The food on this trip is a real highlight for many. Southeast Asian cuisine is known for its abundance of freshly prepared dishes with strong aromatic flavours. There is a focus on herbs and citrus, ensuring each dish packs a punch; chilli features highly too, but is easily avoided if desired.

Typically most dishes will come with rice and many are often served in a banana leaf with a variety of dips and herbs served separately. Visiting three countries means a different culinary experience every time you cross the border; ensure you try freshly made pad Thai noodles from the Bangkok street stalls, the fish amok curry in Cambodia for a creamy coconut-based fragrant curry; and the banh xeo (huge sizzling pancakes) in Vietnam.

Worth knowing

Western food is readily available almost everywhere.

Vegetarian food is widely available; however, the offering will be fairly similar in most places within each country. Please advise at time of booking if you have any dietary requirements.

Meet your tour leader and fellow travellers over a group dinner in Hanoi. Share an introduction to the journey while discovering the flavours and table customs of Vietnam’s capital.

Hanoi’s cooking draws on fresh herbs, savoury broths and a balance of textures. This hosted meal offers a relaxed setting to ask questions, get to know the group and begin exploring the country through its food.

Walk Hanoi’s Old Quarter with your tour leader, finding your bearings among trading streets filled with shopfronts, street kitchens and scooters. Visit the Temple of Literature, where gateways and courtyards offer a quieter perspective on the capital.

Founded in 1070 and associated with Vietnam’s first university, the temple preserves stone stelae honouring scholars. Together, these stops reveal two enduring sides of Hanoi: its lively commercial traditions and its long respect for learning.

Explore Hue’s Imperial Citadel with your tour leader, walking among palaces, courtyards and ceremonial buildings associated with the Nguyen dynasty, Vietnam’s last ruling royal family. Visit the Imperial City and the remains of the Forbidden Purple City.

Surviving and restored structures evoke the rituals of court life, while visible wartime damage tells a different chapter of Hue’s history. The contrast makes this former seat of power especially compelling to explore on foot.

Make paper flowers alongside artisans at Lavin Home in Hue. Learn to shape and assemble simple materials into delicate blooms, with guidance from the people who practise the craft.

This small workshop provides training and employment for members of the Deaf community. The hands-on visit brings a personal dimension to Hue’s craft traditions: rather than only viewing finished work, you can appreciate the precision, patience and skill behind each flower.

Walk Hoi An’s UNESCO-listed old town with your tour leader, passing wooden merchant houses, temples and assembly halls. The guided orientation helps you understand the compact streets and riverside setting of this former trading port.

Between the 15th and 19th centuries, merchants and communities from across the region helped shape Hoi An’s architecture and culture. Its surviving buildings make that commercial past unusually tangible, even amid the bustle of the town today.

Explore central Ho Chi Minh City on foot, taking in Ben Thanh Market and Notre Dame Cathedral before visiting the War Remnants Museum. Busy streets and contrasting landmarks introduce the pace and layers of Vietnam’s largest metropolis.

At the museum, photographs and exhibits examine the Vietnam War and its lasting consequences. Some displays contain graphic images; the visit offers important, sometimes difficult context for understanding the country’s recent history.

Visit Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, housed in a former school used as the Khmer Rouge’s S-21 detention centre. Preserved rooms, photographs and personal accounts convey the experiences of those imprisoned there.

At Choeung Ek, one of the Killing Fields, mass graves and a memorial honour victims of the regime. Both visits are distressing, but together provide essential context for Cambodia’s history between 1975 and 1979.

Visit Phnom Penh’s Royal Palace complex and the Silver Pagoda to discover another dimension of Cambodia’s capital. Explore a site closely associated with the country’s monarchy and Buddhist traditions.

The palace remains a royal residence, while the pagoda takes its name from the silver tiles covering its floor. Their ceremonial setting offers a striking contrast to the city’s busy streets and helps explain the continuing place of royal and religious heritage in Cambodian life.

Paddle among Ha Long Bay’s limestone islands on an optional kayaking excursion, if conditions allow. Seeing the bay from near water level offers a more active perspective on its steep karsts and sheltered stretches of sea.

This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour. Availability depends on the weather, so kayaking should be treated as a possible addition to the included junk boat cruise rather than a guaranteed activity.

Explore Hoi An through its street food on an optional culinary outing. Sample local dishes and encounter the flavours that distinguish this central Vietnamese trading town from the country’s larger cities.

Food provides a direct connection to daily life in Hoi An, where market ingredients and regional recipes remain part of the town’s appeal. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour through your tour leader.

Join a cooking class in Tra Que village for a hands-on introduction to the food of the Hoi An region. Work with local ingredients and learn how familiar Vietnamese flavours come together in the kitchen.

Tra Que is associated with the herbs and vegetables that feature prominently in central Vietnamese cooking, giving the class a strong sense of place. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour through your tour leader.

Combine cycling, a boat trip and dinner on an optional outing in the Hoi An area. Moving by bicycle and water offers a varied way to experience the surroundings beyond the old town’s pedestrian streets.

The shared meal adds a sociable close to an activity that balances exploration with time on the water. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour through your tour leader; specific arrangements can be confirmed during the trip.

Visit My Son Sanctuary from Hoi An to explore its surviving brick tower-temples. Set amid a landscape of low hills, the archaeological site preserves an important part of the Cham civilisation’s religious heritage.

