The best time to go to Siem Reap is the beginning of December, during the Angkor Wat Marathon. Running through the temples at sunrise, high-fiving the adorable village children cheering you on!
You will be so tired from trekking around Siem Reap that it will not even matter where you sleep, but if you do care, Amansara is an Aman hotel that is worth every cent of the 1k+ hotel price you're paying. Wherever you stay it should be about 2-3 dollars for each tuktuk ride to the temple complex.
Yada Yada Yada, after you go to all the temples, stop by Peace Cafe Angkor for delicious vegetarian food and a sweet, soft-spoken owner. For dinner, go to Chamkar Vegetarian, a Khmer vegetarian restaurant behind Bar Street, and finish off the night with plenty of drinks and new friends.
If you're tired of the normal route of Angkor Wat, even you can go to Banteay Chhmar, another, more untouched temple complex. It’s a huge but hidden temple complex around two hours from Siem Reap, shrouded in both jungle and mystery.
This place is perfect after an enchanting ride through Siem Reap village. (Siem Reap Village lies south of the modern town as we all know it. You start at old market and follow the river flowing to the Tonle Sap Lake. Leave the river on your right side while cycling through this authentic Cambodian village. Your heart fills with warm gold when you are cycling here as the children run out from every corner to say hello.) It’s eating at the most family style possibly imaginable. Even though you arrive way past their lunch hour, they treat you like royalty and whip up something you will never forget. The host married a woman with gold kitchen fingers. She turns stir fried vegetables into succulent delicatessen. The catch of the day is deep fried to perfection and accompanied by a marvellous tamarind dipping sauce. You are eating in a house on stilts in the middle of the vibrant green rice flieds. Hammocks await you for digestive. Do I need to say more? This is heaven!
It doesn’t really have an address. It’s on the road to Phnom Krom and the floating villages. It’s one of the first hammock restaurants you meet when leaving Siem Reap village behind you. It’s right next to a little shop selling silk souvenirs.
Koh Rong
Koh Rong is the hidden gems of gems. It's beaches are white than Maldives, more empty than Thailand, and just as cheap as the rest of Cambodia. Just two hours by boat from the beaches of Sihanoukville, it’s a pocket-sized paradise that most tourists pass straight by.