Pub Street is Siem Reap's tourist nightlife strip — a pedestrianised street of bars, restaurants, and the famous '$0.50 draft beer' signs that make Siem Reap one of the cheapest drinking destinations in Southeast Asia. The street, which barely existed before the tourism boom of the early 2000s, has become the default evening gathering place for visitors who spend their days at the temples and their nights eating Khmer food, drinking Angkor Beer, and recovering from the heat.
The Night Market (Angkor Night Market and the surrounding Siem Reap Art Center Night Market) operates in a complex of bamboo and thatch structures near Pub Street, selling handicrafts, silk, paintings, and the T-shirts and souvenirs that every tourist town produces. The quality varies, but the silk scarves, stone carvings, and the silver jewellery produced by Artisans Angkor (a social enterprise training young Cambodians in traditional crafts) are genuinely good.
The Cambodian food along and around Pub Street is better than its tourist-strip location might suggest — fish amok (the national dish, a coconut curry steamed in banana leaves), lok lak (stir-fried beef with pepper and lime dipping sauce), and the fried tarantulas, scorpions, and insects at the street food stalls (which are consumed by Cambodians as snacks, not just for tourist shock value) represent a cuisine that is distinct from its Thai and Vietnamese neighbours.
Verified Facts
Draft beer on Pub Street is famously cheap, often $0.50
Fish amok is Cambodia's national dish
Artisans Angkor is a social enterprise training young Cambodians in traditional crafts
The tourist nightlife developed in the early 2000s
Get walking directions
Street 8 , Svay Dankum, Siem Reap, Cambodia
