Everyone books Angkor at dawn. The rest of the week is the hard part.
Which sunrise tour gets you past the gate before the coaches. What a day on the Tonle Sap costs once the boat fee is in. Whether Battambang is worth the six hours from Siem Reap. Reviews of every tour you can book in Cambodia.
Sunrise at Angkor, a boat at Kampong Phluk, the waterfall on Kulen, one kitchen.
The four bookings a first Cambodian week is built around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The 5am oneAngkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapOut to the west gate in the dark, the towers coming up out of the moat. Take it on day one, while the pass is still fresh.
02The day on waterKampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by BoatA boat out through the flooded forest to the stilt houses at Kampong Phluk. Highest water is September to November.
03The day off the plainKulen Waterfall Join-in Tour (local Picnic lunch)Up Phnom Kulen to the waterfall and the carved riverbed. A separate $20 ticket from the Angkor pass, so plan it as its own day.
04The evening inKhmer Cooking Class at a Local’s Home in Krong Siem ReapMarket first, then fish amok and prahok ktiss in somebody’s kitchen. The one thing you can still do when it rains at four.
One dawn, one long day, or the drive out to the temples nobody else reaches.
Angkor is a 400-square-kilometre park on one ticket, and almost every argument about it is really about time. Four ways to spend it, what each costs to board, and which one belongs on which day.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Angkor 2-Day Sunset & Sunrise Small-Group Tour
The dawn runGate at five, the reflecting pool, back for breakfast.
The full temple dayAngkor Wat, the Bayon and Ta Prohm with a guide who reads the carvings.
The pink sandstone hourThe small carved temple 35km north, usually paired with the grand circuit.
The far templesTwo hours out to Koh Ker and Beng Mealea, jungle still on them.
All 200 temple days →
Siem Reap for the temples, then pick how far south you want to get.
Four towns carry almost everything bookable in the country: the temple plain, the capital on the Mekong, a river town of crumbling shophouses, and a pepper coast with a mountain behind it.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Cambodia.
The whole Cambodian catalogue →Eight bookings that carry more travellers than the rest of the catalogue put together, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
Start before dawn for Angkor Wat’s famous sunrise, then explore Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei with an English-speaking guide. Small groups are limited to 13 people, and guides such as Mr. T, David, Sen, and Chanthy are praised for humor, temple stories, and photo help. Transport, water, and cold towels are included. The $37 Angkor pass is 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
Full-Day Angkor Wat Guided Tour with Sunset
from $15
6
Angkor Wat Highlights and Sunrise Guided Tour from Siem Reap
from $23
7
Angkor Wat Sunrise & 3 Main Temples with Breakfast – Small Group
from $15
8
Angkor Wat Sunrise and Full-Day Sightseeing Tour
from $14
The Tonle Sap runs backwards for half the year, and the villages float with it.
From June the Mekong pushes the lake up over its forest, and Kampong Phluk’s stilt houses stand in six metres of water instead of over dry ground. Boats run all year; what you see from them is a different place either side of the turn.
- 1Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by Boatfrom $20
- 2Sunset tour of Kampong Phluk stilts home village on the Tonle Sapfrom $21
- 3Siem Reap Floating Village Kampong Phluk Sunset with Boatfrom $18
Ten minutes past the last hotel, Siem Reap turns into rice.
Dirt tracks between the paddies, a fish farm, a palm-sugar kitchen, water buffalo in the irrigation channels. The countryside days are the cheapest thing on this site and the ones people write the longest reviews about.
What a day out in Cambodia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Most of the country’s best days sit below the cost of an airport taxi at home.
Tuk-tuk temple days, the boat out to the stilt villages, a walking tour, a circus ticket.
Guided full days at Angkor, Kulen with lunch, cooking classes, the Battambang run.
Private guides and drivers, two-day temple passes done properly, the far temples and the border crossings.
Three Cambodian inventions with no equivalent anywhere.
Temples and beaches are everywhere in this part of Asia. A train made of a bamboo pallet, a circus school that took in street kids, and pepper graded by the hillside it grew on are not.
The Norry, Battambang’s Bamboo Train
A norry is a bamboo pallet on two axles with a small engine bolted to the back, invented so villagers could move rice on a warped French rail line. Only one car fits, so when two meet the lighter one is lifted off the rails and put back after the other passes. The original line was pulled up; the ride now runs on a rebuilt track near Banan.
