Cambodia is the trip where I really learned to travel without an itinerary – and it turned out to be one of the best decisions we made on the whole Southeast Asia trip.
Phnom Penh, without a plan
We had two nights in the capital, and deliberately kept it loose. We took in the National Museum, and Wat Kean Kleang – known locally as the Golden Temple, a striking gold-painted pagoda a couple of kilometres past the Japanese Bridge, with the Mekong on one side and the highway on the other. It’s well outside the usual tourist loop, which made it feel like a proper find rather than another stop on a list.
But the best part of Phnom Penh for us was what we stumbled into rather than what we planned. One evening we found a pocket of street entertainment where locals were gathering after work, and just joined in with a beer in hand. No plan, no research beforehand – just being in the right place and saying yes.
We also tried balut – a fertilised duck egg, sold everywhere on the street in Phnom Penh. It’s genuinely one of the stranger things I’ve eaten: awful and interesting in roughly equal measure, and exactly the kind of thing worth trying once for the story alone.
The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng
Just outside Phnom Penh, we visited Choeung Ek – one of the sites now known collectively as the Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge murdered an estimated 1.7 to 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, roughly a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the time. We also visited Tuol Sleng, the former school turned Khmer Rouge prison (also known as S-21) in the city itself, where thousands were held and interrogated before being sent to sites like Choeung Ek.
Both are quiet places now – a memorial stupa filled with recovered skulls at Choeung Ek, rows of cells and photographs of the imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, an audio guide that includes testimony from survivors. Nothing about either is designed to shock; they don’t need to. Walking through, what stayed with me wasn’t any single detail so much as the scale of it, and how recent it actually is – this happened within living memory, not some distant chapter of history.
They’re not easy stops to include on a trip otherwise full of food and temples and good memories, but I don’t think Cambodia can be honestly written about without them. If you’re visiting, I’d say go – quietly, and with the time both deserve, rather than as a quick stop between other things.
Cambodia holds both of these things at once – a country that’s been through something almost unthinkable within living memory, and one of the warmest, most alive places we travelled through. Neither cancels the other out; both are part of what makes it worth visiting properly, not just passing through.
Overland to Siem Reap
We travelled the whole way overland rather than flying – a proper way to actually see the country between the two cities, rather than skipping straight from capital to temples.
One stop we hadn’t planned for stands out more than most: Skuon, known locally as “Spiderville,” where roadside vendors sell fried tarantulas and other insects as a genuine local speciality, not just a tourist stunt. We picked some up as a travelling snack – an easy, memorable way to break up a long drive, and exactly the kind of thing you’d only stumble onto by going overland rather than flying past it.
Angkor: more than just Angkor Wat
We spent several days across the wider Angkor complex, getting around by tuk-tuk each day – genuinely the right way to do it, since the temples are spread out enough that walking between them isn’t realistic, but a tuk-tuk gives you the flexibility to linger somewhere longer or skip ahead if a temple isn’t grabbing you.
We got up early for sunrise at Angkor Wat itself, which is one of those genuinely-worth-the-alarm experiences – watching the sky lighten behind the towers, the crowds still thin at that hour, before the heat and the day-trippers arrive properly. It’s the photo everyone’s seen a thousand times before they go, but standing there in person is a different thing entirely.
Ta Prohm was the temple that’s stayed with me the most, though. It’s the one where the jungle has been deliberately left to reclaim parts of the ruins – enormous tree roots grown straight through the stonework, walls buckling under root systems decades old, the whole place feeling less like a maintained monument and more like something the forest is slowly taking back. It’s atmospheric in a way the more restored temples aren’t, and worth building real time into your day for rather than rushing through as one stop among many.
We also spent time at Bayon, with its dozens of enormous carved stone faces looking out in every direction from the temple’s towers. Wherever you stand, a handful seem to be watching you – an odd, slightly unsettling feeling that’s completely different from the tree-swallowed atmosphere of Ta Prohm or the classic grandeur of Angkor Wat. Between the three, you get a genuinely different character of temple each day, which is exactly why spreading the visit out is worth it rather than trying to cram the complex into one rushed day.
Angkor Wat itself is the one everyone pictures, but it’s genuinely worth giving the surrounding temples equal time – the scale of the whole site only really sinks in once you’ve spent a few days moving between them by tuk-tuk rather than ticking off the one famous photo and leaving.
Siem Reap’s food
This is the part of the trip I still think about the most. We ate a green mango salad on repeat – sharp, fresh, exactly what you want in that heat – to the point where it became the meal we ordered without even looking at the rest of the menu.
We also did Phnom Pleung – literally “Fire Mountain” – one of Siem Reap’s more sociable dining traditions. A dome-shaped BBQ sits in the centre of the table: meat cooks on top of the mound while a moat of broth around the edge slowly simmers noodles and vegetables, so you’re grilling and hot-potting at the same time. We went for the exotic set – crocodile and kangaroo among them – which felt like a proper novelty at the time. This Cambodian BBQ style of dining has become a bit more of a fixture on the tourist trail since, but it’s genuinely good fun, and worth doing at least once for the experience alone.
And because I could talk all day about Khmer cuisine, there’s one more dish to try: Beef Lok Lak. This stir fry comes with a tangy dipping sauce and is truly one to taste test whilst you’re there.
Where to stay now
We backpacked this trip and stayed in budget guesthouses throughout, so – same as Borneo – what follows is based on current research rather than firsthand recommendation:
- Phnom Penh – a genuine spread from simple budget guesthouses through to five-star riverside hotels sits on the same page; Phnom Penh’s accommodation options cover the full range, worth filtering by area once you’re there – staying near the riverside puts you closest to the temples and the evening atmosphere we stumbled into ourselves.
- Siem Reap – similarly broad, from backpacker hostels to proper resorts; Siem Reap’s accommodation options are worth narrowing by proximity to Pub Street if nightlife matters, or further out if you’d rather have some quiet after a full day at the temples.
For a little help deciding on your preferred hotel, try my free pre-booking checklist – it contains the questions I’d ask before booking anywhere.
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