Dawn in Siem Reap is something special. The temples of Angkor Wat are blue silhouettes in the pre-dawn light, before first sun reveals the honey-coloured sandstone structures in all their ancient glory. In the city, monks clad in their distinctive orange robes sweep monastery steps and incense blends with the smell of freshly baked bread and pastries, testament to Cambodia’s Indochine past.
These are the sensations that await you when you join our seven day Khmer Discovery journey at Karma Bayon – a deep dive into not only Angkor Wat, but the breadth of Khmer heritage and culture both ancient and contemporary.
After a leisurely arrival, Day 2 begins at 4am as we prepare to take in the full sweep of the Angkor temple complex: Bayon’s stone faces standing silent sentinel after centuries lost to the jungle, the strangler figs of Ta Prohm doing their patient work on ancient walls, then Bakheng Mountain for a sunset that justifies the climb. Day 2 starts in the dark again, because Angkor Wat at sunrise is a spectacle worth repeating and the sheer scale of these remarkable ruins mean that you need at least a couple of days to properly take them in.
On Day 4 the pace slows, as we wander a legendary local market with the Karma Bayon’s head chef before using gathered ingredients to cook a Khmer lunch you then get to eat. On Day 5 we’ll work off those calories with a leisurely cycle tour of Siem Rea’s picturesque backstreets followed by a ride on a buffalo cart at golden hour, drinks in hand, watching the streetlife go about its business at four miles an hour: the perfect pace in our opinion!
Day 6, we head up Kulen Mountain to a sacred waterfall, then back via the APOPO Hero Rats conservation project, where landmine-detecting rats are quietly making history, before Phare Circus wraps the evening in acrobatics and Khmer storytelling.
Experience one of the world’s most mysterious and magical destinations with Karma. Submit a Booking Request and a Karma Concierge willl connect to finalize your Cambodia Escape.
