Four days in Siem Reap: a city of a million people that the jungle swallowed whole

Three nights in town, with the main Angkor circuit on one day, the carved pink temple to the north on another, and the museum first.

Copy this itinerary
Length
4 days, 3 nights
Where you stay
Siem Reap
Places
9 across 4 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

At its height around 1200, Angkor was the largest pre-industrial city on earth: perhaps three quarters of a million people spread across a thousand square kilometres of temples, canals and reservoirs, all of it feeding off rice grown on water the Khmer engineers had learned to store. Then the water system failed, the capital moved south, and the forest took the rest.

What is left is roughly seventy temples inside an archaeological park, plus hundreds more scattered across the province. You are not going to see them all and you should not try. Three temple days, chosen well, will give you the largest religious building in the world, a hill of stone faces, a ruin with trees growing out of it, and the finest carving in Southeast Asia.

Siem Reap itself is the town that grew up to serve them, and it is more pleasant than that description suggests: a French colonial core, a river with two banks of restaurants, and enough good cooking to make the evenings worth staying up for.

Highlights

  • Angkor Wat before six, when the towers come up black against a pink sky
  • The two hundred stone faces of the Bayon, staring in every direction at once
  • Ta Prohm, where the fig roots have grown through the roof and nobody has cut them out
  • Banteay Srei, pink sandstone carved so finely it was long assumed to be the work of women
  • A circus of former street children in a big top, which is the best evening in Cambodia

Where to stay

Siem Reap, three nights

The town is small and divides into three. The old French quarter and the Old Market are the centre of gravity, with the restaurants and the night market; the east bank of the river is quieter and has most of the mid-range hotels; and Pub Street is one loud block that you can either enjoy or avoid entirely by walking two streets away.

Almost everything on the temple days starts north of town, so anywhere central works. Hotels with pools earn their keep here, because you will want to be horizontal at one in the afternoon.

Day by day

Day 1 in Siem Reap

The museum first, then a circus

Go to the museum before you go to the temples. Angkor is not signposted or explained on site, and an afternoon spent learning the difference between Jayavarman VII and Suryavarman II, and why one built Hindu temples and the other Buddhist ones, turns the next two days from impressive rubble into a story.

In the evening, go to the circus. It is run by a school that took in street children in Battambang after the war and taught them performing arts, the shows are original Cambodian stories rather than acrobatics for their own sake, and the money funds the school. Book online; it sells out in season.

  1. 14:30

    Angkor National Museum

    Culture

    Air-conditioned, modern and well laid out, with a hall of a thousand Buddha images and good galleries on the Khmer kings. Two hours, and pay for the audio guide.

  2. 18:00

    Dinner near the Old Market

    Eat

    Fish amok and a Khmer curry at one of the restaurants on the lanes behind the market. Ten to fifteen dollars for two with drinks.

  3. 19:30

    Phare The Cambodian Circus

    Visit

    A big top west of the centre, one show a night at eight, about an hour and a quarter. Tuk-tuk there takes fifteen minutes and the drivers wait outside afterwards.

With more time: If you land early, Wat Preah Prom Rath by the river is a working temple with five centuries of history under a very shiny modern roof, and Artisans d'Angkor runs free workshop tours where apprentices are taught stone and wood carving.

Day 2 in Siem Reap

Angkor Wat at dawn, then the faces and the trees

The alarm goes at half past four. Angkor Wat faces west, which is unusual for a Khmer temple and probably means it was built as a funerary monument, and the consequence for you is that sunrise is behind the towers rather than in front of them. Stand at the left-hand pond, not the right one, and be there by 05:30.

Then work north into Angkor Thom, the walled city Jayavarman VII laid out at the end of the twelfth century, nine square kilometres inside a moat, with the Bayon at its exact centre. The Bayon's towers carry more than two hundred enormous carved faces, all with the same faint smile, and nobody is certain whether they are the king, a bodhisattva, or both at once.

