Cambodia’s history meets Vietnam modernity on Mekong cruise

Just before dawn on a pleasantly warm August morning, the AmaDara is tied up to trees on an island in the middle of the Mekong River. From the bow of the snub-nosed ship, the serenity is intoxicating, even if pulsed by the occasional putt-putt of a passing cargo vessel. On the horizon, a few miles downriver, rise the towers of Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh.

Fifty years ago, in April 1975, the Vietnam war officially ended and the last Americans departed the country, a chaotic exit during which Dutch photographer Hubert van Es’ famous “last helicopter out of Saigon” photograph was taken. Their departure exposed a regional power vacuum and in Cambodia – renamed Kampuchea – under dictator Pol Pot, the entire population was relocated to the countryside to work on farms, in a brutal and systematic suppression designed to make everyone “equal”. The crackdown quickly became a genocide.

With its still limited travel infrastructure, one of the easiest ways to see Cambodia is on an organised tour, and joining a Mekong River cruise freed up some of the usual logistical gymnastics for me and my husband. California-based AmaWaterways, best known for its many ships plying Europe’s rivers, was one of the first cruise lines to travel the Mekong, and its eight-day itinerary, Riches of the Mekong, will take us from Siem Reap, in northwestern Cambodia, to Ho Chi Minh City, in southern Vietnam. A nearly identical itinerary, Charms of the Mekong, travels in the opposite direction.

Although the core of our trip will be aboard the 124-passenger AmaDara, no one comes to Cambodia without a stopover in Siem Reap, to see the ruins of Angkor Wat. We scheduled flights to arrive four days ahead of the sailing.