Angkor Wat is somewhere I’ve been desperate to visit for the longest time and was the inspiration for our South East Asia trip. It’s situated just outside the city of Siem Reap in the north of Cambodia, where we stayed for 3 days. Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious monuments in the world, spread out across over 200 hectares and built 900 years ago. The size of the Angkor UNESCO World Heritage size will completely blow your mind, filled with temples hundreds of years old.
For our visit, we stayed in the city of Siem Reap at the Apsara Residence Hotel, just 5 minutes walk from busy Pub Street but approximately 7km from Angkor Wat. While there are options to stay closer to Angkor Wat and the complex of temples, you will still need to do some travel whether that’s by car, tuktuk, bike or walking (although I wouldn’t recommend walking in the Cambodian heat!).
First thing to know about is the Angkor Pass that you need for visiting the temple complex. You can only buy the pass from the official ticket centre so please do not believe any hotel workers, tuktuk drivers or locals who claim they can sell you tickets for a discounted price. There are 3 different passes you can get depending on how much temple time you want:
- 1-day pass costing $37 and valid for one day (valid only on the day of purchase up until 5pm, after 5pm it is valid for the next day – I’ll come back to this)
- 3-day pass costing $62 and valid for 10 days from purchase
- 7-day pass costing $72 and valid for 1 month from purchase
The ticket centre is about 4km from Siem Reap but all car and tuktuk drivers will know where this is to take you there before you head into the park. It’s open from 4.30am so you can get their early to purchase your one day ticket in time for sunrise at one of the temples. It’s worth noting that if you go purchase your ticket up until 4.30/5pm, the day of purchase counts so don’t rock up at 3pm to purchase your 1-day ticket! However, the good news is that if you purchase your ticket after 5pm, that day will not count so you can head into the park and see the sunset for free and maximise your time in the complex.
Once you have your ticket, you’re good to go. There are heaps of temples in the complex with Angkor Wat understandably being the most popular but there are many others that are highly visited by tourists including Bayon and Ta Prohm. There are two main tour routes that are offered to tourists (but of course, you can plan your own if you want), one being the grand tour and the other being the small or ‘mini’ tour – we managed to do both. The tour name is not really relevant to how long it takes, I believe the names are related to the circle in which the tour goes so the smaller circuit (with more temples) is the mini tour and the grand tour goes around a bigger circle with fewer stops. The length of the tour will ultimately depend on how long you spend in each temple.
The mini tour for us started with sunrise at Angkor Wat, an incredible way to start the day despite the 4am wake up call. The next day, we took the grand tour which took us to 6 more temples and was slightly shorter than the mini tour. We hired a tuktuk driver for the day for each tour through the hotel. This cost $18 for the day but an additional $5 was charged for sunrise, which I believe is the average rate to hire a tuktuk for the day. For us, organising a tuktuk driver was the easiest option as the hotel organised it. However, there is no shortage of tuktuk drivers in the area that you can ask to hire for the day. As I mentioned earlier, there are other options for getting around the park including, the most pricey option, a car or hiring your own bicycles or motorbikes. There is of course the option of walking (or running!) and we did see a few people braving the blistering 36 degree heat but the park is quite large and would take some time to get around by foot!
Our recommendation would be to hire a tuktuk for the day, not only is this affordable but the driver will know where they’re going and take you directly to each temple. It’s a good idea to agree a meeting place with your driver before you leave them to enter the temple as it can be difficult to find them in the sea of tuktuks outside each temple. You can also hire a guide for the day costing around $40 for the day if you are interested in learning more about the temples.
Pre Rup 
Ta Som 
Preah Khan 
Baphuon 
Bayon
We visited almost 20 different temples over 3 days and I’ll admit they did end up looking very similar by the end of our time in Angkor World. Aside from the popular tourist hotspots of Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm and Bayon, the defining features of Ta Som and Pre Rup stood out. Likely if you visit the Angkor World complex, you’ll end up visiting a similar amount of temples, it’s definitely wise to take note of the name of each temple and one defining feature that stood out for you so you can remember it well. There are many more temples that simply cannot fit in to the grand and mini tour so keep your eyes peeled on your way for secret ones that are just as beautiful but rarely have any visitors.
By Seas and Sky 