Aqua Mekong Sight & Soul - 6 days

Welcome to Phnom Penh.

You will be picked up from airport and transferred to hotel for check in.

Rest of day be free at your own leisure

Meals: Nils

Accommodation: Raffles Hotel Le Royal – State Room

After breakfast, free at leisure until the transfer from hotel to Phnom Penh TS1 Port where you will check in your 3-story, five star Mekong abode. Welcome aboard. Settle into your floating retreat, with its window wall conferring an endlessly captivating panorama. Enjoy these private Mekong moments on your California king bed, terrace or daybed. Then, let’s celebrate the onward journey towards the heart of this mighty river with a Khmer Apsara performance, an indigenous tradition memorialized on the temple walls at Angkor Wat.

Meals: Dinner

Accommodation: Aqua Expeditions Mekong Cruise – Design Suite 1^st Deck

Breakfast and cruise to the silversmith village of Koh Chen, you have the chance to watch artisans producing the magnificent silverware favored by Khmer royalty. Continue to Udong, the royal capital from the 17-19th centuries, where you learn about a uniquely challenging Buddhist practice at the Vipassana Dhura Mandala, a meditation center.  In the afternoon, a walking tour of Kampong Prasat offers a close up perspective on local lives and their riverside environment.

Back on cruise.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation: Aqua Expeditions Mekong Cruise – Design Suite 1^st deck

In the cooler hours, you head into the lush countryside to visit traditional potters and palm-sugar producers, astride mountain bikes or chauffeured by shaded tuk-tuk. Into the rice paddies, pedal to watch wizened masters scale sky-piercing palms towering over you. Cruise across the glassy water and disembark among the lotuses for an ox-cart ride along the Tonle Sap riverbanks, past lacquered wooden houses where during these dry months residents take refuge in the relative cool of these outdoor impromptu living rooms.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation: Aqua Expeditions Mekong Cruise – Design Suite 1^st deck

On this river of time you admire dexterous Khmer artisans dyeing and weaving kroma, the ubiquitous item no Khmer lives without. Explore the riverbank on two wheels if you wish, past Buddhist temples and thatch houses perched on spindly wooden stilts while white oxen wade just offshore. After lunch, board your marine-grade aluminum skiffs and head towards the tamarind trees of Preah Prosop, a remote village little changed over several lifetimes.       

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation: Aqua Expeditions Mekong Cruise – Design Suite 1^st deck

Breakfast and disembark to explore the Cambodian capital by motorized tuk-tuk. You will visit the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda and the National Museum of Cambodia, home to the world’s largest collection of Khmer art. For those who wish, visit the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide and the Killing Field or shopping at Russian Market. Then, you will be transferred to your pre-arranged hotel (if you plan stay longer in Phnom Penh) or to the airport for your onward flight to the next destination.

Meals: Breakfast