Things to Do in Angkor Wat

Sunrise between the reflecting pools

At 5:15 a.m. the pools become black glass, holding the towers in perfect reverse while bats flicker overhead. You'll smell dew on monkey-chewed grass and hear the soft click of a hundred camera shutters, then the sun breaches and everything turns molten gold.

Angkor Thom's south gate at golden hour

Laterite later, the 54 stone faces lining the causeway glow like embers while you cycle past. You feel the breeze of speeding scooters and taste exhaust mixed with lotus petals crushed under tyres, all under a sky turning mango-purple.

Ta Prohm at lunch time

When everyone else retreats for noodles, the silk-cotton roots strangling corridors hum with solitary cicadas. You smell damp moss and bat guano, hear your own heartbeat echo off collapsed galleries, and feel tiny grits of sandstone rain down when a bird takes flight.

Banteay Srei pink sandstone carvings

Thirty-seven kilometres out, the stone blushes rose under your flashlight beam, every petal and eyebrow chiselled to hairline fineness. You taste road dust on your lips and hear the faint tinkle of a cow bell from the sugar-palm fields beyond the moat.

Phnom Bakheng hill at dusk

The climb is steep laterite, hot enough to sting palms. But up top the wind carries temple incense and the drone of distant generators. You watch the sun drop behind West Baray's silver sheet while bats replace swallows and the first star trembles above Angkor Wat's central tower.

Old Market area: guesthouses above cafés where you wake to the sizzle of fish sauce and the clank of ice deliveries

Wat Bo Road: leafy lanes, cheaper than Pub Street, roosters at dawn and monks collecting alms

Charles de Gaulle Blvd: mid-range hotels with pool towels that smell of chlorine and frangipani

Siem Reap River: new boutique spots, frogs chorus at night, torches flicker over lily ponds

Pub Street vicinity: handy for late-night noodles and bass lines, earplugs advised

Outside town eco-lodges: rice-field views, geckos chirping, and the occasional water-buffalo grunt