Siem Reap and the Angkor temples

Angkor is not a temple, it is a city of them spread over four hundred square kilometres — the capital of an empire that ran most of mainland South-East Asia for six centuries. Siem Reap is the town that grew up to serve it. Three days is the right length: enough to see the great set pieces and the quiet ones, not so long that the sandstone blurs together.

The ticket

Passes are one, three or seven days and are sold only at the official ticket centre a few kilometres from town — never by a driver, a hotel or a website. The three-day pass is valid across ten days, so you can break it up. Buy it after five in the afternoon and it is dated for the next day while letting you go straight out for that evening’s sunset: the single most useful piece of local knowledge here.

Carry it at all times. It is checked at the entrance to each major temple, and the photograph on it is yours.

Three days, in the right order

Day one, the small circuit in reverse: start at Ta Prohm at opening while the tour buses are all at Angkor Wat for sunrise, then Banteay Kdei, then Angkor Thom and the Bayon in the late morning, finishing at Angkor Wat itself in the afternoon light, which is better for photographs than dawn anyway.

Day two, go far: Banteay Srei, the small pink sandstone temple with the finest carving in the empire, an hour north, combined with Kbal Spean or the landmine museum. Day three, the grand circuit — Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som and East Mebon — which is where you finally get temples to yourself.

Sunrise, honestly

The Angkor Wat sunrise is genuinely beautiful and genuinely crowded — two thousand people behind the north pond. If you do it, arrive by five, take the north pond rather than the south, and leave immediately afterwards while everyone else queues for breakfast. If you would rather not, Pre Rup or Phnom Bakheng at sunset gives you the same light over the same plain with a tenth of the people.

Getting around the park

A tuk-tuk with a driver for the day is the standard and the best: shade, a place to leave water, and someone who knows where the buses are not. Bicycles work for the small circuit if you start at dawn. An air-conditioned car makes sense for the far temples or in April. A licensed guide for at least the first day transforms the experience — the carvings are a narrative, and without someone to read them you are looking at very old stone.

The town itself

Siem Reap has become a genuinely good small town: a walkable old French quarter, the riverside, Kandal Village for independent shops and cafés, Phsar Chas for the market, and a night scene that runs from the famously loud Pub Street to quiet rooftop bars two blocks away. Keep an afternoon free for it rather than treating the town as a dormitory.

Common questions