Cambodia, temple by temple.
Which sunrise slot is worth the 4.30am alarm. What the Angkor pass really costs and where you buy it. Whether the floating villages float in March. Every tour in Cambodia, reviewed.
The tours more travellers take than anything else in Cambodia.
Every Cambodia review →Sunrise at Angkor, a boat out to the stilt houses, a day of temples at tuk-tuk pace. These are the bookings the country runs on.
1
Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
Angkor Wat sunrise or sunset with a small guide group from Siem Reap. See Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Prohm, plus Banteay Kdei.
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
Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour with Boat
from $19
7
Full-Day Angkor Wat Guided Tour with Sunset
from $15
8
Angkor Wat Sunrise tour with Small – Group and Guide tours
from $14
The days people fly to Cambodia for.
The temple morning, the lake villages, the mortar and pestle, the waterfall on Phnom Kulen. A first trip is usually four or five of these, and the tour you pick decides most of the day.
Angkor: pick the version of the day you actually want.
All Angkor Wat tours →
The park is 400 square kilometres and the passes are dated, so the choice is really about pace: one dawn and out, one long circuit, or two days with the far temples added.
Sunrise at the north reflecting pool
Gates open at five. The crowd forms on the left-hand pool, the towers turn from grey to bronze, and by eight you are back at the hotel with the whole day still ahead of you.
Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm in one sweep
The small circuit in order: the great temple first, then the two hundred stone faces of the Bayon, then the strangler figs at Ta Prohm. Long, hot, and the day most people mean when they say they saw Angkor.
Two days, and the far temples added
Banteay Srei’s pink sandstone carving is 37km out and Beng Mealea is another 40 beyond it. Spread over two dated days, both fit without the 6am-to-6pm forced march.
Siem Reap is a temple town with a rice-field hinterland.
Ten minutes past the last guesthouse the tarmac gives out and it is sugar palms, paddy and cattle. Half the town’s best days out never go near a temple at all.
The lake that runs backwards for half the year.
When the Mekong rises the Tonle Sap reverses and swells to five times its size. The villages at Kampong Phluk are built for it: houses on ten-metre stilts, schools on pontoons, and a flooded forest you paddle into when the water is high.
All 128 floating village tours →
Phnom Penh sits where the Mekong meets the Tonle Sap.
The capital reads as a French grid with a Khmer heart: the Royal Palace and its silver-tiled pagoda, the art-deco dome of the Central Market, and a riverfront that fills up the moment the heat breaks.
- 1The Killing Field and Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S21) Tourfrom $19
- 2Sunset Cruise with Unlimited Beers & BBQ Buffetfrom $9
- 3Aroma Therapy Massage, Relaxation therapeutic aromatherapy oil massages.from $38
Two places outside Phnom Penh that most visitors set a morning aside for.
Tuol Sleng was a school before it became Security Prison 21. Choeung Ek is fifteen kilometres south of it. Both are memorials to the people killed there between 1975 and 1979, and both are visited quietly: an audio guide, a slow walk, a couple of hours. Guides ask that you dress modestly and photograph nothing inside the cell blocks.
Half-day visits usually pair the two sites with transport from central Phnom Penh.
Tours that visit both →What a day out in Cambodia costs.
The whole catalogue in three price brackets. Dollars are used everywhere in Cambodia; riel comes back as change under a dollar.
Tuk-tuk temple days, street-food walks, an hour of massage, a seat at the circus.
The standard full day: guided Angkor circuits, the lake villages, cooking classes with the market run included.
Private guides, the far temples at Koh Ker and Preah Vihear, multi-day loops and the elephant valley.
Three things you can only do in Cambodia.
Temples and beaches are everywhere in Southeast Asia. A bamboo train, a court dance kept alive by a handful of teachers, and a circus school that grew out of a refugee camp are not.
The Bamboo Train
A bamboo platform on two axles with a small engine bolted to the back, running on the warped rails of the old French line outside Battambang. There is one track, so when two norries meet the lighter one is lifted off, carried past and set back down. The afternoon usually ends at Phnom Sampeau, where the bats leave the cave in a single ribbon at dusk.
- 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
- 3Bamboo Train, Bat Cave, Killing Cave by Tuk Tuk★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 182 reviews
Apsara
The dance carved on the walls of Angkor is still performed, but only just: most of the teachers were killed in the 1970s and the form was rebuilt in the 1980s from the memories of the few who survived. The hand positions are the whole language, and each takes years. Most Siem Reap performances run with dinner at seven.
- 1Apsara Show Including Dinner & Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 615 reviews
- 2Apsara Dance Show and Dinner with Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 425 reviews
- 3Apsara Dance Show & Dinner with Tuk-Tuk Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 254 reviews
Phare, the Cambodian Circus
Not animals and a ringmaster: acrobatics, live band and a story, performed by graduates of a Battambang arts school founded by returnees from the refugee camps on the Thai border. One big top, one show a night, and the ticket money funds 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
- 3Phare, Cambodian Circus with Tuk-Tuk Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 50 reviews
Kampot grows the pepper. Kep cooks the crab.
The southern corner is farm country that happens to meet the sea: pepper vines on wooden frames, salt pans flooded and drained by hand, and a crab market at Kep where the baskets come out of the water and go straight into the wok with green peppercorns still on the stalk. Bokor’s plateau sits above all of it in the cloud.
All Kampot & Kep tours →
Cambodia comes back outside once the heat drops.
Every evening tour in Cambodia →
Sunset Cruise with unlimited beer & soft drinks -English speaking guide on board
Read our review →
Book these before you land in Cambodia.
Most of the country can be arranged from your guesthouse the night before. These cannot: they run on long drives, single nightly performances and a dated park pass you have to buy in person.
The Angkor pass itself is bought in person at the ticket centre on the Siem Reap ring road — $37 for one day, $62 for three — and never at the temple gates.
- 01Preah Vihear: Full-Day Preah Vihear and Koh Ker Temple TourFour hours each way from Siem Reap to the Dangrek escarpment. It only runs as a chartered full day, and the border road closes in bad weather.
- 02Phare: The Cambodian Circus Show in Siem ReapOne big top in Siem Reap and one show a night. In the dry season the good seats go days ahead.
- 03Koh Ker Temple Group & Beng Mealea Full-Day Join-in TourThe far temples are 120km of road each way. They run as a single long day and the small-group seats fill first.
- 04Elephant Sanctuary Experience with TransfersThe sanctuaries cap daily visitor numbers, so the morning slots close well before the afternoon ones.
- 05Angkor Stunning Hot Air BalloonDawn flights only, and they are called off on wind. Book early in your stay so there is a second morning to fall back on.
Rain turns Cambodia green and empties the temples.
From May to October the rain arrives in one heavy hour, usually mid-afternoon, and then stops. The paddies go luminous, the moats fill, the crowds thin and prices drop. Plan the morning outdoors and keep something under a roof for four o’clock.
By region — north to the coast
Siem Reap993 tours
Phnom Penh208 tours
Sihanoukville19 tours
Battambang65 tours
Kampot & Kep43 tours- All five regions →
By experience — what are you here for?
Siem Reap to the sea, the way most first trips run.
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Prrivate Guided Tour To Bantey Srei Temple And Phnom Kulen Paradise Waterfall
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