The towers offer a perspective on central Vietnam that differs from Hoi An’s merchant history, revealing the region’s older cultural and spiritual traditions. This optional excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour through your tour leader.

Venture into the Mekong Delta on an optional full-day excursion from Ho Chi Minh City. Experience the river region south of the metropolis and see a different side of southern Vietnam.

The delta’s waterways and settled landscapes contrast with the city’s dense streets. This excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour through your tour leader. As a full-day activity, it cannot be combined with the other optional Ho Chi Minh City experiences offered on the same day.

Discover Ho Chi Minh City one dish at a time on an optional evening street-food tour. Explore the city’s food culture at the hour when its busy streets and eating spots take on a different energy.

Southern Vietnamese cooking offers another perspective on the flavours encountered elsewhere in the country. Your tour leader can help arrange this experience, which is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Try your hand at Khmer cooking in Siem Reap on an optional class that includes lunch and tuk tuk transfers. Prepare food with guidance and enjoy the dishes as part of the experience.

Cambodian cuisine brings together aromatic ingredients and regional techniques that offer a fresh point of comparison with Vietnamese and Thai cooking. The class is at additional cost and bookable on tour; confirm arrangements with your tour leader.

Take a boat excursion on Tonle Sap Lake to see more of the region surrounding Siem Reap. Time on the water offers a change of perspective from the temples and streets of Angkor’s gateway town.

Tonle Sap is central to Cambodia’s landscape and livelihoods, making it a meaningful place to explore beyond the archaeological sites. This optional excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour through your tour leader.

Cruise Ha Long Bay aboard a traditional junk boat, passing limestone islands that rise steeply from the water. Watch the scenery from the rooftop deck, stay overnight in a cabin on board and enjoy meals with views across the bay.

A beach stop offers the chance to swim in a designated area or climb a steep path to a viewpoint over the islands. Evening light and another stretch of sailing reveal how dramatically this seascape changes with the weather and time of day.

Travel by boat along Hue’s Perfume River to Thien Mu Pagoda, approaching its seven-tiered tower from the water. The river journey offers views of the banks that have long shaped the city’s identity.

Founded in the early 17th century, Thien Mu remains one of Hue’s best-known Buddhist sites. Its tower and riverside setting connect the city’s spiritual heritage with the landscape beyond the former imperial centre.

Visit the tomb of Emperor Thieu Tri in Hue to examine a Nguyen dynasty complex arranged around separate burial and temple areas. Walk through a setting designed for remembrance and royal ceremony rather than everyday court life.

The layout offers a different perspective on imperial architecture from Hue’s citadel. Its formal spaces reflect the importance of ancestry, ritual and dynastic continuity to Vietnam’s last ruling royal family.

Travel over the Hai Van Pass on the route between Hue and Hoi An, where the road climbs above Vietnam’s central coast. Look out across the lagoon at Lang Co and towards mountain slopes that descend to the sea.

The pass is more than a connection between cities: its changing elevations open up broad coastal views and show why this stretch of shoreline is celebrated for its scenery. Keep a camera close for the unfolding panorama.

Visit the food stalls of Skuon with your Cambodian tour leader for an introduction to the town’s best-known speciality: fried spiders. Hear about this distinctive local snack and decide for yourself whether to try one.

The stop offers a brief glimpse of everyday food culture beyond Cambodia’s major cities. Sampling is entirely your choice; the experience is equally an opportunity to observe, ask questions and encounter a regional tradition through your guide’s perspective.

Explore Angkor Wat with your Cambodian tour leader, examining the architecture and carvings of the Khmer Empire’s most celebrated temple. Enter the former royal city of Angkor Thom to see the Bayon’s monumental carved stone faces.

Set within Angkor’s vast UNESCO World Heritage site, these monuments reveal different expressions of religious belief and royal power. Guided interpretation helps bring the scale of the former cities, temples and reservoirs into focus.

Visit Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei as part of a guided exploration of Angkor. At Ta Prohm, immense tree roots grip the temple walls and spread across its stonework, making the relationship between architecture and forest especially vivid.

Your time in Siem Reap also includes watching the sunset at Angkor. The changing light offers a quieter way to take in the scale and atmosphere of this former Khmer centre beyond its individual monuments.

Visit the Cu Chi Tunnels on an optional morning excursion from Ho Chi Minh City. Learn about the underground network used during wartime and the conditions in which it was built and occupied.

The site provides a close look at one aspect of the conflict discussed in the city’s museums, grounding that history in a physical landscape. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour through your tour leader.

Meet Siem Reap’s craft traditions with an optional visit to Satcha Handicraft Centre or Artisans Angkor. See how Cambodian artisans bring established techniques into work made today.

Satcha supports craftspeople in developing their skills and businesses, connecting traditional practice with contemporary design. Your tour leader can help arrange a visit to either centre; it is at additional cost and bookable on tour. Confirm the chosen venue and arrangements locally.

Meet for a final group dinner in Bangkok if you would like to share an evening with your fellow travellers. It is an opportunity to compare favourite moments from Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand over a meal.

Bangkok’s lively dining culture provides a fitting backdrop for the gathering. Dinner is optional, at additional cost and bookable on tour; your tour leader can advise on the group’s arrangements.