What to see & do in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand?

I'll be visiting these three countries in january, if anybody has some suggestions on what to see, or to do? Is there something of the beaten path that you consider to be overseen by tourist? Any gaming related things to keep an eye out, some general shopping tips? Interesting food, drink, nightlife suggestions are more then welcome! If you've been in any of these countries, share your experiences. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

One thing I know about Thailand is they'll serve your beer with ice, and the girls will refill them. Or something like that.

@artofwar420: Tried beer with ice once, wasn't great.

Stay safe

There was something about shooting cows with rocket launchers.

@feathered: Thanks, will do!

@fisk0: Can you shoot something else than cows?

Don't follow all the other tourists. It might seem obvious but when you're in south-east Asia it can be hard to find out how to go to these non-touristy places. Some of the coolest experiences I had in Vietnam happened when I was far away from other tourists. I once went to the store to buy some water in Dong Hoi (which is a town famous for the heroin smuggling and generally not considered a place for tourists. It's still nice.) and the people working there couldn't help me at all since they were all laughing so hard about me being from Europe (or at least I hope that's what was so funny). That led to me buying one of those huge water bottles (~ 5 liters) only to realize later that it was 80 proof rice wine.

Also, don't go elephant riding. At least some of the places that offer these tours handle the animals with a lot of cruelty and it's not even fun. Sore butt and back and the elephants blow their noses at you.

Bangkok is kinda bad. There's a lot of temples there but it's very much a big city full of big city things: pollution, tourist traps-a-plenty, white people. The South of Thailand is beautiful, but again kinda full of tourists; you can find yourself a little piece of paradise but you kinda have to share it with foreigners - all of the islands are just resorts and cheap hotels for party people. The North has less tourists, and is also very beautiful and there's way more DIY holiday up there (something I really regret not doing, but hey it was my first bout of real travel) it's also cheaper up North, if you want to spend even less than £1 a beer.

I only spent 3 days in Cambodia, and that was to see Angkor Wat and that was incredible, but Cambodia itself, weird experience. Still very much recovering from the Khmer Rouge, it's a very very poor country (conversely most Thai people you'll meet live comfortably, watching TV on their smart phones whilst tending to their stalls :D) and you'll notice this right away. Phnom Penh is probably different, but I didn't get to there. But seriously, go to Angkor Wat, it's truly amazing. I've never been to Vietnam though.

If you've got any questions about more specific things then please go ahead.

The beer with Ice thing though? Never encountered that. And the rocket launcher gun range existed, supposedly doesn't any more, but it was a guy who basically paid the corrupt Cambodian army to use their gear and shoot shit.

Didn't we have this topic a while back? or am I finally completely fucking insane? Well try to eat street food. Ask locals about clean trust worthy ones tho don't just walk up to one and go ham. I grew up in Thailand for half of my childhood, so here are some tips. Do not go to the south of Thailand! About 2 hours south of Bangkok is your cut off point any further than that and it will get risky. Try thai sweet, thai food is known for the spiciness but the sweets are the most delicate things.

Some local favorite food to keep an eye out for: Mussels pancake, all types of noodle, if you get up early enough you will catch rice porridge stands that only sell from 4am-8am, chinese food in Thailand are BANGING (second only to maybe going to hong kong itself). Watch your wallet where ever you go. DO NOT FOLLOW PEOPLE YOU DO NOT KNOW, even if they are hotel employee or something. Good luck and have fun.

@shinjin977: I have to strongly disagree about not going to the south of Thailand. I spent about 2 weeks on the isles of koh samui, koh pangan and koh tao and I never felt safer. It certainly felt safer than Bangkok. Of course you should stay safe but it's not like it's dangerous just to be there.

Also, I had the best food of my 2 month trip around Vietnam and Thailand on those isles.

If you go to Vietnam, I can recommend Da Nang. I lived there for 2 years and found it to be my favourite city in the country. It's not too big and not too small, fresh air and beautiful weather, a seemingly infinite beach stretching down to the "ancient town" Hoi An. People are very friendly and it's not too overrun with tourists yet. The city is growing more and more lately though and have recently built some pretty cool new bridges (one dragon bridge that shoots fire/water on saturdays :) ).

If you end up spending time in Da Nang I can recommend going to Soul Kitchen, a beachside bar/restaurant outside Hoi An, on any given sunday night. They have a big music jam with all the local musicians (mostly expats). I used to play in a band there so every sunday we would host it. Soul Kitchen is one of the most idyllic places I've ever been, and now I am missing it while thinking about it :(.

