Angkor at dawn, and an airport 50 km away
Destinations › Asia › Siem Reap
Siem Reap exists for Angkor, and the geography is tighter than people expect: Angkor Thom's south gate is 1.7 km north of Angkor Wat's entrance, and Ta Prohm's strangler figs are about another kilometre east of that. The town itself is small and walkable around the Old Market and Pub Street — but it was completely reorganised in October 2023, when all flights moved to a brand-new airport 50 km out of town.
There is no nonstop from Toronto to Cambodia, and realistically no one-stop either — Siem Reap–Angkor's network is entirely regional with no long-haul service at all, so plan on changing twice. Fly YYZ nonstop to an Asian hub first: Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, EVA Air to Taipei, Korean Air to Seoul Incheon, or Air Canada to Tokyo Narita or Haneda. Then pick up the final leg into Siem Reap from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (Bangkok Airways, Thai Airways, Emirates), Bangkok Don Mueang (Thai AirAsia), Singapore (Singapore Airlines), Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi (Vietnam Airlines, VietJet), Kuala Lumpur (AirAsia Cambodia), or Phnom Penh's Techo International — IATA code KTI, which replaced the old Phnom Penh airport as the capital's main hub in 2025 — on Air Cambodia or Cambodia Airways. You arrive at Siem Reap–Angkor International Airport, IATA code SAI, not the old REP code, which it replaced when it opened on 16 October 2023. This is the bit to plan around: SAI sits 50 km EAST of Siem Reap in Soutr Nikom District, deliberately moved far out because the old airport's pollution was damaging Angkor Wat. It is not the ten-minute hop the old airport was. The airport's documented ground transport is minibuses seating up to 15; taxis and Grab also operate. Arrange your first night's transfer through your guesthouse rather than negotiating it in the dark after two connections.
There is no rail, no metro and no stored-value transit card in Siem Reap — none of the Touch 'n Go / Beep / Rabbit-style systems exist here. The town runs on tuk-tuks (locally remorques, a trailer towed by a motorbike); as of 2019 there were an estimated 6,000 drivers, almost all serving tourists. Grab operates in Cambodia and quotes the fare in-app, which removes the haggle entirely and is the easiest option for a first-timer. Otherwise you agree the price before you get in, every time. For the temples, the standard arrangement is hiring one driver for a full day on the small or grand circuit rather than paying trip by trip. For Banteay Srei, roughly 25 km northeast of the main Angkor group, or the 50 km run back to the airport, take a car rather than a tuk-tuk. Bicycles are a genuinely good option for the small circuit in cool season, and the centre around the Old Market, Pub Street and the Siem Reap River is walkable.
The reason the town exists, and still worth the crowd. Sunrise over the reflecting pools is the shot everyone wants, which means you will be sharing the pool edge with a few hundred people — go anyway, then keep going as the tour buses head back for breakfast. Critical: have your park pass in hand before you leave your hotel, because tickets are not sold at the temple itself.
Jayavarman VII's late-12th-century capital, 9 km² inside its walls, with the south gate 1.7 km north of Angkor Wat's entrance and a causeway of stone figures leading in. At the centre is the Bayon and its 23-metre face towers — possibly the king, possibly the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, possibly guardians of the empire's cardinal points; nobody agrees. Also inside: the Baphuon, Phimeanakas, and the Terrace of the Elephants.
About a kilometre east of Angkor Thom, on the southern edge of the East Baray. Left deliberately half-swallowed by the forest — silk-cotton and strangler fig roots poured over the galleries and prising the stones apart, a state the École française d'Extrême-Orient chose to preserve rather than clear. Filmed for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001, which is exactly why it's the most congested mid-morning stop on the circuit. Go first thing or late.
Roughly 25 km northeast of the main group, so it needs a car and a half-day, and most day-trippers skip it. Consecrated in 967 CE and built from red sandstone, a medium that takes detail so finely that scholars compare the carving to goldsmithing and woodwork rather than sculpture in stone. Almost every available surface is worked. This is the one people who have been twice tell you not to miss.
