Angkor in Depth: Temples, Koh Ker and Tonle Sap in 5 Days

Your guide and driver meet you at Siem Reap airport and take you to your hotel in the center of town. Once you have settled in, visit the Artisans d'Angkor workshops, where young Cambodians train in silk weaving, stone and wood carving, lacquer and painting. Then take an easy stroll through the Old Market and along Pub Street to get your bearings. In the evening, enjoy a welcome dinner at a local restaurant with a performance of Apsara dance, the classical Khmer art form you will later see carved on the temple walls.Overnight: Siem Reap · Meals: D

Rise early to watch dawn break over Angkor Wat, then return to the hotel for breakfast. Back at the temples, explore Angkor Wat, built in the early 12th century for King Suryavarman II, with its long galleries of carved reliefs. Continue to Angkor Thom through the South Gate, then visit the Bayon with its smiling stone faces, the Royal Enclosure, Phimeanakas, the royal terraces and Preah Khan. After lunch, wander through Ta Prohm, where fig and silk-cotton trees grow straight through the towers. End the day with sunset from Pre Rup or Phnom Bakheng.Overnight: Siem Reap · Meals: B, L

After breakfast, drive out to Phnom Bok, one of three hilltop temples built around Angkor in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. A short climb to the summit rewards you with a broad view of the plain. Stop at the village school in Chres and enjoy a picnic lunch in the village. Continue north to Koh Ker, briefly the capital of the Khmer empire in the 10th century, where step pyramids and shrines sit quietly among the trees. Dinner tonight is a home-style meal cooked by a local family, or at your hotel.Overnight: Koh Ker · Meals: B, L, D

Leave Koh Ker after breakfast for Beng Mealea, an early 12th-century temple that the jungle has never let go. Wooden walkways and fallen blocks lead you through collapsed galleries and mossy courtyards, a real sense of discovery. Have lunch at a local restaurant, then visit the monastery of Pouk on the way back to Siem Reap. After time to rest at your hotel, your guide takes you into town for a one-hour foot or body massage, a welcome treat after three days of temples. Dinner is at a local restaurant.Overnight: Siem Reap · Meals: B, L, D

Spend your last morning on Tonle Sap Lake. A boat takes you through a floating village where houses, schools and shops rise and fall with the water. It is a close look at a way of life shaped entirely by the lake and its seasons, and your guide explains how families fish, trade and move their homes as the water changes. Return to Siem Reap and transfer to the airport for your onward flight.Meals: B