Angkor takes three days. Siem Reap fills the gaps.
Which sunrise trip actually beats the coaches to the reflecting pool. What a tuk tuk driver costs for a full day in the park. Whether Beng Mealea is worth two hours of red road. Reviews of every tour you can book here.
A day here runs on the light
05:00Sunrise over the moatGates open in the dark. The towers turn pink before the coaches arrive.from $12
09:00The temple dayAngkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm on one pass, with a guide and a driver.from $12
16:00Out to the lakeKampong Phluk on stilts, then the flooded forest by paddle boat.from $16
20:00After darkApsara dancers over dinner, or the circus tent out on the ring road.from $18
Sunrise, the lake, the waterfall, a kitchen.
The four bookings a first trip to Siem Reap hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningAngkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapAngkor Wat from the north pool while the sky changes, with a guide who knows where the crowd is not standing.
02The lake afternoonKampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by BoatKampong Phluk stilt houses six metres up, then a paddle boat through the flooded forest behind them.
03The day upriverKulen Waterfall Join-in Tour (local Picnic lunch)Phnom Kulen: the carved riverbed, the reclining Buddha on the summit and a picnic under the falls.
04The evening classKhmer Cooking Class at a Local’s Home in Krong Siem ReapThe market first, then a home kitchen, a fish amok you cooked and the recipes to take away.
Angkor is 400 square kilometres. Choose how you cross it.
Everything inside the moat runs on the same pass and the same heat. The difference between a good Angkor day and a long one is what you ride, who is driving and what time you start.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
Sunrise startsA five o’clock pickup and the reflecting pool before the coaches.
Small and grand loopsBoth circuits in a day, guide and cold water included.
Your own tuk tukA driver who waits at every gate and knows the back roads.
On two wheelsFlat lanes between the temples, shade for most of it.
All 129 days inside the park →
Six places in and around Angkor, and the best day out at each.
The five towers on the moat, the gate with the faces, the temple the jungle kept, the pink one an hour north, the lake that floods a forest, and the mountain the river runs off.
The lake, the mountain and the rice road nobody books first.
Three temple days is plenty for most people. Day four is where Siem Reap gets interesting: a lake that doubles in size every monsoon, a sandstone riverbed carved with a thousand lingas, and villages ten minutes off the airport road.
Banteay Srei, Beng Mealea, Koh Ker, Preah Vihear.
The temples worth leaving the park for sit between one and four hours out, on roads that suffer in the rain. Each buys you something Angkor itself cannot: carving you can read at arm’s length, a ruin the forest still owns, a seven-tier pyramid, a cliff on the Thai border.
Tuk tuk, bicycle, jeep or quad. The distances decide.
Angkor Wat to Bayon is two kilometres. Angkor Wat to Banteay Srei is thirty-seven. A remork tuk tuk covers both and costs less than lunch; a bicycle is perfect inside the walls and punishing outside them; a jeep or a quad belongs on the rice road, never in the park.
Every way to cross the park →
Four things here that run on somebody else’s clock.
Most of this town can be arranged over breakfast. These four cannot: the pass has one seller, the gates have one opening time, the circus has one show a night, and the far temples take the whole day.
- 01Angkor Wat Admission TicketThe pass is sold in one place, the ticket office out on Road 60, and only in person. One day is $37, three days $62, a week $72. Buy it after five in the afternoon and it starts counting from the next morning.
- 02Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapThe gates open at five. Every sunrise trip leaves your hotel in the dark with the pass already bought, which is why nobody can sell you one for the same morning.
- 03Phare: The Cambodian Circus Show in Siem ReapPhare runs one show a night under the big top. In December and January the tent sells out days ahead and there is no later performance to move to.
- 04Full-Day Preah Vihear and Koh Ker Temple TourPreah Vihear is four hours each way on a road that floods, so it is a full day with a four o’clock start, not something to bolt onto a temple afternoon.
The Siem Reap days more people book than any other.