The tourist core, wedged between the Old Market and the Siem Reap River, where everything is inside a five-minute walk — the market, the night markets, the tour offices, the restaurants. Convenient for a two- or three-night stop, and it is where you'll end up eating anyway. Two caveats: Pub Street runs loud until the small hours, and the UK FCDO warns specifically of lone women being sexually assaulted by men claiming to be motorbike taxi drivers in the Pub Street area. Book a street or two back from it and take a tuk-tuk you arranged rather than one that approached you.
Residential, low, green, with guesthouses and small hotels set back in gardens, and a ten-minute walk over a bridge into the Old Market. Roosters and monks rather than bass. This is the sensible default for families and for anyone travelling with parents — you get quiet nights and you are still walking distance from town.
A short strip of restored shophouses west of the Old Market: independent boutiques, coffee, small design-led hotels. Walkable, quiet, and a more grown-up version of central Siem Reap. Small enough that you'd still wander into the Old Market most evenings.
The resort strip running north out of town toward the Angkor park, where the big properties sit in their own grounds with pools and gardens, and where the official Angkor Enterprise ticket centre is. Base here if a pool and a pre-dawn start matter more to you than walking out to dinner — because you will not be walking anywhere. Everything is a tuk-tuk ride.
The national dish, and the one to eat properly at least once: freshwater fish folded into coconut cream and kroeung — the pounded paste of lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, kaffir lime and garlic that sits under most Khmer cooking — then steamed in a banana-leaf cup until it sets like a savoury custard. It should wobble, not pour. Every restaurant in town does a version, and it is also the dish every cooking class in Siem Reap teaches, which is a good half-day out of the heat.
Breakfast, and the most Cambodian thing you can eat. Cold fresh rice noodles under a thin green fish-and-lemongrass gravy, with a heap of raw banana flower, water lily stem, cucumber, bean sprouts and herbs that you tear in yourself. Sold in the morning from women carrying it on shoulder poles, and from the stalls in the wet market. For the real thing go to Psar Leu, the big local market out on National Road 6 east of town, rather than Psar Chas — Psar Leu is where Siem Reap actually shops.
The two everyday plates that bracket the day. Bai sach chrouk is breakfast: thin slices of pork grilled over coals, laid on rice with pickled cucumber and a small bowl of clear broth, from street carts in the early morning. Lok lak is dinner: cubed beef seared fast and hard, served on tomato and lettuce with a fried egg on top and a dipping sauce of black pepper, lime juice and salt — the pepper is the point, and Cambodian pepper from Kampot is some of the best in the world.
The big local market is where Khmer food actually lives: prahok, the fermented fish paste that underpins the entire cuisine and smells accordingly; palm sugar in solid discs; durian and rambutan in season; and the fried insects — crickets, silkworms, and red tree ants stir-fried with beef and holy basil, which genuinely tastes good and is not just a dare. Also num pang, the Khmer sandwich, which is the Cambodian answer to banh mi with a different set of pickles.
Buy the Angkor Pass before temple day, not on the morning. It is sold at the official Angkor Enterprise ticket centre out on Road 60, not at the temples themselves, they photograph you and print your face on the pass, and it is checked at every temple entrance. Passes come in one-day, three-day and seven-day versions and the multi-day ones can be used on non-consecutive days within a set window, which is what makes a rest day possible — confirm the current window and whether online purchase is available when you buy. Arrange your tuk-tuk driver for the next two days while you're at it.
Leave town well before first light for sunrise at Angkor Wat — about twenty minutes by tuk-tuk. Everyone goes to the northern reflecting pool; the southern one has a fraction of the crowd and the same temple. Bring a torch for the causeway in the dark, and something warm-ish, because the hour before dawn is the only cool one Cambodia offers.
