Siem Reap, Cambodia

There are buildings that are large, and then there is Angkor Wat. Constructed between 1113 and 1150 CE under Khmer Emperor Suryavarman II, it covers 1.6 square kilometres of stone — larger than the Vatican, larger than any religious building anywhere on Earth. It was built as a temple-mountain representing Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods. It faces west — toward the sunset, toward death and rebirth — and this orientation means that at sunrise, the sky behind it turns gold and then pink over the reflecting pools at its entrance, and the towers appear to rise from their own reflection. Travellers who have done every great sight on earth say that this one is different. They are right.

But Angkor Wat is only the most famous building in a complex that covers 400 square kilometres and contains hundreds of temples. Angkor Thom, the great walled city surrounding the Bayon Temple, is itself a wonder: 54 towers, each carved with four enormous stone faces gazing serenely outward in every direction — 216 faces in total, each one slightly different. The faces are believed to depict the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, or possibly Jayavarman VII himself, the king who built the complex. No one is certain. Ta Prohm has been deliberately left in partial ruin, its courtyards split by the roots of enormous silk-cotton trees whose trunks have merged with the stonework over 800 years of abandonment — the result is one of the most photographed buildings in Asia and the closest thing to walking through a living myth.

Banteay Srei, thirty kilometres north, is built from rose-pink sandstone in 967 CE — more than a century before Angkor Wat — and is covered in the finest bas-relief carvings in the entire Angkor complex. The stone is so precisely worked that visitors instinctively reach out to touch it; the detail looks machine-made but was accomplished by hand. Beng Mealea, sixty-eight kilometres east, has never been restored: root-split walls, collapsed galleries, and jungle growing through doorways give it a raw atmosphere that the more polished central temples have lost.

Siem Reap town, the gateway city, has evolved dramatically since the early 2000s from a dusty service town into a genuinely sophisticated small city with excellent restaurants, a characterful French colonial quarter, and a bar scene on Pub Street that caters to every traveller type without being overwhelmingly raucous. The Old Market (Phsar Chas) is the city's commercial heart: stalls selling silk, silverware, and spices surrounding a produce market that operates from 5am. Across the Siem Reap River, the restaurant Haven trains at-risk Cambodian youth in the culinary arts and serves the best Khmer food in the city — a social enterprise that earns its Michelin recognition independently of the good it does.

The Tonle Sap Lake, twelve kilometres south of the city, is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and one of the most productive freshwater fisheries on Earth. The floating villages of Kompong Phluk — built on stilts that in the wet season stand eight metres above the waterline — are among the most extraordinary inhabited landscapes in Asia. In the dry season, the same stilts stand exposed above the receding water and the village takes on an entirely different character. Both versions are worth the half-day trip.

Phare, the Cambodian Circus, performs nightly in Siem Reap: acrobats, clowns, musicians, and dancers who trained at the Phare Ponleu Selpak arts school in Battambang — a social enterprise that has transformed hundreds of lives. The performances draw on Cambodian folk stories and recent history with extraordinary physical skill. Attending Phare is the best two hours in Siem Reap.

The temple pass system gives access to the Angkor Archaeological Park: one, three, or seven-day passes. Three days is the practical minimum for first-time visitors to see the headline temples without rushing. Seven days allows for the remote temples — Kbal Spean (river carvings), Preah Khan, and Beng Mealea — that most visitors miss entirely. Hire a tuk-tuk driver for at least the first day; they know the light and they know the crowds.