Travel guide
Featured on October 7, 2026
Every monsoon, the Tonlé Sap River runs backward.
Places
Go for the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat, the face towers of Bayon and Ta Prohm's masonry gripped by roots. More than a single monument, it lets you walk through the remains of a whole medieval capital.
Tip: Start before sunrise and give it two mornings if you can; the main temples are better spread out than rushed.
The capital puts the Royal Palace, the National Museum and Tuol Sleng in one compact day, then sends you to the riverfront for dusk. It is where court ritual, French-era streets and the violence of the 1970s sit uncomfortably close.
Tip: Stay at least two nights; do Tuol Sleng early, then keep the Mekong and Tonlé Sap waterfront for evening.
Come for market breakfasts, low-rise streets that still move at bicycle pace and the bat exodus from nearby Phnom Sampov at dusk. It gives you western Cambodia without the temple crowds.
Tip: Stay the night; head to Phnom Sampov before dusk and wait for the bats rather than turning up at dark.
Lunch is the point: crab cooked with green Kampot pepper, eaten within sight of the boats that landed it. Between meals you can walk past decaying villas and up into Kep National Park.
Tip: Come for lunch rather than a resort stay; the Crab Market is busiest late morning.
This is the other Cambodia: rainforest, river crossings, leeches, hornbills and community-run camps deep in the southwest. After stone and cities, it puts the country back in the scale of forest.
Tip: Go with a lodge or licensed guide, especially in the rains, and pack a dry bag.
Eat
Thin slices of pork marinated with garlic and coconut milk are grilled over charcoal and served over rice with pickles and a light broth.
Where: At dawn street stalls and corner breakfast shops; this is a morning meal.
Fresh rice noodles are topped with a light fish gravy scented with lemongrass, turmeric and kaffir lime, then covered with raw leaves and vegetables.
Where: From morning market sellers and women carrying baskets through neighbourhoods.
Fish is mixed with kroeung curry paste, coconut milk and egg, then steamed, often in a banana-leaf cup.
Where: At neighbourhood rice restaurants and on family celebration tables; it is better there than on buffet lines.
Crab is stir-fried with fresh green peppercorns, garlic and sauce, then cracked open at the table.
Where: At the Crab Market in Kep, with the sea a few steps away.
Story
Before sunrise in Siem Reap, the air smells of incense, damp stone and grilled pork, and the road to Angkor is already full of scooters. Later, in Phnom Penh, you can walk from the Royal Palace to Tuol Sleng and feel the century tilt under your feet. What stays with people is the rhythm: shoes off at the doorway, iced coffee before the heat, and wedding music drifting out of a tented side street after dark.
In 802, a court ritual on Phnom Kulen marked Jayavarman II as a king apart. Engineers then cut canals and reservoirs into the plain and turned monsoon water into rice. In the early twelfth century, Suryavarman II ordered Angkor Wat, its galleries filling with battles, gods and the churning sea of Hindu myth. When Cham forces reached Angkor in 1177 by water, Jayavarman VII answered with a new capital and the stone faces of Bayon.
On 17 April 1975, Khmer Rouge troops entered Phnom Penh to cheers, dust and black smoke. Within hours they were pushing patients out of hospitals, families out of shopfronts and whole streets onto the roads. At Tuol Sleng, schoolrooms became cells and mug-shot rooms. Vietnamese forces took the capital in January 1979, but the country that reopened after that was not the one that had been emptied.
In 1993, blue-helmeted UN staff and voters lined up at schools and pagodas for a national election. Angkor returned to world itineraries, garment factories pulled young workers into the city and Siem Reap filled with hotels and tuk-tuks. Power stayed tight: Hun Sen ruled for decades before handing the premiership to Hun Manet in 2023. At dawn now, monks still collect alms beside iced-coffee carts and delivery bikes.
Say hello
ជំរាបសួរ
A polite hello
Say: joom reap suor
អរគុណច្រើន
Thanks a lot
Say: aw-kun chrahn
អត់អីទេ
No worries / it's fine
Say: ot ey tay
ញ៉ាំបាយហើយឬនៅ?
"Eaten yet?" — often just a warm way of asking how you are
Say: nyam bai hoy rue nov?
ថោកបន្តិចបានទេ?
Can you do a little better on the price?
Say: thowk bon-tich ban tay?
Surprises
In 2022, scientists in Stung Treng documented a giant freshwater stingray from the Mekong as the heaviest freshwater fish ever recorded. The river here still produces creatures that sound like travellers' tales.
Cambodia chose one of the world's rarest large birds as its national bird. The giant ibis still survives in the northern dry forests, where conservation work now protects nests and seasonal feeding pools.
Kampot pepper has the same kind of European legal protection as Champagne. The EU granted it protected geographical indication status in 2016, tying the name to pepper grown in a defined area around Kampot and Kep.
Quiz
Which direction does Angkor Wat face?
West. That is unusual for a major Khmer temple, and it is one reason scholars often connect Angkor Wat with Vishnu and with funerary symbolism as well as royal power.
3 days
Day 1
Morning at Angkor Wat and Bayon, afternoon at Ta Prohm, evening back in Siem Reap for the old market streets and an early night.
Day 2
Drive from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh with a long stop at Sambor Prei Kuk, then reach the riverside by evening.
Day 3
Morning at the Royal Palace and National Museum, afternoon at Tuol Sleng, evening by the river or in the lanes around Street 240.
At a glance
At a glance
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Listen
The song of the day
Champa Battambang
Sinn Sisamouth
It opens the lost pre-1975 pop world that older Cambodians still talk about, and one singer still stands for that whole era.
Before you go, watch or read
The Missing Picture
Film
Rithy Panh turns the Khmer Rouge years into something intimate and legible, using clay figures and archive footage instead of spectacle.
Entry requirements
Cambodia entry requirements by passport: of 196 passports, 8 can enter without a visa, 175 get a visa on arrival, 13 apply online before they travel and 0 need a visa from an embassy or consulate.
Find your passport for the documents, the cost and how long you can stay.
Safety
Due to crime
US State Dept, updated September 1, 2025. Advisories change: check your own government's travel advice before you go.
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🇰🇭 Today's country is Cambodia. Every monsoon, the Tonlé Sap River runs backward. Before sunrise in Siem Reap, the air smells of incense, damp stone and grilled pork, and the road to Angkor is already full of scooters. Later, in Phnom Penh, you can walk from the Royal Palace to Tuol Sleng and feel the century tilt under your feet. What stays with people is the rhythm: shoes off at the doorway, iced coffee before the heat, and wedding music drifting out of a tented side street after…
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