3 weeks in Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand and we keep having places almost entirely to ourselves. What’s going on?
We are currently on a three-week trip through Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand) and something feels genuinely off compared to what we expected. Hanoi and Bangkok were busy enough, but basically everywhere else has been surprisingly, sometimes eerily quiet.
A few examples from the past two weeks:
We were the only guests in multiple restaurants in a row, not once or twice but pretty consistently outside of the two capitals. Siem Reap’s town center felt like a ghost town in the evening. Our hotel in Chiang Mai has four rooms occupied out of however many they have. We booked what was advertised as a group tour at an elephant sanctuary, showed up, and it turned out to be just the two of us, so we got a full private experience.
Do not get us wrong, we are not complaining about the elephant thing. But the overall vibe is strange. You can feel that businesses are struggling. Staff outnumber guests at a lot of places. Some spots that clearly used to be buzzing feel like they are just holding on.
So what is actually happening here? We have been debating it between ourselves:
Is this just low/shoulder season and we had unrealistic expectations? Is the broader economic situation keeping people home (flights are expensive, cost of living pressure everywhere)? Could the ongoing situation with Iran and regional instability be putting people off Southeast Asia as a whole, even though it is far away?
Curious whether others traveling right now are noticing the same thing, or whether this is specific to the spots we chose. Would love to hear from people who live or work in the region too.