SIem Reap and Angkor Wat

Siem Reap

Siem Reap is the village that has developed into quite a bustling little town over the years as tourism to the Angkor Archeological Park has grown. These days, there are over a million visitors to the park, and subsequently Siem Reap, each year. Since Angkor Archeological Park is such a vast place to take in and ideally takes many days to do a visit to its temples justice, Siem Reap is the place to stay while exploring the ruins.

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Recommend

1 Angkor Archeological Park, of course!

2 Getting a massage after tromping around the temple grounds.

3 Check out the Landmine Museum outside of town.

4 Enjoy the many food options around town; you’ve already burned a lot of calories!

5 Enjoy an Angkor beer as the sun sets and feel everything is in the right place.

About Siem Reap

Siem Reap has a great amount of variety in terms of places to stay to suit all budgets and wonderful dining options be it street food, Khmer cuisine or a fine French feast.

Although Angkor Wat and the entire park of the same name is the most significant and biggest tourist draw in the area, there are literally a thousand temples, pagodas, statues, and carvings in various states of decay all around the outskirts of Siem Reap. If temples and ruins are your thing you could be spending a lot of time in the Siem Reap area.
Since Siem Reap is Cambodia’s number one tourist destination there is plenty to do here to keep most people busy for a few days. Siem Reap is just 3 km from the Angkor Archeological Park, so it is great to be able to return “home” to your hotel part way through a long day of hiking around the ruins to relax, put your feet up, eat or take a dip in the pool. There are also several spas and many massage therapists in Siem Reap who can help relax your tired muscles after long days touring the temples.

Angkor National Museum in Siem Reap is another resource to check out in case you haven’t gotten your fill of history and artifacts visiting the park itself.
To experience Khmer culture there are several performance groups in Siem Reap who offer visitors a taste of cultural dance.

And don’t forget the markets and art and craft galleries. At Artisans d’Angkor you can see artisans at work and multilingual tours are available to explain the processes use by the artists creating traditional Khmer crafts.

The floating villages outside of town are worth a visit. It is very interesting to see village life on stilts although we recommend avoiding the tours to the floating village of Chong Khneas, and opting instead to venture a bit further out to the village of Kampong Phluk where the tourists and scams are far less.

The Landmine Museum is another “attraction” outside of town (about 30 km from Siem Reap) that is worth a visit. The museum guides are themselves victims of landmines and the proprietor is a local de-miner who wants to educate the public about the devastation and destruction of landmines in Cambodia.

A very eye opening experience.

If you’d like to venture out of town a bit there is still more to do in the surrounding areas. Several more temple complexes are within a reasonable distance to Siem Reap, may be far less crowded than the Angkor Archeological Park and provide you with a great ride out into the country to see a bit of your surroundings: Banteay Srei, Beng Mealea, Wat Thmei, the Banteay Chhmar complex, and the hilltop temples at Phnom Bok and Phnom Krom which also provide outstanding views of the area.