Angkor Sunrise & Sunset Spots

The sunrise at Angkor Wat is the single most popular tourist experience in Cambodia — thousands of visitors gather at the reflection pools before dawn to watch the sun rise behind the temple's five towers, silhouetting them against an orange sky and reflecting the scene in the still water below. The experience is genuinely beautiful (the combination of scale, symmetry, and the tropical sky produces a different colour show every morning) and genuinely crowded (arrive by 5am to secure a position at the northern reflection pool).

The sunset viewing at Pre Rup (a 10th-century temple-mountain whose upper terrace provides a westward view across the forest canopy) or Phnom Bakheng (the original 9th-century Angkor capital, whose hilltop temple offers a panoramic sunset view that includes Angkor Wat's towers silhouetted against the sky) provides the evening counterpoint. Phnom Bakheng limits visitor numbers (300 at a time), which has improved the experience since the days when 3,000 people would crowd the small summit.

The light at Angkor is the variable that transforms good photographs into extraordinary ones — the early morning light (golden, directional, with mist rising from the moat) and the late afternoon light (warm, raking across the carved surfaces to reveal details that midday glare obliterates) are the times when the temples are most photogenic. The middle of the day (10am-2pm) is hot, harsh, and best spent at the less-visited temples where shade is available.