The mighty MEKONG

Sue Bryant explores Cambodia and Vietnam in style, with a cruise along South-East Asia's longest river

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Lightning is flickering across the horizon, thunder rumbling ominously. Towering black clouds are piled up in every direction. I’m on the deck of the riverboat Indochine II, taking it all in, high on ozone and excitement. The humidity is like a warm bath, the scent of the tropics on the breeze: damp earth and wood smoke.

I’ve joined a cruise along the Mekong river that forms the central part of a 10-night journey across Cambodia and Vietnam. My journey, with French-owned cruise line CroisiEurope, starts in Siem Reap, gateway to the magnificent Angkor temples, and ends in frenetic Ho Chi Minh City. In the middle is Phnom Penh, the riverside Cambodian capital, a place of shimmering palaces, bustling night markets and dark history. There’s masses to see and absorb but being on a cruise, with excursions included, makes it a seamless experience.

KHMER KINGDOM

Siem Reap, where the tour includes two nights in a hotel, is a wonderful way to ease into Asia. It’s a deliciously laid-back, boho town that’s grown up around the French discovery in 1860 of the first ruins of Angkor Thom, capital of the Khmer Empire from the ninth to the 15th centuries.

I spend a whole afternoon in the crumbling, colonial French Quarter, browsing chic little shops selling handmade silk bead necklaces and spicy lemongrass, fig and jasmine soy candles that come in little silver blessing bowls. Later, I skip garish Pub Street, thronging with backpackers and two-for-one cocktails, and sip chilled martinis in Miss Wong’s, where scarlet lanterns and potted palms whisk me straight to 1930s Shanghai.