Day 1 : Siem Reap. Welcome and visits of the city, markets and pagodas:

Welcome at the airport and transfer to your hotel. Lunch in town depending on your flight arrival hour!

You begin your stay by visiting the centre of Siem Reap, its old colonial quarters with its French architecture, its pagods with their Angkorian temples, its markets and its craft centers. Return at the hotel in the end of afternoon.
At 7.30 p.m. you will go to the amazing Apsara Theatre where you will have dinner and enjoy a show of traditional Kmer dances and different musician groups.
Dinner at the Apsara Theatre (The date can be subject to changes according to availabilities!)
After the Diner-show, visit of the night market (starting from around 9.30 PM)
Night at your hotel

Our agency grants you a one hour free Khmer massage either on day one, two or three.

Night at Siem Reap.

Day 2 : Siem Reap - Angkor and the Roluos Group.

After breakfast at your hotel, you will be driven in an air-conditioned mini-bus to the main Angkor temples together with our English/French-speaking guide.
First we will visit Angkor Thom via the south door (The big city of, on the 12th century had more than 1 million inhabitants!), the Bayon (1181-1243), the Baphuon (1050-1080), the elephants’ terrace, the terrace of the leprous king,  Pre Khan (from 1184), the amazing Ta Prohm overgrown by the jungle (12th century), and to end you will visit the most famous of those sites, the wonderful temple of Angkor Wat (1080 to 1175).
Lunch in one of the local restaurant on site.

In the afternoon, we continue our visit in Roluos located around 12km from Siem Reap on the road that leads to Phnom Penh.
The Roluos group is at the origin of the Angkorian architecture (after Sambor Prei Kuk dated back between 610 & 650 and Phnom Kulen dated back between 825& 875).There are 3 major temples: the Preah Ko, the Bakong and the Lolei (dated back to 877-881& 889 after JC)
In the end of afternoon we drive back to our hotel
Diner in town at the « Noria restaurant » or similar (included).

Day 3 : Siem Reap - Phnom Kulen - Beng Melea.

After breakfast at your hotel, you’ll drive first along a road, then a track, to reach Phnom Kulen, situated in a hilly area, 55 kilometres from Siem Reap. It is a site much visited by the Cambodians, as the Angkorian civilization originated from here. A magnificent waterfall invites you for a swim. You’ll also visit the the splendid pagoda standing at the top of a huge crag. The large reclining Bouddha, who fills the whole space inside that pagoda, has been carved out of the rock. From that place you have a magnificent view over the area.

You have lunch on the site, by the waterfall.

After lunch, you drive to the Beng Melea Temple overgrown by the jungle.

That building was erected in the XI century, in the reign of King Suryavarman II.

It is an exceptional place to visit, as it is surrounded by a huge moat 1200 metres long and 900 metres wide.

You drive back to Siem Reap along a beautiful narrow country road through numerous villages, farms and rice-fields.

You have dinner in the centre of the town and spend the night at Siem Reap

Day 4 : Siem Reap – Battambang. ( 8 to 10 hours’ navigation)

As early as 6.30 a.m. you have to reach the service motor-boat * that takes you across the Tonlé Sap Lake, then winds along the canals as far as Battambang, the second largest town in the country. That area is the corn-granary of the Kingdom, which makes it the richest province in Cambodia.

A piece of advice : we recommend you to take a cap or a hat, and a light jacket ! According to the season, it may be very hot or it may rain.

You have a pic-nic lunch on the boat.

The good seats to admire the superb lacustre landscapes are on the roof. The boat stops at several floating villages and some dwellers will either leave your boat or come aboard. Although it is rather long, that magnificent journey gives you the opportunity to watch the local life of the inhabitants who make a living mainly out of fishing and farming. Nature lovers will be delighted to see numerous birds flying over various entrancing landscapes.

You’ll moor alongside the land, a few kilometers from Battambang. There you retrieve your vehicle and your luggage. You are then driven to your hotel.

