Weekend in Siem Reap
A visual guide from the Siem Reap and Angkor Wat travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Two days is enough here if the first morning starts in the dark. The Angkor ticket office on Street 60 opens before dawn, and tuk-tuks queue outside from around 4.30am for the run to Angkor Wat's north reflecting pool, where the towers come up black against a pink sky and the crowd thins by seven. That leaves the rest of Saturday for Bayon and Ta Prohm, and all of Sunday for the things Siem Reap does when the temples are behind you — Kandal Village, the river, a circus tent, cold beer on Pub Street.
Day one: the small circuit
Siem Reap Angkor International is about 40 km east — allow an hour in. A one-day Angkor pass runs to around US$37 and a three-day to about US$62, though rates are revised periodically; passes are sold by Angkor Enterprise at the Street 60 counters and online, and those bought from about 5pm typically start counting the next day, with that evening's sunset thrown in. The standard small circuit by tuk-tuk, somewhere around US$20–25 for the day, covers Angkor Wat, the Bayon and the terraces inside Angkor Thom, then Ta Prohm's strangler figs, calmest either at opening or after three. Back in town for the heat, then Phare the Cambodian Circus on Ring Road, an early-evening show worth booking ahead.
Day two: town, water and food
Sunday works better away from the stones. Kandal Village, the block of shophouses along Hup Guan Street, has the town's best small design shops and coffee — Little Red Fox Espresso is the usual meeting point. From there it is about 40 minutes by road to Kampong Phluk on the Tonlé Sap, where the stilt houses stand three storeys clear of the dry-season waterline and a paddle boat can slip into the flooded forest when the lake is high, roughly August to November. In the evening, Road 60 night market for Khmer street food, or Miss Wong in the lane behind Pub Street.