Seasonal Highlights in Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
A visual guide from the Siem Reap and Angkor Wat travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Twice a year, close to the March and late-September equinoxes, the sun rises directly behind the central tower of Angkor Wat, and a few hundred people stand on the western causeway in the dark to watch it happen. The rest of the calendar turns on water. By September the Tonle Sap has swollen to several times its dry-season area, the temple moats brim, and the rice runs a green that photographs badly and looks extraordinary in person. By March the same paddies are bleached straw and the heat starts before nine in the morning.
Cool, hot and green
November to February is the cool dry season, with mornings around 22C, afternoons in the low thirties, clear skies, and the highest room rates and sunrise crowds of the year. March to May is the hot run, regularly 35 to 38C and sometimes higher, which means starting when the park gates open around 5am and being back at the pool by eleven. June to October brings the south-west monsoon: rain usually arrives as one heavy hour in the afternoon rather than all-day drizzle, the light immediately afterwards is the best of the year, and the temples are noticeably emptier. Green season is also when the moats and barays actually hold water.
Dates worth planning around
Khmer New Year falls around 13 to 16 April, when the town half-empties of workers heading to home provinces and the Angkor Sangkranta festival, in the years it runs, fills the park with games, music and food stalls, hot and chaotic and very local. Pchum Ben, in September or October, is the ancestors' festival and closes many businesses for a few days. The Angkor Wat International Half Marathon usually runs on a Sunday in early December, with roads inside the park closed to traffic; the Angkor Empire Marathon usually lands in August. Room prices spike hardest over Christmas and Chinese New Year, so book those weeks well ahead.