Stay at Angkor Wat once the sunrise crowd leaves for breakfast. Walk the west causeway in, then do the bas-relief galleries slowly — the Churning of the Sea of Milk on the east gallery is the one worth standing in front of for ten minutes. If the Bakan, the upper third level, is open, the climb is a steep timber staircase with a handrail, and there is a minimum age and an enforced dress code of covered shoulders and knees.
Tuk-tuk north through the south gate of Angkor Thom, over the causeway lined with gods on one side and demons on the other, to the Bayon and its towers of faces at the dead centre of the walled city. From the Bayon walk on to the Baphuon, Phimeanakas and the Terrace of the Elephants, and have your driver meet you at the northern end — this is the standard Small Circuit and every driver in Siem Reap knows the drop-and-collect without being asked. Angkor Thom is three kilometres square, so you ride between clusters and walk within them.
Ta Prohm, the tree temple, where silk-cotton and strangler fig roots have poured over the galleries; wooden boardwalks and railings run through the whole site now, which makes it one of the easier temples to move around. Then Banteay Kdei next door, and back to town by early afternoon. Stop before the middle of the afternoon — the heat is genuinely dangerous and the light is flat and useless anyway.
The Grand Circuit by tuk-tuk: Preah Khan, a long level corridor of a temple that most people rush; Neak Pean, reached by a boardwalk across a reservoir; Ta Som with its own tree-swallowed gate; and Pre Rup, the laterite pyramid worth climbing for the view over the plain. Back in town, the Angkor National Museum supplies the context the temples don't, Psar Chas handles the shopping, and the riverside promenade is a decent flat evening walk.
Banteay Srei sits twenty-five kilometres northeast of the main temple group, roughly an hour from town, and is the finest carving at Angkor by a distance — a small tenth-century temple in pink sandstone, consecrated in 967, cut so deeply and finely it looks like woodwork. It is covered by the Angkor Pass. Twelve kilometres further on, Kbal Spean is a one-and-a-half-kilometre uphill walk through forest to a riverbed carved with hundreds of lingas and reclining Vishnus — the 'river of a thousand lingas'. Important: Global Affairs Canada names the River of a Thousand Lingas among the areas where landmines remain a risk, so stay strictly on the marked path and keep children out of the undergrowth. Go by air-conditioned car, not tuk-tuk: that distance on a dirt-and-highway run is a punishing, dusty two hours round trip in an open trailer. The Cambodia Landmine Museum is on the same road and worth the stop.
Villages built on stilts eight to ten metres high on the flood plain of Southeast Asia's largest lake, with a flooded forest you take a small boat through. Kampong Phluk is about thirty kilometres southeast; Kampong Khleang is about fifty and far less visited. Drive out by car to the boat landing and take a local boat from there. Timing is everything and nobody tells you this: the lake rises and falls by several metres between the dry-season low, roughly December to April, and the November peak, so a dry-season boat trip can mean a shallow brown channel and a lot of exposed mud, while June to October is when the whole landscape makes sense. Skip Chong Kneas, the closest village to town — it's the one with the long-standing reputation for pressure selling.
Beng Mealea is roughly seventy kilometres east by road: an enormous unrestored twelfth-century temple, built under Suryavarman II, that has collapsed into the forest, with a raised walkway threading through the rubble. It is what Angkor looked like before restoration. Phnom Kulen, about fifty kilometres north, is the sandstone plateau where Jayavarman II declared the Khmer empire in 802 — a waterfall you can swim under, a huge reclining Buddha carved into the summit rock, and a riverbed of carvings like Kbal Spean's. Note that Global Affairs Canada names the Phnom Kulen temple area in its landmine warning, so stay on marked paths and paved roads. Both sites have historically been ticketed separately from the Angkor Pass, and Phnom Kulen's mountain access road runs one way, up in the morning and down in the afternoon, so it swallows a whole day whether you want it to or not — confirm both when you book. Car with a driver for either.
