Siem Reap Overview

Lying just six kilometres south of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Angkor Wat, Siem Reap is a city that attracts an ever-growing number of tourists to what is Cambodia’s star attraction and the largest religious construction in the world.

Having been left half-hidden for most of the past 800 years, Angkor Wat has only recently fulfilled its potential as a tourist destination, held back by Cambodia’s enduring troubles in recent times that have in the past decade eased considerably. Angkor Wat’s increasing clout as a tourist draw – it attracts one million visitors a year – has directly influenced the fortunes of Siem Reap, which is now home to five-star hotels, French restaurants and a smart Foreign Correspondents Club. 

Although Siem Reap’s fortunes are inextricably linked to Angkor Wat, the city also has a handful of places of interest, like a landmine museum and a Killing Fields sight similar to those found elsewhere in the country, including in the capital Phnom Penh. For most visitors, however, such attractions will always play second fiddle to Angkor Wat and its many surrounding temples, a site that surely ranks as one of the most impressive in the whole of Asia. Now that Cambodia is so accessible, it would not be surprising to see this famous Wat achieving the same recognition as the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China.

Along with Siem Reap’s recent rise in prominence have come increased transport links as airlines have queued up to fly to the city’s international airport. Asian budget airlines are beginning to join the tourism frenzy.

Siem Reap is excellently positioned within the country given its location very close to the Tonlé Sap Lake, the largest body of water in Cambodia. The lake empties into the river of the same name, passing through Phnom Penh before flowing out into the South China Sea close to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. This means the city can be reached by boat from the Cambodian capital almost as quickly as it can by road.

Thanks to the high levels of foreign visitors, Siem Reap is a city that runs on three different currencies as is the case in Phnom Penh: the Cambodian rial, the Thai baht and the ubiquitous US dollar. The rial remains the least popular of the three but is handy for small purchases, of which there are usually many. Although Siem Reap does not boast much in the way of shopping malls and boutiques, a number of markets in the centre of the city are very popular, especially with tourists.

With the boom taking place in nearby Angkor during the 13^th century as the building of hundreds of temples began in the first Hindu and then Buddhist mega settlement, Siem Reap was little more than an expanse of empty countryside.

Meaning ‘Siam defeated’ in Khmer, the province of Siem Reap played host to a battle with the neighbouring Kingdom of Siam in the 17^th century; which saw, as the name suggests, victory for the Khmers. Still, however, Siem Reap was little more than in a footnote in the history of Angkor Wat.

With the entrance of France as colonial master of Cambodia in the middle of the 19^th century, Siem Reap was developed beyond the huts that previously made up the town. French colonial buildings were erected and can still be seen today. Like the rest of the country, Siem Reap was forced into a downward spiral soon after the French pullout in the 1950s.

By 1975, the town had fallen into the hands of the Khmer Rouge as had most of Cambodia. and was the scene of murder that was typical of the whole country. Meanwhile, Angkor, Siem Reap’s prized asset, lay dormant, not a single visitor coming to see the site as Siem Reap remained off-limits to tourists.

As the Vietnamese army entered Cambodia in 1979, Siem Reap was the scene of heavy fighting that remained sporadic for much of the next decade. But by the early 1990s, as the country began to stabilize, Siem Reap was one of the biggest Cambodian beneficiaries.

By the turn of the millennium, Siem Reap was attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists a year and had begun to develop faster than at any stage in its history as smart hotels, restaurants and bars sprung up. Now the city attracts more than one in two of every single foreign visitor to Cambodia. Siem Reap sees about one million visitors each year and is the fastest growing city in the country outside of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Siem Reap’s weather, like that in the rest of Cambodia, fluctuates from hot and sticky to hot and dry with little respite from the sun except to a degree in December and January. If you plan to visit between February and May, bring plenty of sunscreen as temperatures regularly get close to 40°C.

By the end of May, the Southeast Asia monsoon usually kicks in with regular downpours hitting Siem Reap that have usually intensified by August, typically the wettest and most humid month of the year.

By late October the rains usually begin to disappear as the sun comes out more frequently and humidity drops. December and January remain hot in the day but the mornings and evenings are pleasant.