Anyways good luck. Hope you go to Vietnam, it's a beautiful, magical place (for those who can appreciate it, not for everyone).

You eat Pho in Vietnam. You train snakes in Cambodia. And you train in Thailand.

You went to 3 tourist trap island. ("Koh" in thai means island) and yes south of thailand is some crazy shit. It is on multiple country's dangerous to travel list and when I was 6, riding in my dad's car going down there on business, I saw 2 guys in get a fender bender and it ended with one guy shooting another guy right in the face (no punches were throw before hand btw). My dad told me to get down and we quickly drove away. This is not some crazy story btw, shit like that happen more than thai police like to admit. The sex slave market/capital of the world is also located down there. Just recently a British couple were brutally raped and murdered. Not saying bad things will adsolutely happen but like I said before, 2 hours south of bangkok shit gets risky and bangkok is no haven. The lesson here is be very careful travelling anywhere and for the love of god DO NOT GO TO ISOLATED PLACES.

Another good tip is, do what the locals do, in Thailand for example, good honest people considered going out to night clubs/drinking places to be kind of shady. Why is that? Because asian night clubs and bars are fucking shady as oppose to the western world where people go to chill and that is considered normal. You will see local people drinking in local favorite restaurant on the side of the road instead. Have fun, asia is a blast and do not trust people coming up to you to tell you about bars/hotel/tourist locations. At best those are terribly expensive tourist traps, at worst those are actual financial/physical/sex traps.

Oh I almost forgot and this is VERY important, when in Thailand DO NOT speak badly or preferably don't speak at all about the royal family. because of le majeste law, you can go to jail for the rest of your life if you drunkenly joke about doing the queen or something.

@alexw00d: I'll be going to Angkor Wat and Pnom Phen. Angkor is one of the things I'm most excited for. Any other temples you can recommend?

@shinjin977: From your advice I would gather that the tourist traps are pretty good place with the exception of a bunch of white people. The south sounds like Serbia during the 90's (ahh, childhood memories) but with more sex slave trade. The thing is I'll be mostly in Bangkok and Koh Phan Gan. I was planning on going around these places and explore for a bit, but after reading your post, I get that is not a good idea. Thanks for the food advice!

@g00z3m4n: Will check it out! Have you been in Ho Chi Minh City? Anything worthwhile there?

@thehbk: Sounds good man! Awesome movie, I'm curious what they'll do with the remake.

@dimi3je: Heh, a lot of the temples we saw in Bangkok I can't remember the name of because some dude in a tuk tuk drove us to each one in between him trying to get commission on us buying suits or jewellery, but Wat Pho is a the big one there I can remember the name of, that was cool, but incredibly busy. Has a huge laying Buddha. If you get up to Chang Mai - which you should! - there's this temple on the top of a mountain which was incredible, but also very busy. And there's a bunch of temples in the 'old town' there that will be more peaceful and still very beautiful.

A friend of mine spent most of this past summer in Thailand. Spend a day or two in Bangkok if you really want to see it but I would suggest making your "home base" Chiang Mai, which is actually northern Thailand. You will still find touristy stuff there, but my friend found it much better than the pollution and hustle and bustle of Bangkok. TripAdvisor lists Chiang Mai in its Top 25 destinations in the world.

When you go to the cinema in Thailand, make sure to stand up when they play the National Anthem and the trailer for how great their king & queen are.

Thailand right now is actually in a bit of political turmoil and they have had curfews and riots in Bangkok amongst other things. It probably won't affect you as a tourist but worth keeping in mind. The south is a very touristy place and you will be fine if you stick around other people, but it can also be dangerous. A lot of that area is owned by russian drug gangs, including whole islands and stretches of beach. The authorities can be -extremely- strict about drugs, if that is something you were considering. I would be very very careful about this. The punishment for being caught with drugs in Thailand, particularly if they suspect you are trying to get them out of the country, is incredibly harsh. I don't mean to scare you or anything, but just keep your wits about you if that's where you are going.

As for Vietnam, I would definitely suggest doing a cooking class, especially if you are in Hoi An or round there. They will take you to the field, the market, and then teach you to cook a few different, really nice meals, for about $20-$30. They use a lot of ingredients you would struggle to find outside of asia, my chef said oh you can replace the banana leaf with lettuce, or the taro with potato. In the end if you did all the replacements, you'd end up with boiled carrot and potato wrapped in a lettuce leaf and dipped in ketchup. Not quite the same as a vietnamese spring roll.

