Cambodia and Vietnam
While touring Cambodia’s centuries-old remnants of empire, visitors can be emphatically reminded of more recent history.
The Cambodian resort town of Siem Reap neighbours the ruins of Angkor, a vast network of ancient buildings that include the temple of Angkor Wat, dating back to the six-century reign of the Khmer kings.
But the destructive legacy of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime can’t be ignored.
“You have to go on a tour so there’s someone with you who can tell you not to step off this path,” says travel writer Rick Cropp. “There are minefields everywhere.”
Interest in Cambodia and its rich history, as well as in neighbouring Vietnam, has spiked over the past decade, as the two countries enjoy long-sought-after stability.
“There’s more infrastructure for travellers and tourism in general,” says travel writer Claire Newell.
“People have been going to Thailand for years, 40 years, and loved it. But they have been hesitant to go into the other parts of Southeast Asia.”
That has changed, and along with visitors have come foreign researchers unearthing more of the area’s past. Recent aerial laser surveys of Angkor’s rugged jungle landscape have shown that ancient Angkor was bigger than previously believed, a vast urban network that was the biggest mega-city in pre-industrial history. Much of that has been taken over by natural jungle over the past six centuries.
While Cambodia recovers from the Khmer Rouge civil war that killed an estimated one in four Cambodians — the infamous killing fields are a sobering must-see — Vietnam has come back from decades of fighting a series of foreign powers.
“The Vietnamese are also very proud of the fact that they have got rid of the Japanese, the French and then the Americans,” says Cropp.
“They have big tourist areas that are centred in military things — cave systems, battlefields.”
This year marks the 40th anniversary of what the Americans would call the fall of Saigon. Today, the city renamed Ho Chi Minh City bustles with entrepreneurs both big and small, from hotels to street vendors, a magnet for international visitors. Salted among the backpacking millennials are older Americans reliving their own wartime memories.
Newell likes the Vietnamese coast — from Halong Bay in the north with its natural limestone islands rising from the water, to the former wartime staging centre of Da Nang and neighbouring China Beach in the south.
“(Vietnam) is still young in its tourism so I think it’s a good time to visit,” says Newell.
“But you’re actually going to be able to get all the food that you’re used to, soda and bottled water that you may not have been able to get in years past. It was really off the beaten path for people and now it’s not.”
Cropp advises travellers to take care when away from Vietnam’s established tourist centres, in the less-developed countryside.
“Vietnam has got a split in its infrastructure,” says Cropp. “There’s still the part that has no European-type amenities — drinking water, sanitation of all sorts. I would recommend a tour, unless you’re a really good, experienced traveller.”
The plus is that the countryside is still unspoiled and timeless.
“You’ll be able to see the country as it was, because there’s lots of it that hasn’t been overrun,” says Cropp.