Hidden Gems and Local Secrets in Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
A visual guide from the Siem Reap and Angkor Wat travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Ta Nei sits about a kilometre off the road between Ta Keo and the Angkor Thom victory road, down a sandy track that most drivers will only take if asked. It is a modest twelfth-century temple, half-collapsed and still under trees, and on a weekday morning there is a fair chance of having it entirely to yourself. Siem Reap has a surprising number of these — sites inside the same ticket zone as Angkor Wat that see perhaps a hundredth of the visitors, plus corners of the town that tour itineraries never reach.
Temples almost nobody visits
Banteay Samré, on the road out to Banteay Srei, has a complete enclosure wall and finely cut sandstone yet rarely more than a handful of visitors. Prasat Kravan, on the small circuit, keeps rare brick bas-reliefs of Vishnu inside its central tower and takes ten minutes most people skip. Chau Srei Vibol, off National Road 6 to the east, is a hilltop ruin reached by a steep path with genuine solitude at the top. Phnom Krom, above the Tonlé Sap south of town, pairs a hilltop temple with the best sunset view over the lake. All need an Angkor pass.
The local side of town
Psar Leu, the sprawling market on National Road 6 east of the centre, is where Siem Reap actually shops — produce, hardware, gold and a food court of noodle stalls, with almost no souvenir trade. The lanes behind Wat Bo hold old wooden houses and a quiet stretch of riverbank. On weekend afternoons the West Baray shoreline fills with Khmer families and picnic platforms. For an evening that is not Pub Street, the bars along the north end of Wat Bo Road and the courtyard at Asana, a preserved wooden village house, stay calm and reasonably priced.