Every tour we have reviewed here →The tours that carry more travellers than anything else in town, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
Start with hotel pickup in Siem Reap, usually around 4:15 to 4:40 a.m. for sunrise, then visit Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei in a small group of up to 13 people. Guides such as Mr. T, David, Sen, and Chanthy add history, humor, and photo help. Admission costs extra.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Angkor Wat: Small-Group Sunrise or Sunset Tour
from $15
3
Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by Boat
from $20
4
Sunset tour of Kampong Phluk stilts home village on the Tonle Sap
from $21
5
Angkor Wat 2-Day Tour with Sunrise and Sunset
from $34
6
Full-Day Angkor Wat Guided Tour with Sunset
from $15
7
Angkor Wat Sunrise tour with Small – Group and Guide tours
from $14
8
Angkor Wat Highlights and Sunrise Guided Tour from Siem Reap
from $23
What a day in Siem Reap actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Cambodia quotes in US dollars, and a good number of the best days here come in under the price of dinner at home.
Shared sunrise trips, tuk-tuk temple days, the lake boat, cooking classes and the circus.
Private guides and cars, Kulen and Beng Mealea, and the long day out to Koh Ker.
Preah Vihear, balloon and microlight flights, photographers, and the multi-day runs south.
Three things that only happen in Siem Reap.
Ruins and night markets exist all over Asia. A temple the forest is still eating, a circus that grew out of an art school, and a village standing six metres above your head do not.
Ta Prohm
The French cleared every other temple and left this one to the forest on purpose. Silk-cotton and strangler figs have grown down through the galleries until the roots are structural, and the conservators now argue about which trees are holding the walls up and which are pulling them apart. Go first thing or late in the day; by nine the famous doorway is a single slow queue.
- 1Siem Reap Tour: Angkor Wat Sunrise, Bayon, Ta Prohm, Banteay Srei★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 931 reviews
- 2Angkor Wat Private Driver Tours to Angkor Wat Sunrise, Angkor Thom & Ta Prohm★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 98 reviews
- 3Private Temples Guided Tour (Angkor Wat, Ta Prom & Angkor Thom)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 75 reviews
Phare, the Cambodian Circus
Phare grew out of an art school set up in Battambang for children coming back from the refugee camps, and the performers still come up through that school. There is no ring and no animals, just acrobats, live music and one story told in an hour under a big top on the ring road. The ticket money goes back into the school.
- 1Phare: The Cambodian Circus Show in Siem Reap★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,925 reviews
- 2Phare, the Cambodian Circus Show Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,850 reviews
- 3Apsara Show Including Dinner & Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 615 reviews
Kampong Phluk
The Tonlé Sap reverses direction twice a year and swells to five times its dry-season size, so the villages built for it stand on stilts six metres high. In April you walk underneath the houses; in October you tie up at the veranda. The flooded forest behind the village is paddled, not motored.
- 1Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 6,979 reviews
- 2Sunset tour of Kampong Phluk stilts home village on the Tonle Sap★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,865 reviews
- 3Kompong Phluk Floating Village Half-Day Tour ( Morning / Sunset )★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,494 reviews
When the afternoon storm lands, the moat is at its best.
Wet season is not a write-off here. The rain comes hard for an hour or two after lunch and then stops, the moats fill and the reflections everyone photographs only exist now, and rooms are cheaper. What it does ruin is the red dirt out to Beng Mealea and Koh Ker. Keep those for a dry morning and put the afternoon under a roof.
By place — the park, the lake, the far temples
By kind of day — sunrise, saddle, kitchen or stage
How a three-day Angkor pass usually gets spent.
PhareThe newest Siem Reap tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Journey Through Time: Grand Tours with professional photographers
Read our review →
Private Tour: HERO Rats & Angkor National Museum
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Private Guided Angkor Wat Tour by Lady Tuk Tuk with Monk Blessing
Read our review →
Traditional Head, Back & Shoulder Massage in Siem Reap
Read our review →
Golden Hours: Angkor wat sunrise photography tour with a pro!
Read our review →
Khmer Water Blessing by Monk and Lotus Farm Visit
Read our review →