Located in the Northwest side of Cambodia, Siem Reap is a popular destination famous also for its proximity to Angkor Wat.

Until a few years ago (mid-1990), Siem Reap was not bigger than a village. Today, it is a lively tourist city full of things to do, hotels, restaurants, attractions and traffic.

It is growing really fast (maybe too much), and the quality sometimes doesn’t follow… Every year there are more than 2 million tourists coming to Siem Reap, so 50% of all the local jobs are allocated to the tourism industry.

Despite all, it is a really nice city, very entertaining, and Cambodian people are adorable. We were impressed about how genuine their smiles and their courtesy are. Starting from the super friendly tuk-tuk driver who picked us up at the airport with a big smile, despite our almost 2 hours of delay.

We stayed at the eOcambo Spa & Resort hotel. A very nice hotel, with lovely and helpful personnel. Swimming pool and breakfast were great. It is really recommended if you want to spend some quality days in the city.

This said, let’s find out what you can do in this city.

 

Things to do in Siem Reap

I would divide the activities into 3 main groups: touristic, emotional & eco-sustainable, creative. We experienced different kind of activities, and here below you will find a short summary.

 

Touristic activities

Siem Reap has exploded as an entertaining city for low/medium budget tourists. It is literally full of young backpackers. You can find almost every leisure activity, as in every other city in the world. It is a pity because in this way it loses part of its authenticity. On the other side, we understand that it has to offer as much as possible to its visitors, in order to maintain such a high level of tourism.

What we did, is the ATV tour: half day afternoon, until the sunset. Wow! We are not really that kind of people attracted by car or motors, but you have to do it once in life.

You can try it first (a short 5-minute tour around the office), and if you like it, you get your quad, helmets, masks, a bottle of water, and a wet towel to clean your face after the tour. We had our own guide: he was leading in front of us with his motorbike, and we followed with the ATV. Fun! We paid 42 $ for 2 people on the same quad (we didn’t exceed the max weight allowed on the quad). There are several companies organizing this activity, with all kind of options.

We spent a couple of hours in the countryside of Siem Reap, immersed in the green field while the sun was going down.

The guide explained to us that during the rainy season, all that green doesn’t exist because it is flooded. People go around with small boats, and not by motorbike.

As it is super hot there, you often will spend time in bars or cafes, possibly with A/C. This is how we discovered the bingsu, a Korean dessert made of ice shavings and other funny ingredients (fruits, chocolate, candies, etc.). Perfect when you are thirsty and overheated.

If not in bars, you can spend the rest of your time walking up and down in the famous “Pub Street”, and enjoy some shopping to the (perhaps too touristic) night market.

You can find other thousands of activities on TripAdvisor. I always suggest to avoid mass experiences and do something that you will bring in your heart forever.

 

Emotional & eco-sustainable activities

This part is more interesting and deeper. What we did is to look for those activities that leave a mark.

As you may know, the Cambodian population suffered a lot during the Civil War. There are terrible stories behind it, hundreds of innocent people killed, and when local talk about it their eyes are in tears. It is very sad. But it is really motivating to see them smile a lot, genuinely, despite all what happened in the past.

We decided to visit the War Museum, to understand a bit more about what happened, why it happened, and the status of the facts now.

There is an exposition of several tanks, a helicopter and other weapons that were used during the war. But not only. There are stands with a lot of information and facts explained. One of the most interesting was the one about land mines. How many victims they did, and how many of those weapons are still around… it is unbelievable!

In Siem Reap, there are also several associations of mutilated people or people with disabilities. We happened to visit this village called Genevieve’s Fair Trade Village.

They are all artisans, every one with his/her own speciality: jewellery, bags, statues, and so on. We met the director and a couple of them, very nice and friendly people who highly believe in their beautiful project. You can buy some of the artwork in their shop. We wish them all the luck with it!

Talking about artisans, we also visited a farm where permaculture is practised. There, people grow vegetables in this way, and mainly everything is done without equipment, by hand.

 

Creative activities

Tell me: how well do you feel when you create something extraordinary? or when you try doing something that you never did before? It’s a “wow” experience, isn’t it?

Thanks to Genevieve’s village artisans, we discovered that there is the possibility to take classes of wood carving, pottery and much more. We wanted to try them all but, as there were not enough participants, we could do only the pottery class.

We visited a huge warehouse with several laboratories, where all the artisans were creating their artworks.

It has been very inspiring, and it is also unbelievable to see that everything is really handmade! Silk scarves, wooden Buddha, huge paintings, etc.

Afterwards, we went to our pottery class. We paid 25 $ each, we created 5 objects and we decorated them as well. After class, your creations need to “cook” all night long, so you will have to pick them up the day after.

Our teacher was a  deaf-mute young girl. We thought it would be difficult to communicate, but she was really easy going and knew very well how to explain to us every step without words. It has been a very interesting and emotional experience. The pottery wheel we used was manual (with pedal), a rudimentary hand-made construction, super heavy to move… in these moments you really understand the artisans’ hard work, and you respect them even more.

I really liked this city, despite all the pros and cons. But it is time to move further…

Thanks, Siem Reap, see you next time!

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