Best of Cambodia & Thailand Beach Break

Cultures collide in Phnom Penh. Down dusty lanes, you find colonial buildings, their facades lightly faded, yet their interiors chic, some of them now home to French cafes and contemporary restaurants. Palaces and temples can still be found across the city – not everything was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge – and these suggest the grandeur of what came before. This history provides a backdrop to a lively city. Bicycles whizz past, energy emanates from small markets, locals gather along the banks of the Mekong River. Smaller than Bangkok and much easier to manage, Phnom Penh is the cultural and administrative heart to Cambodia. With a good local guide at your side, the city allows you to ease into the country.

The Silver Pagoda stands amid cultivated gardens, a beacon to a country’s early history. Thousands of silver tiles cover the floor, shimmering beneath gold and jeweled sculptures of Buddha. Nearby, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, another site that is somewhere between the surreal and the sublime. Elsewhere in the city, you find other vestiges of the past, like 14th-century temples that help provide an introduction to what you’ll see in Angkor. As today’s city tour continues, the highlight comes from local markets.

Hundreds of stalls spill their goods into corridors; cloth, batteries, brushes, the mundane to the magical. Food smells spiral through these sprawling markets and you join the locals in wandering, chatting and smiling. The colonial lanes are most enjoyable when afternoon turns to evening, their resurgence as cafes and restaurants making them a pleasant place to watch the world go by. After a day of exploring you can sit on cafe terraces, exploring what walks past and recollecting your impressions on Phnom Penh.

Fly to Siem Reap, and you have a full afternoon in Angkor, the grandest of all Asia’s temple complexes. Many of the ruins are now enshrouded by jungle, especially the temples furthest from Siem Reap. Parts of the complex have been carefully restored, evoking their former glory. Others show their age, crumbling in a show of elegance. A historian guide takes you into the archaeological park and a couple of smaller temples in the trees, places to start discussing the Khmer Empire and when this whole site was constructed. Then head to a temple for sunset, forgoing the highly popular Phnom Bakheng for the much quieter Pre Rup.

Angkor Wat is just one temple, the magnificent centerpiece to Angkor, where moss covers courtyards and spires reflect in a lake of lily fronds. It’s easy to get lost here, Angkor Wat the equivalent of the Vatican City Museums, with countless rooms having their own story to tell. Follow the faded brick to pictures of Buddha. Look across the water from a quiet courtyard. Trace the history through incense-scented corridors. Then get out of there before it gets too busy with mid-morning crowds. Off you go deeper into Angkor, serene smiles greeting you at Angkor Thom, giant faces carved in stone silencing every visitor with a single glance.

Continue to explore Bayon, built a little later than Angkor Wat (in the late 12th century), a vast royal city of which the smiling faces are only one feature. Facades are weathered here yet the detail lives on, especially on a courtyard once reserved for receiving victorious armies. It’s worth heading back to the hotel around mid-afternoon as it can get very hot on the plains. Then you can rest and hit the temples again later in the day, finding a different one for sunset. But with all three days in Siem Reap the exact program is flexible, the guide able to adjust things based on how you feel and what you most want to see.

Tree roots embrace Ta Prohm in a firm embrace. Vines creep across walls that are scorched green by moss. The jungle sends down its shadow, and slowly the jungle is reclaiming the work of man, trees curling around pillars and bursting right through the sculpted floors. Ta Prohm is the most famous of the wild Angkor temples, yet it’s not the only one that feels completely lost in nature. A morning here is balanced with an afternoon at Banteay Srei. Intricate carvings mark the red stone, messages from a distant time that have become photogenic postcards. Far north from Angkor Wat, Banteay Srei is a good place to get away from the busy crowds of central Angkor and see another side to the area’s history.

Monks walk down the streets of Battambang, orange robes contrasting the soft blue of local bicycles. Early 20th-century architecture stands on street corners, memoirs to colonial France. Life moves slowly here, most people having the time to stop and say hello. You’re in Battambang, Cambodia’s second city, a place that feels like a quiet town calmly continuing its resurgence. It doesn’t have the size of Phnom Penh nor the tourist focus of Siem Reap, meaning it’s a wonderful place for an unadulterated slice of local culture. Drive here from Siem Reap and spend the afternoon exploring, a guide introducing you to people in markets and cafes. You’ve had three days of sights so today is all about local connections, and feeling what it means to be Cambodian in the 21st century.

Continue the local conversations with a cooking class in a local kitchen. Khmer recipes are all about fresh flavors, a liberal use of spices, and some ingredients that don’t often occupy your dinner table. The experience is as much as the local connection as the food. Full from eating, you take a trip to Wat Banan, an Angkorian temple that’s usually completely deserted, except for the thousands of bats that fly past every evening. Then in the countryside outside Battambang, you visit a small village that is keeping the artisanal tradition alive. NGOs have worked with the community, helping train locals in the kind of handicrafts that have been part of Khmer culture since Angkor Wat was raised. Battambang is not a major tourist destination and that’s what creates the experience today, this chance to see a way of life that hasn’t been altered like so many others across Southeast Asia.

Fly Battambang to Bangkok then onwards to Koh Samui, the second largest of the Thai islands. This was the Gulf of Thailand island that introduced Thai beaches to the world. Think white sand, swaying palms, thick jungle, and rich blue watercolors. While it is popular, it is large enough to absorb its visitors, with some parts of the island hardly developed at all. It’s worth contrasting this with other famous Thai islands and beaches, where there simply isn’t enough space to take in the abundance of foreign visitors – Koh Phi Phi a well-known example.

Check in to a resort on the southern shore of Koh Samui and check out the view, nothing but soft waves and turquoise all the way to the horizon. The jungle provides a shady backdrop and your small resort is hidden in the trees, tucked away from the world. For these next four days you don’t need shoes, the white sand just steps away from your terrace and hammock. There are things to do on this island but mostly Koh Samui is for doing nothing at all, especially after you’ve had eight action-packed days in Cambodia.

If you want to venture further than the beach then there’s the jungle. Travel further still and the fishing village of Bophut provides an indication of what life used to like here before tourists came. Beneath the water’s surface lies a marine park, home to tropical reefs and a few pelagic wanderers; the snorkeling is good but the diving is even better.

Elsewhere in the marine park, you can travel to a series of deserted islets, while deep in the jungle you’ll find waterfalls and springs. Temples are also found on the island, although you’ll probably have had enough of them after Cambodia. These three days are at your leisure and activities can be organized locally through the resort. Most people touch down and barely make it more than a mile from the resort, such is the serenity in this small quiet corner of Koh Samui.

Fly back from Koh Samui to Bangkok where you transfer onto your international flight.