Bangkok, ho chi minh, angkor wat, chiang mai

squareboy007

I am heading to thailand, cambodia and vietnam in july. Flying into to Bangkok and intend to stay a couple of days there.

Then would like to see ho chi minh and angkor wat and the next place I would like to go is chiang mai.

would anybody have any suggestion on the best way to travel from bangkok to ho chi minh and angkor in any order.

I presume i will have to head back to bangkok to go to chiang mai

Many thanks.

Dante10

Heya, im in malaysia at the moment and have spent the last few weeks doing what you're planning to do.
visiting chiang mai will involve backtracking (unless you've plenty of time and want to go through little towns and villages) as most people go to chiang mai from laos or from chiang mai into laos. If you have the time, definitely go to Laos.....fave place in SEA.
Im not sure if there is a train from bangkok to phnom penh but i reckon there should be.
Im pretty sure there is no train station in siem reap (where angkor wat is) so you'll have to get the bus from phnom penh (at least thats what i did as i heard it was the easiest way), which means you're getting further away from ho chi minh city.
To be honest, your itineraray seems a little bit illogical geographically, in my opinion anyway.....but i could be wrong. How long will you be travelling for?

laoisman11

The best way is to fly to each of your destinations....if you're willing to spend.

Otherwise, buses, buses and more buses. Lots of tourist buses which (normally) take you to where you want to go.

Approx. times on buses: 6-8 hrs between Bkk and Chiang Mai, and BKK and Angkor Wat. I think approx. 12 hrs between Angkor Wat and HCMC.

So if you start in Bangkok and need to fly back out of Bangkok, that's approx. 50 hours on buses.

The trains are apparently slower than the buses.

Check out http://www.travelfish.org/

me1724

hi,
im comming to the end of the exact same trip, in phnom penh at the moment... flew into bangkok, then got night train to chiang mai leaves at half 7 in the evening gets there around half 9 the next day... from there got bus to luang prang, took about 4 hrs to get to the border stayed there for the night and got bus for 16 hrs the next day... then a 6 hr bus to vang veng for some tubing, a 4 hr bus to vientene... then i got a flight to siem reap (angkor wat), was expensive 120 euro so if you have time could get another sleeper train back to bangkok and then a bus to siem reap but i didnt have much time... a bus then from siem reap to pheom penh takes 6 hrs and tomorrow getting a bus to ho chi minh city which takes another 6 hrs...

hope this was a help any other questions just ask...

Dante10

me1724 wrote: »

hi,
im comming to the end of the exact same trip, in phnom penh at the moment... flew into bangkok, then got night train to chiang mai leaves at half 7 in the evening gets there around half 9 the next day... from there got bus to luang prang, took about 4 hrs to get to the border stayed there for the night and got bus for 16 hrs the next day... then a 6 hr bus to vang veng for some tubing, a 4 hr bus to vientene... then i got a flight to siem reap (angkor wat), was expensive 120 euro so if you have time could get another sleeper train back to bangkok and then a bus to siem reap but i didnt have much time... a bus then from siem reap to pheom penh takes 6 hrs and tomorrow getting a bus to ho chi minh city which takes another 6 hrs...

hope this was a help any other questions just ask...

Exactly............, you went through Laos.

squareboy007

thanks for the advice

looks like to itinerary needs some work