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Cambodia

Southeast Asia

A Southeast Asian kingdom on the lower Mekong, built around the temple city of Angkor and its Siem Reap base, the riverside capital Phnom Penh, the Tonle Sap great lake, the Cardamom rainforest and a southern coast of Gulf of Thailand islands, with a deep Khmer culture of craft, cuisine and river festivals.

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What you can do in Cambodia

Craft Skills (Bladesmithing, Pottery, Glass)

Siem Reapyear-roundThe crafts that decorated Angkor never died out, and Siem Reap is where you can watch them practised and learn the techniques. Khmer stone and wood carving, lacquering, gilding, silk weaving and silversmithing are all worked here in open studios where the point is to see the process, not just buy the result. A social enterprise that trains rural young people runs a central workshop and a working silk farm where you can follow silk from mulberry leaf and silkworm to dyed thread and loom, while a master artist's atelier shows lacquer and gilded sculpture being finished by apprentices. It is a rare chance to understand a living Khmer craft tradition at close range and, at the hands-on studios, to try the tools yourself.

Culinary / Cooking

Museums & Galleries

Phnom Penhyear-roundTo understand what the carvers of Angkor achieved, you go to the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, which holds the finest collection of Khmer art anywhere. Inside a striking terracotta pavilion built in the French-colonial era beside the Royal Palace, more than fourteen thousand pieces trace a thousand years and more of Khmer sculpture, bronze, ceramic and wood, from pre-Angkorian statuary to the masterpieces of the empire. This is where the greatest originals were brought for safekeeping while replicas stand in the temples, so the museum is the counterpart to a temple visit rather than a substitute for it. Standing before the eight-armed Vishnu from Phnom Da or the serene Harihara from Prasat Andet, you see Khmer art at its source, room by room and material by material.

Photography Expeditions

Siem ReapJan Feb Mar Nov DecAngkor is one of the great photographic subjects on earth, and Siem Reap is the base for shooting it. The draw is not only Angkor Wat at sunrise, when the towers reflect in the northern pond and the sky burns behind them, but the range of what sits within a short drive: the face towers of the Bayon, the strangler figs swallowing Ta Prohm, and quieter, harder-to-reach ruins like Beng Mealea and the distant Koh Ker pyramid. Resident photographer-guides know which temple works in which light and get you through the gates before the coaches arrive, so you are set up for the good hour rather than fighting crowds. Between temples there are monks, markets and the Tonle Sap floating villages to shoot, which makes it a place to build a portfolio, not just tick a monument.

Scuba Diving

Koh RongJan Feb Mar Apr May Oct Nov DecCambodia's diving is the quiet corner of the Gulf of Thailand, and Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem are where it is centred. This is warm, forgiving water with good visibility and little current on the inshore reefs, which makes it an easy, affordable place to learn or to log relaxed fun dives among hard and soft coral, nudibranchs, seahorses and reef fish. The country's dive scene is small and long-established rather than industrial, so courses run in tiny groups. For experienced divers the pull is the remote outer islands, Koh Tang, Koh Prins and Condor Reef, a two to three-hour boat run or overnight trip to reefs, pinnacles and wrecks that see very few divers. It is a genuine off-the-map dive destination within Southeast Asia.

Trekking / Hiking

Cardamom MountainsJan Feb Mar Apr Nov DecThe Cardamoms are the largest unbroken rainforest left in mainland Southeast Asia, and trekking here funds the fight to keep it standing. This is proper jungle walking, through dense forest to hidden waterfalls, river crossings and post-Angkorian burial-jar sites, with the chance of hornbills, gibbons and, for the lucky, sign of elephant. Two models sit side by side. At Chi Phat, a village of former loggers and poachers turned guides runs multi-day treks, mountain-bike rides and river kayaking from a community base, with nights in homestays or forest hammock camps. Deeper in, a small tented camp inside a national park lets you trek with a naturalist and shadow the Wildlife Alliance rangers who patrol the trails. Either way the walking is remote, humid and genuinely wild.

Wildlife Safaris

Witness / Attend

Bon Om ToukPhnom PenhNovBon Om Touk, the Cambodian Water Festival, is the country's biggest annual celebration, and the riverfront in Phnom Penh is where it peaks. It marks the moment each November when the Tonle Sap river reverses its flow and drains back into the Mekong, the natural cycle that feeds the great lake. For three days more than a hundred long wooden racing boats, each crewed by dozens of rowers from provinces across the country, sprint down the Tonle Sap in front of the Royal Palace while a huge crowd packs Sisowath Quay. After dark there are illuminated floats on the river, fireworks over the water and the moon salutation of Sampeas Preah Khe, when people eat the flattened-rice snack ambok. There is no ticket and no single stage. You come to the riverside, join the crowd along the quay, and watch the races and the fireworks from the bank.

Best months at a glance

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Craft Skills
Culinary
Museums
Photography
Scuba Diving
Trekking
Wildlife Safaris
Witness / Attend

Upcoming events in Cambodia