SIEM REAP · CAMBODIA
Sunrise behind nine centuries of stone.
Angkor Wat at dawn, the Bayon faces and Ta Prohm in the grip of the trees. The floating villages on the Tonle Sap, the waterfall on Phnom Kulen, and the long tuk-tuk days in between.
Only here
You can only do these here.
Cooking classes and night markets turn up in every Asian city. Sunrise over Angkor Wat, the stilt villages on the Tonle Sap and the carved riverbed on Phnom Kulen belong to Siem Reap and nowhere else.
First light
Sunrise at Angkor Wat
Everyone warns you about the crowd, and everyone goes anyway. In the dark the causeway fills, people find a spot beside the reflecting pool, and then the sky behind the five towers runs grey to pink to gold, doubled upside down in the water. Come back at sunset, after the coaches leave, for the same towers nearly to yourself.
- 1 Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
- 2 Siem Reap: Angkor Wat: Small-Group Sunrise or Sunset Tour
- 3 Sunset tour of Kampong Phluk stilts home village on the Tonle Sap
The great lake
The Tonle Sap villages
The Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, and every monsoon it swells to five times its dry-season size. The villages live with it: houses up on twenty-foot stilts at Kampong Phluk, whole settlements that float and shift, and a flooded forest you paddle through in a narrow wooden boat.
- 1 From Siem Reap: Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by Boat
- 2 Sunset tour of Kampong Phluk stilts home village on the Tonle Sap
- 3 Kompong Phluk Floating Village Half-Day Tour ( Morning / Sunset )
The holy mountain
Phnom Kulen
Phnom Kulen is where the Khmer Empire was declared in the year 802, and it is still the most sacred mountain in the country. A shallow river slides over a bed carved with hundreds of lingas and Hindu gods, then drops off the escarpment as a waterfall you can stand under, with pilgrims and picnics on the rocks all around.
- 1 Kulen Waterfall Join-in Tour (local Picnic lunch)
- 2 Kulen Mountain: Small-Group Tour and Picnic lunch
- 3 Siem Reap: Kulen Mountain, Beng Mealea and Tonle Sap Tour
The first morning
If you only have one day at the temples.
Most Siem Reap trips are built around this one. Start here, then decide how much more time Angkor deserves.
The classics
Siem Reap's Most Popular Tours
Angkor Wat at sunrise, the Bayon, Ta Prohm and the Tonle Sap. The days nearly everyone books.
Where to begin
The days a Siem Reap trip is built around.
Angkor Wat and the sunrise, the floating villages on the Tonle Sap, the waterfall on Phnom Kulen, the Apsara dancers and the tuk-tuk circuits. The handful of experiences most trips are planned around, and the best of each.
The big decision
How to do the temples.
Angkor spreads across forty square kilometres, and the pass comes in one, three and seven-day tiers. Most people split it into circuits. Here is what each day covers, and how far out it takes you.
First light
The reason for the early alarm.
Hours before the gates open, the road out to Angkor Wat fills with tuk-tuks in the dark. People line the edge of the reflecting pool and wait. Then the sky behind the five towers catches fire, the stone warms from grey to gold, and the whole silhouette lands upside down in the water. It is the most photographed sunrise in Asia, and it earns it.
The best sunrise and sunset tours →The great lake
Life out on the Tonle Sap.
South of the temples the land gives way to the Tonle Sap, the beating heart of Cambodia's fish and rice. In the wet season it swells fivefold and the villages answer it, climbing onto tall stilts or simply floating. Boats slide between the houses, children paddle to school, and a drowned forest stands knee-deep in the lake.
Floating village and lake tours →The temple
Nine hundred years, and still the largest.
Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument ever built, a single temple the size of a small city, ringed by a moat you cross on a stone causeway. Suryavarman the Second raised it to the god Vishnu in the twelfth century, and the kings who came after turned it toward the Buddha. In nine hundred years it has never once been left empty.
Angkor Wat tours →The jungle temples
Where the forest took the stone back.
Not every temple was cleared and propped up for visitors. At Ta Prohm the strangler figs grew straight through the roofs, and out at Beng Mealea a whole temple lies half swallowed, its galleries collapsed under the trees, with wooden walkways picking a route across the rubble. This is the Angkor the first explorers stumbled into.
- 1 Siem Reap: Kulen Mountain, Beng Mealea and Tonle Sap Tour
- 2 Kulen Mountain with Beng Mealea and Tonle Sap Small Group Tour
- 3 Koh Ker Temple Group & Beng Mealea Full-Day Join-in Tour
By pace
Pick your day, by pace.
A temple trip bends to whatever energy you bring. Slow it right down with a cooking class and an evening show, take the classic full day by tuk-tuk, or get out on a bike, a quad or the climb up Kulen.
Take it gentle
Markets, kitchens and the evening show.A hands-on Khmer cooking class, a slow dinner on the river, and the Apsara dancers or the Phare circus once the temples close.
The classic day
Temples from the back of a tuk-tuk.Full-day guided circuits of Angkor by tuk-tuk or air-conditioned car, the early sunrise start, and the headline temples at walking pace.
Get active
Pedals, quad bikes and jungle trails.Cycle the shaded back roads between the ruins, ride a quad through the rice paddies, or climb Phnom Kulen to the falls.
After dark
The town wakes up when the temples close.
Phare sends Cambodian circus performers, acrobats, painters and live musicians through a single astonishing story under a small big top, the proceeds putting kids through art school. The Apsara dancers retell the old myths in silk and gold headdresses. And around Pub Street the night markets run loud and late.
See all 47 shows and performances →By place
The temples, and everything past them.
Angkor Wat for the sunrise and the Small Circuit. The Grand Circuit for the quiet temples. The Tonle Sap for the floating villages. Phnom Kulen for the waterfall. Beng Mealea for the jungle ruins. The countryside for rice fields and silk.
By activity
Or pick how you get around.
Tuk-tuk if you want the classic temple run. Bicycle if you want it at your own pace. Jeep, vespa or quad to get further out. Or a cooking class, a street-food crawl and a night at the circus.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
Never been? Here is the classic Angkor arc, temple by temple, without a wasted morning.
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