Two things about Siem Reap have changed in ways that matter enormously if you are bringing parents, and neither is well covered online yet. First, the airport moved. Siem Reap–Angkor International opened on 16 October 2023 and sits about fifty kilometres east of town — roughly an hour by road. The old airport, fifteen minutes from the Old Market, no longer handles the commercial traffic. After twenty-four hours in transit from Pearson with one or two connections, that final hour in the dark is the part that breaks people. Pre-book a hotel car so nobody is negotiating at a kerb at midnight with a tired eighty-year-old. Minibuses and taxis do run from the terminal, but arrange it in advance. Second, the land border with Thailand is closed. Following the 2025 border conflict, Global Affairs Canada advises avoiding all travel within fifty kilometres of the Cambodia–Thailand border and states that land border crossings between the two countries are currently closed. Preah Vihear temple sits directly on that border, inside the exclusion zone. The classic overland Bangkok-to-Siem Reap route via Poipet is not an option. You fly in, and you plan day trips south, east and north — never northwest. This is the fastest-moving fact in this guide: check travel.gc.ca before you book anything. Now the heat, because it governs everything else. Average high temperatures in Siem Reap do not drop below thirty degrees in any month of the year, and March to May regularly reaches the high thirties. The temples are open, unshaded, heat-radiating stone with very little shelter and few benches. The only workable schedule with an older parent or a small child is temples from first light to mid-morning, back to the hotel and the pool through the middle of the day, out again in the late afternoon. Do not try to push through midday. People faint doing it every day of the dry season, and the queue at the first-aid points is real. Stairs are the honest problem. Angkor temples are pyramids — that is the entire architectural idea, a mountain rendered in stone — so climbing is built into most of them. The Bakan, the upper level of Angkor Wat, is a steep timber staircase with a handrail, a minimum age and an enforced dress code. Pre Rup, Ta Keo, the Baphuon and Phnom Bakheng are all steep ascents on uneven, worn, ancient stone with no consistent handrail and treads far narrower than a modern step. If you have a parent with dodgy knees or poor balance, they should not attempt any of those, and telling them so before you leave Canada is kinder than at the base of the stairs. But a genuinely satisfying temple day is possible without climbing anything. The Angkor Wat west causeway is flat, and the outer galleries with the great bas-reliefs are all on one level, though the doorway thresholds are high and require a step over. The ground level of the Bayon, where the face towers loom above you, works fine. The Terrace of the Elephants is a long level walk. Preah Khan's central corridor is flat, cool and one of the best things at Angkor. Neak Pean is a boardwalk. Ta Prohm has had wooden walkways and platforms installed throughout to protect the stone, and those same walkways make it one of the most accessible temples in the park. That list is a full, real day. What none of it is, is certified step-free — surfaces are ancient, uneven and often sandy, so a wheelchair will need a strong pusher and a flexible plan. On transport around the temples: the standard Cambodian remorque tuk-tuk is a trailer towed behind a motorbike, with a step up and open sides. It's fine for a steady adult and children love it, but it is awkward for anyone using a stick and impossible for a wheelchair. Hire a car with a driver for the day instead — the real argument is not the step, it's the air conditioning between temples. Practical bits: toilets in the park are at designated blocks, not at every temple, so plan around them. Town itself is flat and easy, and the Old Market area and the riverside have proper pavements, better than most of Southeast Asia. With children, one big temple day plus one water day on the Tonle Sap works far better than two temple days — the tree temple and the boat are the two things they'll remember. And on landmines: Cambodia remains heavily affected by landmines and unexploded weapons, and mined areas are often unmarked. Global Affairs Canada says Siem Reap town and the Angkor temples are considered clear by the Cambodian government, but it names the River of a Thousand Lingas at Kbal Spean and the Phnom Kulen temple area among the places where risk remains — both of which are on the day-trip list. Keep everyone on marked paths and paved roads, and do not let a child wander into scrub for a photo.
