Suburban Escapes in Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
A visual guide from the Siem Reap and Angkor Wat travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Eight kilometres west of the hotels, the West Baray opens out like a small sea: an eleventh-century reservoir roughly eight kilometres by two, still holding water, with families swimming off the southern bank at weekends and hammock huts renting for the price of a cold drink. It is the clearest reminder that Angkor was an engineering project long before it became a sightseeing one. Most of what makes a good half-day out of Siem Reap sits within twenty kilometres like this: reservoirs, rice fields, a hill with a view and villages built on stilts.
Water and views
The West Baray is at its best in late afternoon, when the light flattens and the food stalls fire up; boats run out to the West Mebon island temple when levels allow, and the swimming is shallow and warm. Phnom Krom, about 12 km south on the road to the lake, is a 140-metre hill topped by a small ninth-century temple, with a wide view across the floodplain that repays a twenty-minute climb, especially between September and November. Beyond it, Kampong Phluk, roughly 30 km out, is a stilted village where houses stand six or seven metres above the ground; Kampong Khleang, further east, is larger and much quieter.
Villages, workshops and older temples
The Roluos group, 13 km east on National Road 6, holds Bakong, Preah Ko and Lolei, ninth-century brick and sandstone that predates Angkor Wat by two centuries and sees a fraction of the traffic. The Angkor Silk Farm at Puok, about 16 km west, runs guided tours that follow the process from mulberry field to loom, usually with a shuttle running out from the Artisans Angkor workshop in town. On the Banteay Srei road, 37 km north-east, the Cambodia Landmine Museum and the Angkor Butterfly Centre both make sensible stops on the way back. Rented bicycles handle the flat lanes north of Wat Bo comfortably.