Trip overview
This trip pairs two very different mornings on the Mekong. In Phnom Penh you stand at Sisowath Quay and look out at Chaktomuk, the four-way confluence where the Mekong meets the Tonle Sap and splits into the Bassac before it all crosses into Vietnam. Two days later you sit low in a wooden boat at Kampi, engine cut, watching for a grey back to roll at the surface. Between the two, the road runs north through rubber plantations and river towns that see far fewer tour buses than Siem Reap.
Phnom Penh gets a full day and a half: the Royal Palace and National Museum by the river, then Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, which most visitors find necessary rather than easy. Kratie gets the same weight as the capital, not a rushed add-on, because the dolphins are the reason most people book this exact itinerary.
Trip highlights
- Sisowath Quay and the Chaktomuk confluence, plus the Royal Palace and National Museum
- Tuol Sleng (S-21) and Choeung Ek, Phnom Penh’s two Khmer Rouge memorial sites
- A river-road stop in Kampong Cham, a quieter Mekong town most tours skip
- Irrawaddy dolphin watching from an official boat at the Kampi pool, 15 km north of Kratie
- A bicycle loop around Koh Trong, the river island across from Kratie town
- Travel timed toward December to February, when low water concentrates the dolphins at Kampi
Your day-by-day itinerary
Day 1: Arrive Phnom Penh — Sisowath Quay and the Chaktomuk confluence
Your guide meets you on arrival and takes you first to Sisowath Quay, the riverfront promenade that looks out over Chaktomuk, the point where the Mekong, the Tonle Sap and the Bassac all meet. It is the clearest way to understand the geography of everything you will see over the next three days: this is the same river system that reaches Kratie upstream and the Vietnamese delta downstream. The Royal Palace complex and the Silver Pagoda sit a short walk from the river, and the National Museum, with its collection of Angkorian sculpture, rounds out the afternoon. Evening is free; the quay itself is worth a walk after dark, when the heat drops and the food stalls open.
Day 2: Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, then the road north to Kampong Cham
Morning is given to Tuol Sleng, the former high school turned S-21 prison under the Khmer Rouge, and Choeung Ek, one of the killing fields sites on the city’s outskirts. Both are handled without commentary that tries to soften what they were; your guide will tell you plainly what you are looking at and give you time rather than a script. After lunch you head north by road, breaking the drive in Kampong Cham, a Mekong-side town with French-era shopfronts and a much slower pace than the capital. If you are here in dry season, ask your guide about the state of the bamboo bridge to Koh Paen island: it has traditionally been rebuilt by hand each year once the floodwaters recede, but whether that still happens by the date you travel is worth confirming locally rather than assuming.
You continue on to Kratie by late afternoon and check in for two nights, giving the dolphin watching room to be unhurried rather than squeezed into a single morning.
Day 3: Irrawaddy dolphins at Kampi, then Koh Trong by bicycle
Kampi, about 15 km north of Kratie town, is where the last confirmed population of Irrawaddy dolphins on the Mekong gathers. The count stood at 117 individuals as of April 2026, the result of a slow, real recovery rather than a static number. You go out on a boat run by the official Kampi boat service, which keeps to fixed routes, cuts the engine near the animals and holds distance rather than chasing them; this is the only way we book this excursion. Dolphins surface to breathe every minute or two and you will see backs and fins rather than full leaps, so bring patience along with a camera. In the afternoon you cross to Koh Trong, a river island opposite Kratie town, and cover it by bicycle on quiet lanes past stilt houses, a small pagoda and rice paddies, with a proper look back at the Mekong from the island side.
Day 4: Kratie to Phnom Penh, departure
A last look at the river before the drive back to Phnom Penh, timed to connect with your onward flight. If your schedule allows a later departure, the morning can be left open for a slower walk around Kratie’s old French quarter instead of an early start.
What’s included
- Hotels in the class you choose, twin or double occupancy, with breakfast each morning, or an equivalent property if the one named is full.
- All meals written into the day-by-day programme below.
- A private air-conditioned vehicle for every transfer and excursion in the programme.
- An English-speaking local guide at each stop on the route.
- Every boat trip, river crossing and cruise named in the itinerary.
- Entrance fees for the sites listed in the programme.
- Drinking water in the vehicle and on boat days.
- Government tax and service charge.
Not included
- International and domestic flights, and rail tickets.
- Visas, and any fee collected at a border post.
- Travel insurance.
- Meals and drinks that are not written into the programme.
- Personal spending such as laundry, phone calls, minibar, souvenirs and watersports.
- Early check-in, late check-out and room upgrades.
- Anything added on the day at your request outside the printed programme.
- Gratuities for your guide and driver.
- Costs arising from weather, flooding, road closures or other events beyond our control.
- Bank transfer charges.
Booking this trip
- Days
- 4 days / 3 nights
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For visas, payment terms and what to expect on arrival, see [Cambodia travel information](cambodia/travel-information).
Send us your travel dates and group size and we will confirm availability and hold your rooms in Phnom Penh and Kratie.