Finish at Ta Prohm. The restorers left it half-swallowed by silk-cotton and strangler fig instead of clearing the roots out, which is why it is the temple everybody has seen a photograph of.

  1. 05:20

    Angkor Wat

    Religious

    The largest religious monument on earth, built by Suryavarman II from about 1113 and never abandoned. Walk the outer gallery clockwise for 600 metres of carved battle and the churning of the sea of milk, then climb to the top level when it opens at 07:30.

  2. 09:30

    Bayon

    Religious

    At the centre of Angkor Thom, reached through the south gate with its causeway of gods and demons pulling on a serpent. Go up to the top terrace and let the faces surround you; the mid-morning light is better on them than dawn.

  3. 12:00

    Lunch and a break

    Eat

    Eat at one of the stalls opposite the Terrace of the Elephants, then go back to the hotel and lie down until three. The middle of the day is not worth walking in.

  4. 15:00

    Ta Prohm

    Historic

    Built in 1186 as a monastery and university housing twelve thousand people. Go at three when the tour groups are leaving; the famous root over the doorway has a queue and the quieter courtyards behind it do not.

With more time: The Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King run along the north side of the royal square inside Angkor Thom and cost you fifteen minutes on the way past. Ta Keo, an unfinished pyramid with no carving on it at all, is on the same road and is a good illustration of how these things were built.

Day 3 in Siem Reap

The pink temple north, and a sunset from a pyramid

Banteay Srei is 30 kilometres north of the main park and it is the one temple in Cambodia worth a special journey. It is small, built of a hard pink sandstone that takes detail the local grey stone will not hold, and the carving on it is so deep and so fine that early French scholars decided it must have been done by women, which is where the name comes from. Go at opening time, before the coaches.

The road back passes a museum built by a former child soldier who spent his adult life clearing the mines he had laid, which is a short and uncomfortable half hour and the honest counterweight to a day of temples.

Then take the sunset from Pre Rup, a brick temple-mountain in the middle of the rice fields, rather than from Phnom Bakheng, where a daily queue of several hundred people is rationed onto the summit.

  1. 07:30

    Banteay Srey

    Religious

    About 45 minutes north by tuk-tuk. Consecrated in 967 and dedicated to Shiva, and the lintels and pediments are the best surviving Khmer carving anywhere. An hour is enough, and the first hour after opening is the one to take.

  2. 10:30

    Landmine Museum

    Culture

    Founded by Aki Ra, who was conscripted as a child by the Khmer Rouge and later cleared thousands of the devices he had been made to plant. Small, plainly written, and free of sentimentality. Thirty minutes.

  3. 13:00

    Late lunch in the fields

    Eat

    The road back south has a string of family restaurants doing grilled chicken, lok lak and cold beer under thatch. Cheaper and better than anything inside the park.

  4. 16:30

    Pre Rup

    Historic

    A tenth-century brick pyramid with five towers, standing above open rice fields with nothing between you and the horizon. Climb the east stairs, which are the shallowest, and be up there by half past five.

With more time: Preah Khan, on the way back into the park, is the largest and most atmospheric of the ruined temples and takes an hour. Neak Pean, a tower on an island in a pool, is ten minutes further and takes fifteen.

Day 4 in Siem Reap

The lake, or a slow morning in town

The Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and it does something no other lake does: when the Mekong floods in the wet season the river feeding it reverses direction and the lake swells to five times its dry-season size. The villages on it are built on stilts twelve metres high, or float outright and are towed.

Go to Kampong Phluk, an hour east through the rice, rather than the nearest village to town, which has been running a hard sell on visitors for twenty years. Go early, take the boat, and be back for a flight after lunch.

  1. 07:00

    Kampong Phluk Floating Village

    Other

    About an hour east of town. Stilt houses along a channel through flooded mangrove, and a paddle boat through the trees at the end of it. Book through your hotel and go at seven; it is a different place before the day boats arrive.