You have dinner in the town and spend the night at Battambang.

* It is possible to hire a private boat at an extra cost. Enquire about it at Coral-discover.

Day 5 : Battambang : visiting the area.

In the morning, you travel by car towards the South of Battambang to reach “Vat Phnom Sampe”, a temple perched on the top of a hill. A few small temples (Sneng and Prasat Yeah Ten, dating from the X century) seem to be mounting guard on the left hand side of the road. Three brick sanctuaries are standing at the far end of the garden, the entrances of which are decorated with very well kept carvings. In the late morning, you’ll meet a Cambodian family who lives in a village of that province.

You have lunch at a local restaurant.

In the afternoon, you visit “Vat Banan” and its five towers pointing at the sky, looking like a model size Angkor Vat (XI century).Then you carry on as far as the local railway station for a very special journey by bamboo train. That very peculiar train is actually a mere small bamboo wagon drawn by a lawn-mower engine dating back from the Vietnamese occupation (1979-1990). The railway track is older, it dates back from the French protectorate and was then used for dispatching goods from the Thai border to Phnom Penh.

Dinner in a restaurant in the town and night at Battambang.

Day 6 : Battambang – Kompong Chhnang – Phnom Penh.

After breakfast, you’ll depart towards Kompong Chhnang. That small town holds a strategic position, being situated at the mouth of the Tonlé Sap Lake and the Tonlé River that leads to Phnom Penh. It shelters a harbour lively with roaring trade.
First you stroll about the old French district with its pretty parks and beautiful colonial buildings.

Then you go aboard a motor-pirogue to concern yourselves with the Kompong Chhnang floating village on Lake Tonlé. Over 4.000 inhabitants, mainly fishermen of Vietnamese or Cambodian origin live together in that village.

The road leading to the harbour is lined with houses on stilts. Kompong Chhnang owes its name both to the pottery works (pottery = Chhnang) made in the whole area and sold all over Cambodia, and to its position on the Tonlé Sap (Kompong = harbour).

Then you will visit a village and a local pottery shop and a little further on, you will go to a farm where you will take the opportunity of your hosts’ hospitality to ask them to take you around the area on a very typical ox-driven chariot.
Lunch in a local restaurant in Kompong Chhnang
After your meal you travel on as far as Udong, the ancient Cambodian capital, from 1618 to 1866, before reaching the present capital, Phnom Penh.You settle at the hotel, have dinner at a restaurant in the town and spend the night in Phnom Penh.

Day 7 : Phnom Penh, visit by “tuk tuk”, dinner on the River Mekong.

You start the day riding across the town by tuk tuk, a sort of three-wheeled motorbike, to discover the different sights of that oriental town.

Your first stop we’ll be for a thorough guided visit of the Royal Palace with its silver pagoda erected on the site of the ancient citadel.Then, you enter the National Museum, a charming traditional building build in the 1920s. That museum holds many statues, pottery and bronze works from the pre-angkorian era down to later periods.

People who are not too sensitive may enter the old Red-Khmer’s prison at Tuol Steng, the main centre of detention and torture of that painful period. To-day it has been turned into a museum, as a testimony of the crimes committed by the followers of Pol Pot.

You have lunch at a Cambodian restaurant in the town.

In the afternoon, you can stroll about the Central Market, well provided with a wide choice of local food and also imported goods.An amazing discovery while you walk about the town is that French baguettes of bread are sold everywhere.

In the late afternoon you board a pretty wooden cruise boat. That barge has been especially booked for you and will enable you to admire the life of the Cambogian capital from the Mekong River, before sharing a traditional tasty Khmer dinner. Watching sunset over the river and Phnom Penh will certainly make you dream a little.
During the meal, you’ll be entertained by a show of traditional dances and music staged by the youth from a school of the capital.

You go back to your hotel for the last night in the Khmer capital.

Day 8 : Either you fly back to Bangkok or you travel on with our extension totally out of the beaten track, entitled : “The quaint North-Eastern Cambodian provinces”