkor: the outer temples
A longer day out. Banteay Srei, an hour north, is small, pink, and carved with a precision nothing else at Angkor matches. Then Beng Mealea, an unrestored temple collapsing into the forest, which is what Angkor Wat looked like to the first Europeans who wrote about it.
Both are covered by your pass. If you would rather trade Beng Mealea for Koh Ker, we can — it is further, it is a separate USD 15 in cash at the gate, and it is a genuinely different kind of ruin.
Siem Reap to Phnom Penh
Six hours by road on National Road 6, with a stop at Kampong Thom for Sambor Prei Kuk if you want it — seventh-century brick towers, pre-Angkorian, and a UNESCO site almost nobody stops at.
Into Phnom Penh in the late afternoon. The riverside at dusk is the best free hour in the city.
Phnom Penh
The morning is Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, and it is a hard morning. Our guide will tell you their own family history if you ask and will not perform it if you do not. We keep the afternoon deliberately gentle afterwards.
The Royal Palace and the National Museum in the late afternoon, or nothing at all, which is a legitimate choice on this particular day.
Phnom Penh to Chau Doc by river, then Can Tho
The border day, and it happens on the water. A speedboat down the Mekong, out of Cambodia at Kaam Samnor and into Vietnam at Vinh Xuong, about five hours in total including both immigration posts.
Our staff handle the paperwork on both sides. Nobody will ask you for a dollar for a thermometer, because we will have said no before you get there. A Vietnamese vehicle meets the boat at Chau Doc and drives you to Can Tho.
Cai Rang floating market, then Ho Chi Minh City
On the water at 05:45, because Cai Rang is a wholesale market and it is finished by 08:00. This is a working market, not a performance: boats sell in tonnes, and the vegetable tied to the pole is the shop sign.
Back for breakfast, then four hours to Ho Chi Minh City. The afternoon is free; the city is a shock after three weeks of small towns and that is worth an evening.
Depart Ho Chi Minh City
Transfer to Tan Son Nhat, which is unusually close to the centre — about 8 kilometres, 25 to 45 minutes depending on the hour.
If your flight is in the evening we hold the room until 16:00 rather than putting your bags behind reception.
What it costs
| Party size | Simple | Comfortable | Excellent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 travellers | USD 2,880 | USD 4,460 | USD 7,840 |
| 3 - 4 | USD 2,340 | USD 3,670 | USD 6,950 |
| 5 - 8 | USD 1,980 | USD 3,170 | USD 6,350 |
The three big fixed costs inside that number are the two intra-regional flights, the overnight boat in Lan Ha Bay, and three days of Angkor passes at USD 62 each. Together they account for roughly USD 400 to 500 per person regardless of which style you pick.
What the price includes
- 17 nights as described, twin share
- Hanoi – Luang Prabang and Vientiane – Siem Reap flights, hold luggage included
- Luang Prabang – Vientiane train, second class
- One night on a small boat in Lan Ha Bay, full board
- Phnom Penh – Chau Doc speedboat with staff on both sides of the border
- Private vehicle and driver for every land transfer
- Vietnamese, Lao and Khmer guides, each in their own country
- Three-day Angkor pass and all other entrance fees named above
- Breakfast daily plus the meals named day by day
What it does not include
- International flights into Hanoi and out of Ho Chi Minh City
- Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia visa fees
- Travel insurance, which we require
- Drinks, laundry, and meals not named
- Tips for guides and drivers
Photographs
Who this trip is wrong for
- Anyone who wants Hoi An and Hue. Central Vietnam is not on this route and adding it needs three more days, not one.
- Anyone who wants Thailand in the same trip without flying. The Thailand–Cambodia land border has been closed since June 2025, so Thailand can only be reached from here by air.
- Travellers who cannot manage six hours in a vehicle on day 14, or five hours on a boat on day 16. Neither leg has a shortcut.
- Parties with children under about eight. The pace is fine for adults and hard on small children, and the Tuol Sleng morning is not a place to bring them.
- Anyone travelling in late February to early April who is coming for mountain views. That is burning season in northern Laos and Nong Khiaw can disappear into smoke for weeks.
Practical notes
Visas
Three separate visas or exemptions. Most European passports enter Vietnam visa-free for 45 days; the Laos eVisa is fine here because you enter Laos by air at Luang Prabang; Cambodia is an eVisa at USD 30 from evisa.gov.kh, and it is valid on arrival by air. Full detail on visas and entry.
The one thing to book early
The Hanoi–Luang Prabang flight. It is a thin route with few daily departures, and the price roughly doubles inside four weeks. Everything else on this itinerary can be arranged at six weeks.
Money
Vietnam is dong and cards work almost everywhere. Laos is kip and cash still rules outside Luang Prabang and Vientiane. Cambodia runs on US dollars in practice: carry clean, untorn notes, and expect change under a dollar in riel.
Questions travellers ask most
Why is there no sunrise at Angkor Wat in this itinerary?
Because it is a bad hour badly spent. Roughly two thousand people crowd two small reflecting pools, the temple interior is closed until after the sun is up, and you lose the following afternoon to being tired.
We go at 07:30 and reach Angkor Wat at about 08:30, when the sunrise crowd has gone for breakfast. If you want sunrise anyway we will arrange it — we would just rather you knew what you were buying.
Can I swap the Mekong speedboat for a bus?
Yes, and it is cheaper, but we think it is the wrong trade. The bus crosses at Bavet–Moc Bai into Ho Chi Minh City in six to seven hours and skips the delta entirely.
The river crossing is one of the three or four moments on this route that people remember years later.
Is the Laos smoke season really that bad?
From late February to mid-April, yes. Agricultural burning fills the northern valleys and visibility in Nong Khiaw can drop to a few hundred metres for weeks at a time. Flights out of Luang Prabang are occasionally delayed by it.
It is not dangerous for most people and the towns still function. But if the mountains are why you are going, do not go in March.
What happens if the Mekong is too low for the speedboat?
It has not stopped the Phnom Penh–Chau Doc service in recent years, unlike some smaller river routes. If it did, we would drive you to the Bavet–Moc Bai crossing instead and refund the fare difference.
We would tell you before you left home, not on the morning.
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