Siem Reap: gateway to Cambodia’s religious splendours

In this video, we head to Siem Reap, for a pre-Covid tour of Cambodia’s second-largest city.

Gateway for the tourist-drawing temples of Angkor – a stupendous array of ancient religious monuments virtually unrivalled anywhere in Asia – Siem Reap is well worthwhile exploring in its own right.

Visually, its French Quarter and Old Market offers striking examples of French colonial and Chinese-style architecture, while its more modern urban areas are packed with wall-to-wall hotels, restaurants and bars. Here, pre-pandemic, tourists, touts and tuk-tuk drivers would be jammed in a daily bedlam of activity.

Yet Siem Reap’s original, small-town charm remains palpable, and it is also the starting point for visits to the remarkable floating villages on Tonlé Sap Lake and to wild Phnom Kulen, at the borders of the Kulen Mountains, which divide Cambodia’s lush lowlands from the barren north.

Should you find yourself in Siem Reap, consider adding the following sights to your itinerary:

• Angkor National Museum
• Artisans Angkor Arts Centre
• Apopo Visitor Centre
• Angkor Silk Farm
• Cambolac Arts Centre
• Senteurs d’Angkor Botanic Garden
• War Museum
• Wat Bo Buddhist Temple
• Wat Dam Nak Buddhist Temple
• Wat Athvea Buddhist Temple
• Wat Thmei Buddhist Temple
• Cambodian Cultural Village

View the original video here.

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