Phnom Penh or Yangon?

Neither city is a place to swim, and in both a dip means the hotel pool. The difference is how far the sea is. From Phnom Penh, the coast at Kep and Kampot is about three hours by road and easy to add as a short stop. From Yangon, Chaung Tha and Ngwe Saung are a long day's drive and really a separate vacation of several nights.

The two eat equally well, but the food is very different. Phnom Penh's Khmer cooking is herbal and gentle: amok, lok lak, sour soups and pork on rice for breakfast. The French years left it with baguettes, iced coffee and a café habit, and it has a slightly better top end, with refined Khmer cooking and NGO training restaurants.

Yangon's day turns on its tea shops, mohinga and palata, followed by oily slow-cooked curries with side dishes and laphet thoke. Its Indian and Chinese quarters bring biryani, dosa and the evening skewers of 19th Street. That gives it more variety in the street food and less polish above it.

Yangon has the single greater sight. The Shwedagon, gilded and nearly 100m tall, is reason enough for the trip, and the weathered colonial downtown of the Secretariat, the High Court and the Strand is among the largest in the region.

Phnom Penh answers with a royal ensemble, the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, and a far better museum, since its National Museum's Angkorian sculpture outclasses Yangon's modest collections. Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek add a harrowing chapter of recent history. Both cities take two or three days.

Here the gap is wide. Phnom Penh has a real night out: rooftop terraces over the river, small cocktail and craft bars around Bassac Lane in BKK1, and clubs near the riverside open until the early hours, with tuk-tuks waiting to take you home. It is compact and rough in places, but it runs late.

Yangon's evenings mean a draught beer at a beer station with football on the screens, or a table among the grills and crowds on Chinatown's skewer street. A few hotel bars and rooftops make up the rest, and most of the city is asleep before midnight.

Both sit on flat delta land, and neither is an outdoor base. Phnom Penh has a little more to do. You can cycle past stilt houses on Koh Dach, see sun bears and gibbons at Phnom Tamao, and reach the pine plateau of Kirirom in about two and a half hours. Yangon's outdoors is mostly its lakes, Kandawgyi and Inya, plus the park at Hlawga and the river ferries, with no hills anywhere near.

Yangon has the better day out in Bago, about two hours away, where the Shwemawdaw Pagoda, the reclining Shwethalyaung Buddha and a former royal capital fill a full day. Twante's kilns and the island pagoda at Kyauktan are shorter trips.

Phnom Penh's outings are quieter. There are the stupa-covered ridge at Oudong, the old temple at Tonle Bati, Phnom Chisor on its hilltop and the pottery town of Kampong Chhnang. In both cities the famous places, Angkor and the Golden Rock, need a night away.

Neither is easy with small children, given the heat, the broken pavements and the traffic, though both peoples are warm towards them. Phnom Penh copes a little better. It has the wildlife centre at Phnom Tamao, river cruises, the evening promenade and malls with play areas and ice rinks, with a hotel pool as the base for the stay.

In Yangon, what is built for children comes down to an old-fashioned zoo, a small amusement park and the lawns of People's Park. It suits older children who are happy among temples and markets.

Neither has a metro, so both depend on drivers, but the streets feel different. Phnom Penh runs on tuk-tuks booked through apps and on motorbike taxis, and its constant motorbike traffic makes crossing a road an act of nerve.

Yangon keeps motorbikes out of the centre, so its colonial grid is calmer and the more walkable of the two. Beyond downtown, though, taxis get stuck in heavy traffic. The slow Circular Railway is worth riding once for the views.

Phnom Penh has a little more to buy. The Russian Market's silk, silver and factory overruns sit alongside the boutiques and fair-trade shops of Street 240 and BKK1, which sell cooperative crafts and Kampot pepper. Yangon's shopping is concentrated in Bogyoke Aung San Market, which is strong on jade, rubies, Bagan lacquerware and longyi. Gems there call for caution, and the city has few design shops beyond it.

Both are cheap, and much the same in what a day costs. The difference is where the money goes. In Phnom Penh, boutique hotels with pools are good value, and the expense comes from imported wine and Western dining. In Yangon, the main costs are the international-standard hotels and the Shwedagon's entry fee for foreigners, while most other pagodas are free and the tea shops cost next to nothing.

Phnom Penh has the more rewarding evening at the theatre. Its classical Khmer dance, rebuilt by the Royal University of Fine Arts after near loss under the Khmer Rouge, is staged regularly near the National Museum alongside shadow puppetry. The Chaktomuk Theatre and a few jazz bars add to it.

Yangon offers marionette shows and dinner performances of classical dance at the Karaweik Palace. The all-night zat pwe theatre of pagoda festivals is hard for a visitor to find.

For everyday unwinding, Phnom Penh is the easier place. Khmer and foot massage is on nearly every street, blind-masseur centres and NGO spas are easy to find, and villa hotels on leafy streets give some genuine quiet.

Yangon's firm, stretching Burmese massage is cheap and easy to find, but the city around it feels hotter and louder. What it offers that Phnom Penh does not is the meditation centres, where you can join a vipassana retreat lasting days or weeks.