3. The Mekong
Travelling overland around southeast Asia can be a daunting task for many tourists, not to mention a crowded, hot, sticky endeavour. The perfect way to explore the region while still avoiding multiple flights is by taking a Mekong River cruise.
As the third-longest river in Asia, the Mekong forms a natural highway for watercraft, flowing 2,703 miles from the Tibetan Plateau, through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, with the majority of Mekong River cruises plying the waters of the Lower Mekong and those latter countries.
Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam offer doubtless highlights, however, taking in the colonial architecture and blissful Buddhist vibes of Luang Prabang in Laos; the intricate relief sculptures that beautify the walls of the largest religious building on Earth, Angkor Wat, in Cambodia; and the vast subterranean network that constitutes Vietnam’s wartime Cu Chi Tunnels, among countless other unmissable sights.
The lure of the world s most unexplored places
Some people need to conquer tangled jungles, empty deserts and mountain summits, but Chris Moss prefers to get lost in them
15 December 2020 • 10:53am
My spirit of exploration, such as it is, is most sated when I find myself a bit lost, somewhat lonely, and far from everywhere else
Credit: Getty
The end of the road doesn’t exist. I know, because I’ve spent much of my travelling life – 35 years and counting – looking for it. But what I’ve found on reaching for the handbrake at the end of Chile’s Southern Highway, arriving in the Beijing terminus of the Trans-Manchurian railway, or standing on the glorious, snowy heights of Ben Nevis in late December, is that there’s always a way to continue a journey. A faintly marked footpath, an unexpected train line, a peak in the middle distance teases like Shangri-La or Ultima Thule – and I’ve known, in my heart, that the next stage will be even better than the last.