Siem Reap, Cambodia

Jan 16 - 23, 2020

Siem Reap, the gateway city to the amazing Angkor Wat complex. Angkor Wat is the name of the main temple, the largest religious structure in the world, as well as the name of the overall complex that’s the size of a town. This place is massive! The amount of work it took to build this entire complex over many generations is mind blowing. This really should be one of the seven wonders of the world. Just be sure to start your day very early, as you’ll feel heat exhaustion by mid-day and want to come home to enjoy the hotel pool.

Siem Reap

Angkor Wat - Grand Circuit

Angkor Wat - Small Circuit

Voyagers tips:

Currency: US dollars is essentially the main currency here, and you can get USD out of all ATMs. Since they don’t use coins, local currency is only used as change. 1000 local currency is $0.25 USD.

Transportation: Tuk-tuk is the most popular method of transportation around town as well as to go to Angkor Wat. You can get a car/SUV to go to Angkor Wat for a higher price, but the tuk-tuk is perfectly fine. If you go early (and you’ll want to, given the mid-day heat), the tuk-tuk ride is cold and windy in the morning, so either bring an extra layer or just bear the cold for 10-15 minutes. A tuk-tuk is around $15-18 per day for Angkor Wat, and $2 to get anywhere around town.

Itinerary: The most popular day-trip routes is the grand circuit and the small circuit, and the hotels can help you arrange this once you arrive. The main Angkor Wat temple is part of the smaller circuit. I suggest doing the grand tour on day 1 to familiarize yourself with the surroundings first. For the smaller circuit, we visited Angkor Wat last because after you visit that main temple, everything else looks tame in comparison. The downside of this, however, is that it was ridiculously hot by the time we got to Angkor Wat and we were losing energy fast. I’d suggest doing this early in the morning and enjoy it fully before moving on. Many people wake up super early to take the famous sunrise pictures over Angkor Wat, but with our little kids, it just wasn’t worth it for us. Lastly, they do offer day trips to nearby destinations, but depending on the season, some of those destinations may not be worth going to (e.g. dried-up rivers and waterfalls). Two days of the heat was enough for us, so we opted to do home school and enjoy hotel pool on the 3rd day before leaving.

Food: Being the gateway to Angkor Wat, this is a very touristy city and there is no shortage of restaurants. Tripadvisor and Google serve as great ways to find good restaurants. There are some casual eateries right by the night market that are very low-priced, and there are fancier restaurants on pub street that are great hangout places at night and charge a premium for its location. We ate at several highly-rated restaurants around the city and they were mostly very good.

siem reap

the city

night market

chateau d’angkor la residence

bugs cafe

the city

Angkor Wat is the main attraction around here, but there are no places to stay inside Angkor Wat, so all visitors stay in Siem Reap. There are plenty of restaurants and pubs, and the night market is lively. It’s got all the conveniences of a tourist city, perhaps without the charm.

night market

This massive night market is definitely the center of town. Plenty of restaurants, pubs, massage parlors and shopping. It’s so hot during the day, people are either visiting Angkor Wat or hiding in hotel rooms and pools; night time is when people come out and explore.

chateau d’angkor la residence

We chose this hotel due to its high ratings on Tripadvsior and were happy with our choice. It’s close to city center, the price of our two-bedroom apartment was very reasonable, there’s a laundry washer in the apartment, the size of the apartment is huge, breakfast is included, and best of all, the staff goes above and beyond to provide excellent service. They noticed it was going to my my wife’s birthday the day after we checked in, and offered to get us a cake, deliver it to our room, and have the staff come sing happy birthday for her. Amazing service!

bugs cafe

We celebrated Megan’s birthday with a dinner she will never forget - Eating bugs! Tarantula donuts, scorpion stir-fry and ants spring rolls gives eating bugs a new twist! Water bug (cockroach) was the most disgusting though.

Angkor Wat - Grand Circuit

Angkor Wat refers to the main temple as well as the overall temple “city”. The temples in this city are grouped to two separate routes: Grand Circuit and Small Circuit. The Grand Circuit is a bigger loop in terms of distance and the temples are more spread out. The Small Circuit includes the main Angkor Wat temple, the largest religious monument in the world, and is more crowded.

Voyagers Tips: Purchase the 3-day ticket for Angkor Wat. There are just too many temples to visit in one day, and there are no 2-day tickets, only 3 days and 7 days. Visit the Grand Circuit on the first day. This allows you to get familiar with the area first and let you decided if you want to do the sunrise pictures at Angkor Wat the second day. If you decide to do the sunrise pictures on day 2, you’ll be able to go straight in, as you already have the tickets to enter. Don’t skip the Grand Circuit, the temples on this route provides a different feel than that of the Small Circuit.

Ask your hotel to assign a tuktuk driver. The hotel likely has their network of drivers and it’s worth paying a few dollars premium to use their pre-selected drivers that speak a certain level of English. If anything goes wrong with the tuktuk driver, the hotel will be responsible if they arrange for your driver. If you like the driver on day 1, stay with him for the second day. He may also rearrange the temples to visit on each day depending on your progress on day 1. When we visited in January of 2020, it costs $18 per day for a personal tuktuk driver.

Start your day early! It gets EXTREMELY hot and humid in Angkor Wat regardless of the time of the year. The earlier you start, the more you can see before it becomes unbearablly hot. Some travelers recommend taking a break during the peak temperature hours then going back for more in late afternoon, but we were so exhausted with the heat by noon that we needed to take the rest of the day off. Just get an early start (6am if possible), move through the temples on a fairly quick pace, as it will definitely get hot.

Angkor Wat - Small Circuit

Angkor Wat - Main Temple

Voyagers tips: The main temple is massive and spectacular. Some tour guides suggest saving this temple to the last because once you see this temple, the others seem insignificant by comparison. We followed this recommendation and regretted it. When we got here, it was around noon time, we were experiencing heat exhaustion and didn’t have enough energy to give it the attention it deserves. Visit this one first, while the temperature is nice and your energy level is high. Many people also wake up at 3-4am to take the famous sunrise pictures in front of the temple. With two little kids, that was not going to happen for us, so we skipped the sunrise and were happy with our decision.