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Siem Reap & Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is probably the reason number one, that people with touristic ambitions travel to Cambodia. But yet there is more to see in the area of Siem Reap, the city next to the old ancient capital. As well a note to the term „Angkor Wat“: it is used synonymously most of the time meaning the whole archeological area with loads of temples and the one biggest single temple with the same name. Anyhow expect a lot to see and plan at best two to three days to see a good selection of what has Angkor Wat to offer.

The archeological area itself is outside the town of Siem Reap, which is the homebase for all of the tourists with a uplifting experience at the river promenade and the pub street with loads of restaurants and bars.

Siem Reap City


Central market & Night market
Both markets are not far from each other on the 2 opposite river sides. You can get the typical goods like elsewhere. I can recommend the food area of the central market with some very good restaurants for excellent value.

River promenade
Located right behind the pub street area the riverside is really a nice place to chill and relax. In the evening it has also a very vital street-food scene with a lots of small places next to the mostly left riverside.

Angkor national museum
The museum is close to the river promenade and is a very well equipped venue that documents the history of Angkor throughout the centuries. Admission fee is 12$ which seems a little high at first, but I can say from my personal experience that it’s worth the money.

Preah Ang Chek Preah Ang Chorm Shrine
A spiritual venue mostly frequented by locals but yet worth a visit as it is nicely embedded in a bigger park area.


Wat Bo
A very nice temple building located close to the right riverside.

Wat Preah Prom Rath
This temple is quite close to the pub street directly on the left river side.

Pub street
The pub street of Siem Reap is a quite broad but rather short street in the city center that offers on both sides loads of bars, restaurants and shops. The prices are Ok there and you can get a draft beer under 1$. Eating is quite expensive but if you are fed up with local food they have all kinds of western dishes.

Angkor temple complex

As I mentioned in the intro the archeological sight of Angkor is really huge and offers dozens of temples ad buildings to explore.

Below you can find some impressions from my two days tour through the area. In total I saw around 10 different temples in those 2 days.


Sunset & Sunrise point
Part of the tours i was taking where both a sunset and a sunrise event included. For the sunrise the pickup is around 04:00 in the morning and is directly in front of the big Angkor Wat temple. Tough it was kinda crowded (but no comparable to the masses pre Covid), the experience overall was great. In contrary the sunset spot is on a small hill inside the area where you can see back to the city, to the Angkor Wat temple and the sandstone hills on the horizons. Phnom Bakheng is also compared to the sunshine spot less crowded.

Tour recommendations
There are two type of tours to which they normally refer as big circuit and small circuit tour. Both tours offers the visit of various temples and have no overlap in the spots that you will see. Myself did the two tours on two following days but you can have up to 5 days in between. Also a great feature with the current entry fee policy: for 37$ and usually 1 day entry you will get an additional day on top. So my 2 tours happening on 2 days only cost me the 1 days service entry. Below you can see the details of the tours I took: