Siem Reap, Cambodia: the gateway to Angkor, Tonlé Sap and Khmer food

Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the world, and unusually for a Khmer temple it faces west, which is why sunrise — behind you, lighting the towers as they reflect in the northern pool — is the classic view rather than sunset. It is also why several thousand people stand at the same pool each morning. It remains worth doing once; go early enough to get a place, and consider returning in the late afternoon when the crowd thins and the light on the bas-relief galleries is better. Those galleries are the real substance: hundreds of metres of carved narrative, best walked slowly and anticlockwise, with the churning-of-the-ocean panel the one to find.

Angkor Thom is a walled city rather than a temple, entered through monumental gates flanked by rows of stone figures holding a serpent balustrade. At its centre stands the Bayon, whose towers carry dozens of enormous carved faces looking calmly in every direction — the most photographed thing at Angkor after the Wat itself, and best in the softer light of mid-morning or late afternoon. Ta Prohm is the third of the essential three: the temple left partly in the forest's grip, with silk-cotton roots spilling over walls and doorways. It is heavily visited and partly propped with scaffolding, since the trees that make the picture are also what will eventually bring the walls down.

Entry to the Angkor park is by a pass sold in tiered durations at the official ticket centre outside town, not at the temples themselves; your photograph is taken and printed on it, it is not transferable, and it is checked at every temple, so carry it always. Practical shape of a visit: the small circuit covers Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm and fills a full day; the grand circuit loops wider to quieter temples such as Preah Khan and Ta Som; and Banteay Srei, a small temple of pink sandstone carved with the finest detail at Angkor, sits considerably further out and is worth the extra drive. Most people hire a tuk-tuk driver by the day and agree the route in the morning.

South of town lies Tonlé Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and a genuine hydrological oddity: in the wet season the Mekong pushes so much water upstream that the river feeding the lake reverses direction, and the lake swells to several times its dry-season area before draining back. Villages here are built for that — houses on very tall stilts in some places, entire settlements floating and moved by boat in others. What a visit feels like depends heavily on the season and on which village and operator you choose, and the two are worth researching together: in the dry months the water can be low and the boat rides long, while in the wet months the flooded forest at Kampong Phluk is at its most striking.

Siem Reap is small and walkable, laid out along the Siem Reap river with a compact centre of shophouses. The old market, Psar Chas, sells produce and household goods by day and souvenirs alongside; the surrounding lanes hold most of the restaurants, and the night markets run across the river. Pub Street is exactly what its name suggests — loud, cheap and lit up — and the quieter lanes parallel to it are where most people end up. Beyond eating and drinking, the town does two things unusually well: Khmer performing arts, with apsara dance staged at several venues, and the Cambodian circus, a genuinely accomplished contemporary show run as a social enterprise training young performers.

Cambodian cooking is milder and more herbal than Thai and sweeter than Vietnamese, built on kroeung, a fresh paste of lemongrass, galangal, turmeric and kaffir lime. Fish amok is the dish to start with: a delicate curry of freshwater fish and coconut, thickened with egg and steamed in a banana-leaf cup. Lok lak is the other staple, cubes of seared beef with a dipping sauce of lime, salt and black pepper. For breakfast, look for num banh chok — rice noodles with a green fish gravy, eaten in the morning from a street cart — or the noodle soup kuy teav. Freshwater fish from the lake dominates the menus, and Kampot pepper, from the coast, is a genuinely worthwhile thing to bring home.

Siem Reap's international airport is well outside the city — a transfer of roughly an hour, which is worth building into arrival and departure plans — and connects to regional hubs rather than long-haul, so most visitors change somewhere in Asia. Overland links to Phnom Penh and to the Thai border are straightforward by road. In town, tuk-tuks are the default and are usually hired by the half or full day for temple visits; bicycles and e-bikes suit the closer temples if you are comfortable in the heat. Seasons matter: November to March is dry and mild and by far the best window, April and May are punishingly hot, and the June-to-October rains leave the moats full and the countryside green but bring heavy afternoon downpours.