Sunrise at Angkor Wat is the easy decision. The other nine days are not.
Which floating-village boat actually goes out onto the lake. What a tuk-tuk driver costs for a full day inside the park. Whether Battambang earns the road west. Reviews of every tour you can book in Cambodia.
01The five o’clock oneAngkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reapfrom $18
02Out on the lakeKampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by Boatfrom $20
03The mountain dayKulen Waterfall Join-in Tour (local Picnic lunch)from $48
04The kitchen afternoonKhmer Cooking Class at a Local’s Home in Krong Siem Reapfrom $27
05Phnom Penh at duskSunset Cruise with Unlimited Beers & BBQ Buffetfrom $9
Angkor is not one ticket. It is a week of them.
The pass covers a walled city, a jungle temple, a pink sandstone shrine forty minutes north and a ruin nobody has put back together. Where you point the tuk-tuk on the first morning decides what the rest of the week looks like.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
Sunrise at Angkor WatIn the dark by five, the reflecting pool, breakfast afterwards.
Angkor Thom and the BayonTwo hundred stone faces, and a causeway of gods at the gate.
Ta ProhmThe one the fig roots are slowly pulling apart. Go early.
Banteay SreiPink sandstone cut like ivory, forty minutes north of the crowds.
Beng MealeaA temple left collapsed in the forest, an hour and a half east.
All 346 days inside the Angkor park →
Siem Reap first. Then decide how far south you are going.
Four hundred square kilometres of temple around one small town, a capital on two rivers, a bamboo railway out west, and pepper farms and salt pans on the road to the sea. Five places worth a base, and the best day out from each.
Past the temple wall, Cambodia is water and rice fields.
The Tonlé Sap floats whole villages on stilts and doubles in size every wet season. Between it and the temples run the palm-lined dykes that everyone ends up cycling at four in the afternoon, and south of the capital the Mekong does the same thing on a bigger scale.
Cambodia’s most popular days out.
Every Cambodian tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than take anything else in Cambodia. What earns each one its place is underneath it.
1
Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
See Angkor Wat at sunrise or sunset, plus Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei with a guide, transport, water, and cold towels.
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
What a day out in Cambodia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Cambodia is cheap in a way that catches people out: a good half of the best days here cost less than the taxi home from your own airport.
Tuk-tuk temple days, the floating-village boat, market mornings and the bamboo rails at Battambang.
Full days with a guide: the far temples, Kulen mountain, a cooking class, the rice country by bike.
A private guide for the whole park, multi-day passes, and the long run north to Preah Vihear.
Three things that only happen in Cambodia.
Temples and beaches turn up all over Southeast Asia. A village standing forty feet in the air, a court dance rebuilt from the memories of the people who survived, and a railway made of bamboo pallets do not.
Kampong Phluk
For half the year the Mekong pushes so hard that the Tonlé Sap river turns and flows the wrong way, and the lake swells to several times its dry-season size. Kampong Phluk lives with it. The houses stand on stilts forty feet in the air; in March you look up at the front doors from a dusty track, and in November the boats moor at the top step.
- 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
- 3Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour with Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 3,843 reviews
Apsara Dance
The apsara carved on the Angkor walls is a dancer, and the dance is still performed: fingers bent back past what looks possible, every position a word in a language. Most of the people who could teach it did not survive the 1970s, and a small number of those who did put the repertoire back together from memory. In Siem Reap it usually comes with dinner, which is the least interesting part of the evening.
- 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
The Bamboo Train
Outside Battambang, villagers laid bamboo pallets on old wheel sets, put a small engine on the back and ran them along a warped single track. When two meet, the lighter one is lifted clear by hand and dropped back on once the other has gone by. The original line has since been rebuilt and the norries moved down the valley, but they still run exactly the same way.
- 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
The wet season is the better-looking half of the Cambodian year.
Rain here mostly arrives late in the afternoon, falls hard for an hour and stops. The moats fill, the rice goes an unreasonable green, the lake rises and the boats reach villages they cannot get near in March. Book the mornings, leave the afternoons loose, and keep the indoor days in reserve for when it comes down.
By place — towns, temples and the lake
By kind of day — temple, boat, kitchen or road
Siem Reap, the lake, the capital, then the coast: the run almost everybody does first.
The newest Cambodian tour reviews.
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Kulen National Park Ticket -Waterfall & 1000 Lingas
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Border Transfer (Siem Reap to Laos/Laos to Siem Reap)
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Best Taxi Siem Reap to Battambang – English Speaking Driver
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Siem Reap Countryside Sunset Vespa Tour or Tuk Tuk
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