  2. 12:00

    Last lunch, then the airport

    Eat

    Siem Reap's new airport is about 50 kilometres east of town and the transfer takes an hour, so leave more time than the old one needed.

With more time: If you would rather not spend the morning on a boat, Wat Bo is one of the oldest pagodas in town and has eighteenth-century murals inside, and Wat Thmei holds a memorial stupa of glass containing the remains of Khmer Rouge victims.

Before you go

Tickets and timings

Angkor passes are sold only at the official ticket centre four kilometres east of town, or online, and they come as one day, three days or seven. A three-day pass is valid across ten days, so you do not have to use it consecutively. Buy after five in the afternoon and the pass is stamped for the next day but lets you in for that evening's sunset for free.

Keep the pass on you. It is checked at the entrance to every temple and at some inner enclosures, and it carries your photograph. Losing it means buying another one.

Getting around the park

A tuk-tuk with a driver for the day costs about 20 US dollars for the small circuit and 30 to 40 with Banteay Srei added, and this is the sensible way to do it. Agree the route and the finish time before you set off. Bicycles are possible on the small circuit but the distances are longer than they look and the heat is not a joke.

The temples open at 07:30, except Angkor Wat, Srah Srang and Phnom Bakheng, which open at 05:00 for sunrise. Most close at 17:30. Guides can be hired at the ticket office or through your hotel and a good one changes the day completely, because almost nothing in the park is labelled.

Heat, dress and touts

It is 33 degrees by ten in the morning and the stone reflects it. Start at dawn, break between noon and three, and carry more water than you think. April and May are brutal, November to February are the pleasant months, and the rains from June to October leave the moats full and the crowds thinner.

Shoulders and knees must be covered to climb the upper level of Angkor Wat and it is enforced. Children selling postcards and bracelets work every entrance; buying encourages families to keep them out of school, and the standard advice from local NGOs is politely not to.

Money and eating

Cambodia runs on US dollars. Prices are quoted in them, ATMs dispense them, and change under a dollar comes back in riel at four thousand to the dollar. Bring clean, untorn notes; damaged ones are refused.

Khmer food is milder than Thai and sourer than Vietnamese. Fish amok, a coconut curry steamed in banana leaf, is the national dish; lok lak is stir-fried beef with a lime and pepper dip; and the pepper itself, from Kampot in the south, is worth carrying home.

The mistake people make at Angkor is trying to see everything, which produces four days of identical photographs and a temple headache by lunchtime on the third. Pick a handful, go early, take the middle of the day off, and let the guide tell you what you are looking at.

Two temple days done properly beat five done badly, and the difference is what you will remember a decade later.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

How many days do you need at Angkor?
Two full days in the park is the minimum that does it justice and three is comfortable. One day means Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Ta Prohm at a run. This plan uses two temple days plus a museum afternoon and a morning on the lake, which is four days on the ground and three nights.
Is the Angkor Wat sunrise worth getting up for?
Yes, once. You will share it with several hundred people at the northern pond and it is still remarkable, because the temple is enormous and the light arrives behind it. Go on your first temple morning and you have then bought yourself the coolest three hours of the day inside the building.
Do I need a guide?
Not to enjoy it, but strongly recommended for the first day. Nothing in the park is explained on site and the difference between looking at carvings and understanding them is one licensed guide, about 40 dollars for the day. Hotels and the ticket office both arrange them.
When is the best time to visit?
November to February is dry and comfortable and also the busiest. March to May is very hot. June to October is the wet season, when the moats and barays fill, the stone goes green, the crowds thin and the rain arrives as a heavy hour in the afternoon rather than all day. The wet season is underrated.
How do I get to Siem Reap?
Siem Reap Angkor International opened in 2023 about 50 kilometres east of town, with flights from Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Phnom Penh. Buses from Phnom Penh take six hours. Copy this itinerary into the planner if you want to add the capital or Battambang on to it.