How we plan a trip
Every itinerary starts with the river rather than a template. We work out which stretch of the Mekong fits the time you have, then build the days around it: a private vehicle for the road sections, a boat for the water sections, and a guide who knows that particular stretch rather than the route in general terms.
Most trips cross at least one border, and each leg gets its own local guide rather than one person following you the whole way. A guide in the delta knows the tides and the market hours; a guide in Cambodia knows the river’s dry-season boarding points; neither is trying to also be an expert on the other country. A private vehicle and driver travel with you throughout, so the day is not built around a bus schedule.
How we travel on the water
Wildlife-watching that does not crowd the animal
At the Kampi pool near Kratie, where the river’s Irrawaddy dolphins actually live, we use the licensed boats set up for that purpose rather than any boat that happens to be available. It keeps the number of engines near the pool down and gives the dolphins room an informal alternative would not.
The floating village we choose, and the one we avoid
Three villages sit on Tonle Sap within reach of Siem Reap. We take travelers to Kampong Khleang, the furthest out and the least built around tour buses, or to Kampong Phluk when time is tighter. Chong Khneas, the closest village, draws frequent complaints about inflated boat fees, so it is not where we send people.
We do not promise what the water will not allow
A river itinerary written in July does not always hold in February. If low water in the dry season means a cruise has to board further upstream, or a canal is too shallow for the boat we would normally use, we flag it during the planning stage rather than leave you to find out once you are already on the river.
What is changing on the river
The Mekong you will travel is not quite the one described in older guidebooks, and we would rather say that plainly than let the gap surprise you. Floating markets have shrunk across the delta. Cai Rang, the best known of them, now holds something near a hundred boats at its dawn peak, down from several hundred two decades ago; Cai Be has fallen to roughly twenty boats, and Nga Nam, further south, has all but disappeared as a market.
Tonle Sap tells a similar story from the Cambodian side. Each flood season the Mekong pushes the Tonle Sap river backwards into the lake, but the volume of that reversal has fallen by around 29 percent between 2010 and 2024, mostly because of sand mining in the river channel. Floating villages sit on water that rises and falls less dramatically than it used to, and a photograph from a decade ago is not a reliable guide to what you will actually see.
Low water in the dry season, roughly January to April, is the other change worth planning around. Some river cruises shift their Cambodian boarding point from Phnom Penh upriver to Kampong Cham for those months, and a handful of delta canals get too shallow for larger boats. None of this is a reason to skip the river. It is a reason to plan the exact route and boat around the season you are travelling in, which is what we do for every itinerary.
Get in touch
A river trip in the delta, Cambodia, Laos or the Mekong’s stretch of northern Thailand starts with two things: roughly when you want to go, and a feel for the places that drew you here. Send both through and we will sketch out how a route could work.