Two currencies running at once, which sounds worse than it is. Prices are quoted in US dollars, ATMs dispense dollars, and riel comes back as change for small amounts at a fixed round conversion everyone knows. Bring clean, unmarked US notes — Global Affairs Canada states that only newer, undamaged notes are accepted and that notes with the slightest tear will not be accepted, and that is not an exaggeration. The National Bank has been withdrawing small US notes to push riel back into use, so expect more riel in your pocket than you might have a few years ago; keep it, because it's what you pay small amounts with. Cards work in hotels and larger restaurants in town; markets, tuk-tuks, temple-road stalls and village boats are cash only. Use ATMs inside or attached to bank branches — Global Affairs Canada flags bank and ATM fraud, and advises avoiding card readers with any irregular or unusual feature.
More expected in Cambodia than in Vietnam, and it lands differently, because tourism wages are low and the dollar economy makes small amounts frictionless. A tuk-tuk driver who has waited for you in the heat all day at the temples, a licensed temple guide, hotel housekeeping and restaurant staff all reasonably expect something on top. Many restaurants put out a shared staff tip box rather than adding a line to the bill — that's the local norm, and it's the box rather than the individual. Keep small bills and riel on you specifically for this; nobody can break a large note.
230 volts, 50 hertz. Sockets take Type A, the two flat parallel pins identical to a Canadian ungrounded plug, Type C, two round pins, and Type G, the chunky British three-pin. Most hotel sockets are hybrid and take the first two without an adapter, though a hybrid socket often won't actually earth a grounded plug. Your plug fitting is the easy half: Canada runs 120 volts, so only plug in appliances whose label reads 100–240V. Phone and laptop chargers all do. A Canadian hair dryer or curling iron does not, and will die loudly. Power cuts still happen outside the main hotels, so carry a battery bank — you will want it anyway on a pre-dawn temple start with the phone as a torch.
Not drinkable. Bottled and filtered water is everywhere, hotels supply it, and a growing number have refill stations to cut plastic, so bring a reusable bottle. Ice in restaurants and hotels in town is generally factory-made and fine; ice from a cart on the temple road is a different proposition, and so is anything with unpeeled raw salad from a roadside stall. The bigger water risk at Angkor is the opposite one — dehydration. Carry more than you think you need, add electrolyte sachets from any pharmacy in town, and make sure the older members of your group are actually drinking rather than just carrying a bottle.
Khmer, written in its own script, which means signs are not merely hard to read but unreadable — download offline Khmer in Google Translate. The good news is that English is the working language of Cambodian tourism and Siem Reap runs entirely on visitors, so guides, hotel staff, tuk-tuk drivers and market sellers speak it well, often better than their counterparts elsewhere in the region. It thins out quickly once you're in the villages. Some older Cambodians speak French. Learn 'arkun' for thank you and the sampeah, the palms-together greeting with a slight bow — the higher you hold your hands, the more respect it conveys, and using it with an older person will be noticed.
Petty theft is the everyday risk. The FCDO warns that thieves will cut bag straps and snatch bags or phones from tourists on foot, in tuk-tuks and on motorbikes, and suggests travelling in tuk-tuks fitted with metal grills on the back and sides — sensible advice, and keep bags on the inside away from the open side. The FCDO also warns specifically of lone women being sexually assaulted by men claiming to be motorbike taxi drivers in the Pub Street area — travel with a driver you arranged, not one who approached you. It further records deaths and serious illness in Cambodia caused by alcoholic drinks containing methanol, so drink beer or spirits from sealed bottles at established places rather than cheap cocktail buckets. On the border: Global Affairs Canada currently advises avoiding all travel within fifty kilometres of the Cambodia–Thailand border and says land crossings are closed; Preah Vihear sits inside that zone. And Cambodia remains heavily affected by landmines and unexploded weapons, with mined areas often unmarked — Siem Reap town and the Angkor temples are considered clear, but Kbal Spean and Phnom Kulen are named in the warnings, so stay on paths and paved roads.
