Top Best Places to Visit in Southeast Asia [Part 1]

1. Angkor

When it comes to archeological sites, travelers won’t want to miss Angkor in northern Cambodia. It contains some of the world’s most important cultural remains. These include the enormous Angkor Wat temple, the Bayon temple with its multitude of massive stone faces and Ta Prohm, a Buddhist temple ruin entwined with towering trees. Historically, Angkor served as the Khmer capital from the ninth to 14th centuries, which influenced art throughout Southeast Asia.

2. Bali

The undisputed favorite of Indonesia’s more than 17,000 islands, Bali lives up to its reputation as the quintessential tropical paradise. The waters around Bali are known for its high marine diversity and coral reefs while the lush rice terraces provide a picturesque backdrop to its colorful and deeply spiritual Hindu culture. The island also has several great beach towns, like Kula, as well as other areas, such as Ubud, which are known for performing and artistic arts.

3. Ha Long Bay

4. Bangkok

What started out as a small trading post in the 15th century has now grown into a city of eight million people: Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. Visitors will find plenty of photo ops at the city’s famous floating markets where they can also buy veggies, tropical fruits and Thai snacks made in a floating kitchen. When travelers grow weary of visiting temples, they can visit a snake farm or just go shopping.
5. Bagan Myanmar’s answer to Angkor Wat, Bagan, on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River, is home to the largest concentration of Buddhist temples, pagodas and stupas in the world. Bagan was the capital of the First Burmese Empire from the 9th to the 13th centuries. The site that Marco Polo once described as the “gilded city” was home to around 13,000 Buddhist temples in its 11th-century heyday. Thousands remain, including the famous Ananda temple with its sparkling gold spires.

6. Ifugao Rice Terraces Photographers will want to have lots of memory cards with them when they visit the picturesque Ifugao Rice Terraces on the island of Luzon. For 2,000 years, people have been growing rice on terraces that follow the contours of the Cordilleras Mountains. The most famous ones can be found around the town of Banaue. They were created by the Ifugao ethnic people without modern tools and are still used today.

7. Borobudur Located on the island of Java, 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Yogyakarta, the Borobudur is the largest and most famous Buddhist temple in the world. The Borobudur was built over a period of some 75 years in the 8th and 9th centuries by the kingdom of Sailendra, out of an estimated 2 million blocks of stone. It was abandoned in the 14th century for reasons that still remain a mystery and for centuries lay hidden in the jungle under layers of volcanic ash.

8. Luang Prabang Luang Prabang lies at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers in northcentral Laos. The former royal capital is famous for its Buddhist temples and monasteries, with monks walking through the city collecting alms in the morning. The old town is popular with tourists who want to shop, visit temples or soak in the atmosphere. There are several waterfalls nearby and some sites offer elephant rides.

9. Ko Phi Phi Phi Phi is a beautiful archipelago located in the Krabi Province not too far from Phuket. Ko Phi Phi Don is the only island in the group with permanent inhabitants while the smaller Ko Phi Phi Leh is famous as the filming location for the 2000 movie “The Beach”. Travelers go here enjoy the beaches and to participate in a variety of water recreation activities, such as snorkeling, scuba diving and kayaking. The island was devastated by the 2004 tsunami, but is bouncing back with new construction.

10. Singapore Singapore, a city-state, lies at the south end of the Malay Peninsula just 137 km (85 miles) above the equator. Chinese are the predominant ethnic group, at 75 percent of the population. Travelers will hear residents speaking a variety of languages: Mandarin, English, Malay and Tamil. Singapore is a former British colony, with its top sights including the graceful Raffles Hotel, gardens and nature trails, the Buddha Tooth Relic Museum, and the city zoo.