Cambodia: Phnom Penh, Battambang and Angkor

1. Day 1: Arrive in Phnom Penh

   Techo International Airport to your hotel in central Phnom Penh

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Phnom Penh
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Techo International Airport, which replaced Phnom Penh's old city airport in 2025 and sits south of the capital. A driver meets you in arrivals for the drive in, up to about an hour depending on traffic. Our hotel is central, a short walk from the riverfront where the Tonle Sap river meets the Mekong. If you land early the afternoon is yours: walk along Sisowath Quay, look into Wat Ounalom, the riverside monastery, or sit out the heat by the pool. At about 6 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a briefing on the week: how the days are paced, what to wear for the palace and the temples, and how we approach tomorrow's visits to Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, so that nobody walks in unprepared. Then we walk to a welcome dinner of Khmer dishes, such as fish amok steamed in banana leaf and peppery beef lok lak, at a restaurant near the river.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Techo International Airport, Phnom Penh
   • Welcome briefing with your guide, including how we visit the genocide memorials
   • Welcome dinner

   Optional experiences

   • The National Museum of Cambodia, next to the Royal Palace, for its Angkor-era sculpture, if you arrive early

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

   Activity: Plan to land by mid-afternoon to make the 6 pm briefing; later arrivals are met and briefed in the morning.

2. Day 2: Tuol Sleng, Choeung Ek and the Royal Palace

   Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to Choeung Ek, then the Royal Palace and the riverfront

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Phnom Penh
   Day 2 details

   This is the hardest day of the trip, and we plan it with care. We reach the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum soon after it opens, while it is cool and quiet. A high school until 1975, it became S-21, the Khmer Rouge's main prison, where thousands of people were held and very few survived. A local guide who knows the history walks us through, and you can step out into the courtyard at any time. We then drive about 15 km south to Choeung Ek, where many S-21 prisoners were killed. Here you walk alone at your own pace with the site's audio guide, ending at the memorial stupa. After a quiet sit-down lunch and a rest at the hotel, the afternoon turns to what Cambodia has kept: the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, whose floor is laid with silver tiles. We end on the water, on a boat at sunset where the Tonle Sap and the Mekong meet. The evening is free.

   Included

   • Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21) with a local guide
   • Choeung Ek memorial with the site's audio guide
   • Sit-down lunch
   • The Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda
   • Sunset boat at the meeting of the Tonle Sap and the Mekong

   Easier option: If you would rather not visit Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, tell your guide on day 1: a local guide takes you to Wat Phnom and the Central Market instead, and you rejoin the group for lunch.

   Free time: Rest after lunch; evening free

   Activity: Shoulders and knees covered at the palace. At the memorials, no photos in the cells and voices kept low.

3. Day 3: Kampong Chhnang's potters and on to Battambang

   Phnom Penh to Kampong Chhnang, then Battambang on National Road 5

   • Drive about 5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Battambang
   Day 3 details

   We leave after breakfast for Battambang, about 290 km north-west on National Road 5 and about five hours of driving. That is over our four-hour cap, and there is no better way: Battambang has no scheduled flights and the restored railway runs few, slow passenger trains. So we split the day in two. After about two hours we stop at Kampong Chhnang, on the Tonle Sap river, whose name means 'port of pots'. In a village on the edge of town, potters shape the local clay into water jars and stoves by hand, without a wheel, and we watch and try for about an hour before a sit-down lunch. The afternoon is the second half of the drive, past rice fields and sugar palms and through Pursat, reaching Battambang in the late afternoon. The town sits on the Sangker River, with streets of French-era shophouses and far less traffic than the capital. The evening is free, and your guide can point you to riverside places for dinner.

   Included

   • Drive from Phnom Penh to Battambang with your guide
   • Pottery village visit at Kampong Chhnang
   • Sit-down lunch in Kampong Chhnang

   Free time: Evening free in Battambang

   Activity: The longest drive of the trip, with a village stop and lunch in the middle and short breaks on the way.

