05:00Sunrise at Angkor Wat$18
08:30The stilt villages$20 Cambodia runs on two hours of light. Book the right ones.
What the sunrise ticket into Angkor Wat really costs, which boat reaches the stilt villages on Tonle Sap, how far a tuk-tuk driver will take you for the day. Reviews of every tour you can book in Cambodia.
10:00Kulen waterfall$48
16:00Out through the rice$35 Four bookings a first week in Cambodia is built around.
Sunrise over the moat, a boat through the stilt houses, a kitchen in Siem Reap and a circus tent after dark. What each costs, and what the people who went say.
01The first morningAngkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapGates open at five and the crowd thins by nine. Guides bring torches for the causeway and coffee for the wait.
02The lake dayKampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by BoatKampong Phluk stands on stilts three storeys high. In the dry months you walk under the houses, in the wet you row between them.
03The afternoon inKhmer Cooking Class at a Local’s Home in Krong Siem ReapA market run, then a kitchen in a family home. You leave with fish amok and the recipe for the paste under it.
04After darkPhare: The Cambodian Circus Show in Siem ReapPhare puts former street kids through circus school and then on stage. The tent seats three hundred and sells out in season.
Angkor is forty square kilometres. Pick the day that suits your legs.
Almost everyone books the sunrise and then wonders what to do by nine in the morning. Four shapes of temple day, what each one costs to join, and how far out of Siem Reap it takes you.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
Before dawnThe moat, the reflection pools, breakfast after.
The full circuitBayon, Ta Prohm and the Angkor Thom gates in one pass.
The outer ruinsPink sandstone carving, then a temple the jungle kept.
Up the mountainA holy river carved with lingas, and a waterfall to swim under.
Every temple day at Angkor →
Siem Reap for the temples. Everywhere else for the rest of Cambodia.
A temple town of guesthouses and noodle stalls, a riverside capital with a hard history, a bamboo railway, a pepper valley and a coast of islands. Five bases, and the best day out from each.
Tonle Sap floats, the Mekong slides past Phnom Penh.
The great lake swells to five times its size in the wet season and the villages on it float or stand on stilts to keep up. Downriver, the sunset boats out of the capital cost less than a beer back home. These three carry more travellers than anything else afloat.
The days out most travellers to Cambodia book.
Open the whole Cambodia catalogue →Sunrise tickets, lake boats and one circus tent. The tours more people take than anything else in the country, 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, then visit Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei with an English-speaking guide. Small groups cap at 13 people, and guides such as Mr. T, David, Sen, and Chanthy are praised for humor, history, and help with photos. The $18 tour excludes the $37 Angkor pass.
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
In Cambodia the vehicle decides the day.
A tuk-tuk driver will hold the whole temple circuit for a flat price and wait in the shade while you climb. A bicycle turns the same loop into a morning through rice fields and village schools. A quad or a Vespa gets you past both, out where the red road starts.
What a day in Cambodia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Cambodia is the cheapest country in the region to be a traveller in, and the numbers below show how far that goes.
Tuk-tuk circuits, floating village boats, the sunset sailing out of Phnom Penh and most show tickets.
Cooking classes, the bike tours, Kulen mountain with lunch and the guided full days at Angkor.
Private guides, the far temples at Preah Vihear and Koh Ker, balloon flights and island boats.
Three things that happen in Cambodia and nowhere else.
Temples and beaches exist all over Southeast Asia. A train made of a bamboo pallet, a pepper the French built a cuisine on, and a circus school for street kids do not.
The Bamboo Train
A norry is a bamboo pallet on two axles with a small engine bolted to the back, running on warped French rails at about forty kilometres an hour. The line is single track, so when two meet the lighter load is lifted off, carried past and put back on. Most drivers pair it with the bat cave at Phnom Sampeau, where a black ribbon of a million bats pours out of the cliff at dusk.
- 1Tuk-Tuk, Bamboo Train, Killing/Bat Caves, Sunset★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,436 reviews
- 2Battambang Tuk Tuk tour: Bambootrain, Killing & Bat Caves,Sunset★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 799 reviews
- 3Afternoon tour by tuk tuk to bamboo train,bat cave,killing cave,countryside.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 344 reviews
The Pepper Valley
Kampot pepper grows on poles on a few hundred hectares of red soil under Bokor, and it is the only Cambodian crop with a protected geographical name. The green corns are picked by hand and sold fresh in the crab market down the road at Kep. Farm visits usually run with the salt pans and a cave shrine, which is the whole of the valley in an afternoon.
- 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
- 3Discovery Tour: Caving, Climbing, Via Ferrata and Abseiling in Kampot★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 172 reviews
Apsara and the Circus
The apsara dance was reconstructed after the seventies from the handful of court dancers who lived, and the hand positions you watch tonight are the ones carved into the walls at Angkor. Two streets away, Phare trains young performers from Battambang in acrobatics instead, and the two together make the strangest good double bill in Southeast Asia.
- 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
Four Cambodian bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same morning. These four run on gate times, tent capacity and a road that is only open half the year.
- 01Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapThe gates open at five and a guide has to collect your pass the day before. Book the night before at the latest.
- 02Phare: The Cambodian Circus Show in Siem ReapOne tent, one show a night, three hundred seats. In the dry season it sells out days ahead.
- 03Khmer Cooking Class at a Local’s Home in Krong Siem ReapClasses cap at eight or ten around the one kitchen table, and the market run starts early.
- 04Full-Day Preah Vihear and Koh Ker Temple TourFour hours each way on the far northern road. It runs as a single long day and needs a car booked in advance.
Cambodian rain arrives at four and is finished by six.
From May to October the afternoon builds, drops everything it has for an hour and then clears for a warm evening. Plan the temples and the lake for the morning, and hold the indoor half of the trip back for that hour. Kitchens, pottery wheels, silk looms and a massage all take exactly as long as the storm.
Phnom Penh asks for two days and one hard morning.
Everything in Phnom Penh →
The riverfront runs from the Royal Palace to the night market, the food is the best in the country, and Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng sit at either end of a morning nobody comes away from unchanged. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng, with a guide
The prison is a converted school and the orchard is fifteen kilometres south. Guides here are often survivors or their children, and the audio tour is the one nearly everyone says to take.
Sunset on the Mekong for the price of a beer
Boats leave from Sisowath Quay as the light goes and turn at the confluence where the Mekong meets the Tonle Sap. Most include the beer, some include a barbecue.
Tuk-tuk to twenty tastings
Russian Market for the noodles, a back lane for the grilled pork, then dessert nobody can identify. The guides order in Khmer and explain what landed in front of you.
By place — temple town, capital, river, coast
Temple, boat, kitchen or dirt road
Siem Reap, the lake, Battambang, the capital, then the coast.
Tonle SapReviews that went up this week.
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Customs and Culture Half Day Walk and Bike Tour in Battambang
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Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh by Private Car or Minivan
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Day Trip from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh for Cruise Passengers
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Phnom Penh To Siem Reap Private Transfer Mini-Van-Car
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Full day tour by bicycle & tuk tuk,bamboo train,bat cave,villages
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Bokor Mountain Adventure – History, Sights and Waterfalls
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