Cambodia's southwest monsoon — the wet season — runs from mid-May to mid-September or early October, drawing moisture off the Indian Ocean. The dry northeast monsoon holds from early November through March, and that November–March stretch is both the driest and the coolest of the year, with January the coldest month. It is the obvious window and everyone knows it, so book ahead. The window to avoid is March to May: May is the warmest month of the year, and in the weeks just before the rains break temperatures can pass 38°C, which at Angkor — open stone, almost no shade — is genuinely punishing rather than merely uncomfortable. The wet season is not a write-off: the moats are full, the stone goes green, and crowds thin out significantly. You just build the day around morning temple visits and accept an afternoon downpour. One seasonal bonus: if Tonlé Sap is on your list, November is when the lake is at its absolute peak.
Compare the ways to get there, then build a day-by-day plan.
There is no nonstop from Toronto to Cambodia, and realistically no one-stop either — Siem Reap–Angkor's network is entirely regional with no long-haul service at all, so plan on changing twice. Fly YYZ nonstop to an Asian hub first: Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, EVA Air to Taipei, Korean Air to Seoul Incheon, or Air Canada to Tokyo Narita or Haneda. Then pick up the final leg into Siem Reap from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (Bangkok Airways, Thai Airways, Emirates), Bangkok Don Mueang (Thai AirAsia), Singapore (Singapore Airlines), Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi (Vietnam Airlines, VietJet), Kuala Lumpur (AirAsia Cambodia), or Phnom Penh's Techo International — IATA code KTI, which replaced the old Phnom Penh airport as the capital's main hub in 2025 — on Air Cambodia or Cambodia Airways. You arrive at Siem Reap–Angkor International Airport, IATA code SAI, not the old REP code, which it replaced when it opened on 16 October 2023. This is the bit to plan around: SAI sits 50 km EAST of Siem Reap in Soutr Nikom District, deliberately moved far out because the old airport's pollution was damaging Angkor Wat. It is not the ten-minute hop the old airport was. The airport's documented ground transport is minibuses seating up to 15; taxis and Grab also operate. Arrange your first night's transfer through your guesthouse rather than negotiating it in the dark after two connections.
There is no rail, no metro and no stored-value transit card in Siem Reap — none of the Touch 'n Go / Beep / Rabbit-style systems exist here. The town runs on tuk-tuks (locally remorques, a trailer towed by a motorbike); as of 2019 there were an estimated 6,000 drivers, almost all serving tourists. Grab operates in Cambodia and quotes the fare in-app, which removes the haggle entirely and is the easiest option for a first-timer. Otherwise you agree the price before you get in, every time. For the temples, the standard arrangement is hiring one driver for a full day on the small or grand circuit rather than paying trip by trip. For Banteay Srei, roughly 25 km northeast of the main Angkor group, or the 50 km run back to the airport, take a car rather than a tuk-tuk. Bicycles are a genuinely good option for the small circuit in cool season, and the centre around the Old Market, Pub Street and the Siem Reap River is walkable.
Cambodia's southwest monsoon — the wet season — runs from mid-May to mid-September or early October, drawing moisture off the Indian Ocean. The dry northeast monsoon holds from early November through March, and that November–March stretch is both the driest and the coolest of the year, with January the coldest month. It is the obvious window and everyone knows it, so book ahead. The window to avoid is March to May: May is the warmest month of the year, and in the weeks just before the rains break temperatures can pass 38°C, which at Angkor — open stone, almost no shade — is genuinely punishing rather than merely uncomfortable. The wet season is not a write-off: the moats are full, the stone goes green, and crowds thin out significantly. You just build the day around morning temple visits and accept an afternoon downpour. One seasonal bonus: if Tonlé Sap is on your list, November is when the lake is at its absolute peak.