   

4. Day 4: Battambang's countryside, the bamboo train and the bats

   Battambang to village workshops and Phnom Banan, then Phnom Sampov at dusk

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Battambang
   Day 4 details

   We start early, while it is cool, riding bicycles or tuk-tuks on quiet roads through the villages outside town. We stop where families make rice paper, dry bananas in the sun and roast kralan, sticky rice with coconut and beans packed into bamboo. The original bamboo train, a platform of planks on two axles that locals ran on the old French railway, stopped in 2017 when the line was rebuilt for real trains. A version now runs on a short track of its own near Phnom Banan, and we ride it there. Then we climb the steps to Prasat Banan, an 11th-century hilltop temple with five towers and a wide view over the fields. Lunch is home-style Khmer food in the countryside, and the middle of the day is free in town. At dusk we drive to Phnom Sampov to watch a stream of bats, said to number in the millions, pour out of a cave at sunset. The hill also holds the Killing Caves, a Khmer Rouge execution site with a small memorial; we go up only if the group wants to, and the bats are watched from the road below.

   Included

   • Morning ride through the villages, with rice paper, dried banana and kralan makers
   • The bamboo train near Phnom Banan
   • Prasat Banan hilltop temple
   • Lunch in the countryside
   • The bats of Phnom Sampov at dusk

   Optional experiences

   • Phare Ponleu Selpak, the Battambang arts school where Cambodia's circus performers train, puts on shows on set evenings; your guide can book seats.

   Easier option: Ride in a tuk-tuk instead of on a bicycle, and wait in the shade at the foot of Phnom Banan instead of climbing.

   More active option: Cycle the whole morning loop, about 25 km on flat village roads, with the vehicle following behind.

   Free time: Middle of the day free in Battambang

   Activity: The bike ride is flat and slow. The climb to Prasat Banan is a few hundred steep steps. The bat flight depends on the weather and lasts well after sunset.

   

5. Day 5: To Siem Reap, sunset at Pre Rup and the circus

   Battambang to Siem Reap via Sisophon, then Pre Rup

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Siem Reap
   Day 5 details

   After a slow breakfast, take a last walk by the river and through Psar Nat, Battambang's art deco central market from the 1930s, before we leave at about 9:30 am. Siem Reap is about 175 km away, around three and a half hours on the Sisophon road through flat rice country, with a coffee stop on the way. We arrive in time for lunch, and the afternoon is free to rest, swim or wander to the Old Market. At about 4:45 pm we drive to the Angkor ticket office, where your three-day pass is printed with your photo; a pass bought late in the afternoon also lets you in for that evening's sunset. We watch it from Pre Rup, a 10th-century temple-mountain of brick and laterite where the sun goes down over rice fields and palms, with fewer people than at Phnom Bakheng. In the evening we go to Phare, the Cambodian Circus, a show of theatre, music and acrobatics by performers who trained at the Battambang school you passed yesterday.

   Included

   • Morning walk through Psar Nat market in Battambang
   • Drive from Battambang to Siem Reap with your guide
   • Lunch on arrival in Siem Reap
   • Three-day Angkor pass
   • Sunset at Pre Rup
   • Phare, the Cambodian Circus

   Free time: Afternoon free in Siem Reap

   Activity: The steps at Pre Rup are steep; you can watch the sunset from the base.

6. Day 6: Angkor Wat at sunrise, Ta Prohm and the Bayon

   Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, then Angkor Thom and the Bayon

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Siem Reap
   Day 6 details

   We leave the hotel at about 4:45 am, the one pre-dawn start of the trip, and walk across the causeway to the pools in front of Angkor Wat as its towers appear against the sky. Built in the early 12th century under King Suryavarman II, and listed by UNESCO with the rest of Angkor in 1992, it is the largest temple in the complex. When most people head back for breakfast at about 7, we eat ours, packed by the hotel, and go in: along the carved galleries, with the Churning of the Ocean of Milk among them, and up the steep stair to the central towers. Next is Ta Prohm, where the roots of silk-cotton and strangler fig trees grip the walls, before it is at its busiest. Lunch is at a restaurant near the park, then the hotel for a rest through the heat. At about 3 pm we return through the South Gate of Angkor Thom to the Bayon, whose carved stone faces are best in late light, then the Baphuon and the Terrace of the Elephants.