Also if you like things spicy, in Thailand in particular, see if you can convince one of the street stalls to give you the food "thai person spicy". They will automatically put in less spice if you don't look thai, and even then it can be pretty wild. Even if you ask for it like this they won't go the whole way. It can be like getting drunk off spices, you can feel it right in your brain. Pretty cool. If you get sick of asian-flavours at any point, the big shopping malls in Bangkok have huge food courts which are full of different food from all over the world, including terrible american restaurants. But they also have amazing, decadent desserts, including a whole chain dedicated to serving piles of ice cream, fruits, chocolates on top of very thick toast.

Yes I have been in Ho Chi Minh City, or "Saigon" a couple of times, but found Da Nang to be much more worth while. Ho Chi Minh is so over crowded, polluted and jam packed with motorbikes. They also got this huge sky scraper ominously overlooking the city that reminded me of City 17 or something from half-life 2, so I just called it the evil building. Ho Chi Minh is better than Hanoi though in my opinion, but would much rather recommend Da Nang, Da lat, Hue, Phu Quoc.

Another place you should probably avoid is Nha Trang. It's full of tourists (a lot of Russian tourists here for some reason), and it just not a very pleasant place. My friends also got robbed there, though they kind of have themselves to blame seeing as they were hanging out in night clubs at 2am and got a ride back to the hotel on some random guys motorbike.

Eat some fried spiders. I think you can do that in both Vietnam and Cambodia.

Go to prison 21 / tuol sleng in phnom penh - It was an astonishing experience and really opened me to the plight of the cambodian/khmer people, I wish I had more than a stopover in Phnom Pehn before I left for Angkor so I could also visit the killing fields. Make sure you see Wat Preah Ang Thom (said to be where the Khmer empire was founded, but also a beautiful temple and waterfalls around it) and Ta Prohm (the "tomb raider temple", and unlike the bigger temples it has not been restored - it was a fantastic experience but just get to it early in the morning).

If you can rent a car/bike, travel to Mae Hong Son via Chiang Mai both are wonderful and trip aswell.

see a nice beach in Thailand. I bet it's nice.

@contagious: Whilst you're definitely 8 months late on this topic, I would quite like to know how the dude's trip went.

What sort of transport should one use to travel between cities and countries? I'm planning a trip for the winter which will take me through Russia, Mongolia, China and Southeast Asia and I'm hoping to do most of it on a train or bus. Also do any of you have experiences regarding travel in Burma/Myanmar. A few friends of mine have had great things to say about their travels there and I'd really like to visit a few places. I understand that you can't really get there through Laos, but apparently there's a train/bus connection that you can take from Thailand.

Speaking of Thailand, I know that there are some really dodgy areas in the south, but I'd really like to get to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore by stopping by a few towns along the way from Bangkok. Are there any places which would be particularly safe? Something touristy is not preferable of course, but manageable if I'm only staying in the spot for a day or two.

Going from secondhand experience, one of the sadder aspects of this region is that anywhere that isnt full of tourists = unsafe :<

Vietnam is incredible. Ha Long Bay is the most beautiful place I've ever been to, it's an absolute must. Ben Thanh market in Ho Chi Minh is pretty cool, if touristy. Also, if you're into history the Cu Chi tunnels are depressing but interesting. Apart from that, I'd just say explore, but you have to keep in mind the fine balance between "too touristy" and "dangerous for foreigners" unfortunately. Like anywhere the vast majority of people are perfectly lovely people, but the difference is that as a foreign tourist you are immediately targeted by the people who aren't perfectly lovely.

@isomeri: anything South of Krabi and the surrounding Islands isn't safe, so no, not really. Krabi is lovely though, but that whole part of fairly touristy. Most of Thailand is tbh, after rice exports it's the country's main source of income. Any and all of the bigger settlements will be. Especially as you're going during the warm season. You can get a train from Bangkok that takes you through to Kuala Lumpur, takes a full day I believe, and I think it's all right. Alternatively you'll be able to fly Bangkok to KL or SG for not much money, I paid £60 to go from Phuket to Chiang Mai, and that was without looking ahead for when it was cheapest. Trains in general for the rest of the country and cheap as anything, and whilst not the most comfortable - a lot of them are pretty damn old - they're still fine. I travelled from Bangkok all the way to the Cambodian border for £1.

Realistically though, if you're truly after something 'non-touristy' you shouldn't be asking on a forum. When you arrive, ask the locals where they go.