- 1Tuk-Tuk, Bamboo Train, Killing/Bat Caves, Sunset★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,436 reviews
- 2Afternoon tour by tuk tuk to bamboo train,bat cave,killing cave,countryside.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 344 reviews
- 3Full Day tour .City tour.Countryside.Bamboo Train.Secret Bat Cave★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 178 reviews
Phare’s Big Top
Phare began as an art school in Battambang for children coming back from the refugee camps, and the Siem Reap big top is what pays for it. There is no dialogue and no animals, just eight or nine performers, live music and a story pulled out of recent Cambodian history. It runs nightly and sells out in the dry season.
- 1Phare: The Cambodian Circus Show in Siem Reap★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,925 reviews
- 2Phare, the Cambodian Circus Show Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,850 reviews
- 3Phare, Cambodian Circus with Tuk-Tuk Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 50 reviews
The Kampot Pepper Farms
The pepper grown on these red laterite slopes had its own protected name before most of Asia had any, and the plantations behind Kampot still dry and grade it by hand on the same terraces. A farm visit is usually bundled with the salt pans on the flats and a crab lunch at Kep, which is the right order to do them in.
- 1Pepper Farm Tours, Salt, Lake & Phnom Chhngok Temple★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 432 reviews
- 2Full-day Countryside Tour with Pepper Farm and Kep★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 245 reviews
- 3Tuk Tuk Trip to Pepper Farm, Kep, Crab Market & More★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 143 reviews
Four things here that sell out before you land.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same morning. These four run on ticket offices, water levels, a nightly seat count and a border post, none of which care what time your flight lands.
- 01Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapThe Angkor pass is sold only at the official ticket office, and the 5am queue is long. Buy after 5pm the evening before and the pass starts the next day.
- 02Phare: The Cambodian Circus Show in Siem ReapOne big top, one show a night, a few hundred seats. In the dry season it goes days ahead.
- 03Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by BoatThe flooded forest is only navigable when the lake is high. Between roughly February and June the boats run, but they run through a channel, not a forest.
- 04Koh Ker Temple Group & Beng Mealea Full-Day Join-in TourFour hours of driving each way on a day that starts before seven. Nobody arranges that at the guesthouse desk the night before.
Green season in Cambodia is two hours of rain, not two weeks.
From June to October the sky opens most afternoons, hard, and then stops. The temples are emptier, the moats are full and the light is better than anything the dry season gives you. Book the outdoor thing for the morning and keep something indoors for four o’clock.
Phnom Penh asks for a morning at the memorials and an evening on the river.
All of Phnom Penh →
The capital is small enough to cross by tuk-tuk in twenty minutes and heavy enough that most people build the day around one visit. Do the history early, when it is cool and quiet, and leave the afternoon for the riverfront and the markets.
S-21 and the orchard at Choeung Ek
The former school used as S-21 and the orchard outside the city are usually visited together, in that order. Both provide an audio guide, and both are quieter before ten. Allow the rest of the morning and nothing after it.
Central Market, then the lanes behind it
The yellow art-deco dome sells gold and watches; the food is in Orussey and Kandal and the lanes between them. A tuk-tuk guide is worth it here purely for the stops you would walk straight past.
Koh Dach, by ferry and bicycle
A short ferry across the Mekong lands you on a sand island of weaving households and dirt lanes, twenty minutes and a world from the traffic. Flat enough that the bike version suits anybody.
By town — the temple plain, the capital, the south
By kind of day — temple, boat, kitchen or dirt road
Siem Reap, Battambang, Phnom Penh, then the coast: the run most people do first.
The most recent write-ups.
The rest of the new ones →
Bamboo Train, Banann Temple, Fruit Bat, Bat Cave, Sunset
Read our review →
Trip with Local tuk tuk to Country side & Pepper farm…
Read our review →
Ultimate Sunrise to Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Bayon Temple
Read our review →
Trekking Tour at Phnom Kulen National Park from Siem Reap
Read our review →
Koh Rong Tour: A Snorkeling, Fishing, Sunset, Plankton
Read our review →
Exploring the Best of Phnom Penh: A Full Day Tour
Read our review →
Private Kampot Countryside Tour & Pepper farm, Kep/Crab Market
Read our review →
Kampot Tuktu tour: Pepper farm, Salt field & Secret lake
Read our review →