   Included

   • Sunrise at Angkor Wat
   • Angkor Wat with a licensed Angkor guide, including the upper level when open
   • Ta Prohm
   • Lunch near the park
   • Angkor Thom in the late afternoon: the South Gate, the Bayon, the Baphuon and the Terrace of the Elephants

   Easier option: Skip the sunrise and sleep in: after breakfast at the hotel, a driver brings you to meet the group at Angkor Wat at about 8 am.

   More active option: In the late afternoon, walk a stretch of the Angkor Thom wall from the South Gate, about 3 km on a shaded earth path, and rejoin the group at the Bayon.

   Free time: Middle of the day free at the hotel; evening free

   Activity: About 4 hours on foot in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, on uneven stone. The stair to Angkor Wat's upper level is steep, needs covered shoulders and knees, and closes on Buddhist holy days.

   

7. Day 7: Banteay Srei and a sunset on the Tonle Sap

   Siem Reap to Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre, then Kampong Phluk on the Tonle Sap

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Siem Reap
   Day 7 details

   Today goes further out. We leave at about 7 am for Banteay Srei, about 35 km north-east, to arrive close to opening, ahead of the tour buses. Consecrated in 967, it is small and built of pink sandstone carved so finely it looks like wood. On the way back we stop at Banteay Samre, a 12th-century temple in the style of Angkor Wat that few groups visit, and lunch is at a village restaurant nearby. The middle of the day is free at the hotel. At about 3:30 pm we drive south-east to Kampong Phluk, a village of stilt houses on the edge of the Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia and a UNESCO biosphere reserve. We go with an operator that works with the village and pays its community fee, and we skip the orphanages, school visits and rice-donation stops that some boat trips push. From the stilt houses, people from the village paddle us in small canoes through the flooded forest, then we watch the sun go down over the lake. The farewell dinner is back in Siem Reap.

   Included

   • Banteay Srei close to opening, with your Angkor guide
   • Banteay Samre
   • Lunch at a village restaurant
   • Kampong Phluk by boat, with a canoe through the flooded forest
   • Sunset on the Tonle Sap
   • Farewell dinner in Siem Reap

   Easier option: Skip Banteay Samre and the canoe: stay in the shade, then on the larger boat for the sunset.

   Free time: Middle of the day free at the hotel

   Activity: If the water in the flooded forest is too low for the canoes, which can happen by February, the boat runs out to the open lake instead.

8. Day 8: Depart from Siem Reap

   Your hotel in Siem Reap to Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 8 details

   Your last morning is free. Walk to the Old Market for silk scarves and Kampot pepper, visit the Angkor National Museum to put the temples you have seen in order, or swim and pack. Your three-day pass still has a day on it, so if your flight leaves after about 2 pm, your guide takes the group to the Roluos temples on the way to the airport: Preah Ko, Bakong and Lolei, among the earliest temples of the Angkor period, built in the late 9th century. Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport opened in 2023 about 50 km east of town, so the transfer takes around an hour and is timed to your flight. Hotel check-out is usually around noon; if you need the room for longer, we can book a late check-out at cost. Plan to reach the airport two to three hours before an international flight. Any flight on day 8 works, and if you would like to stay on in Siem Reap, ask us for extra nights when you book.

   Included

   • The Roluos temples on the way, for flights after about 2 pm
   • Drop-off at Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport (SAI)

   Optional experiences

   • Angkor National Museum

   Free time: Free until your airport transfer

   Activity: Any flight time works today; allow about an hour for the drive and two to three hours at the airport.

Wildlife and weather: November to February is the dry, cooler season: mostly sunny, around 30°C by day and the low to mid 20s at night, with fresher early mornings in December and January. It is also the busiest time at Angkor, which is why the sunrise, Ta Prohm and Banteay Srei are timed early. The Tonle Sap is still high from the rains in November and falls through February; if the flooded forest is too low for the canoes, the boat runs out to the open lake instead. March to May is very hot and June to October brings the monsoon rains.

• Phnom Penh2 nights
• Battambang2 nights
• Siem Reap3 nights