Day 1: Overseas to Siem Reap, Explore Angkor Wat temples

This morning you will fly to Siem Reap via Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, via Bangkok, Thailand, via Laung Prabang, Lao. Your guide and driver will meets you at the airport as you arrive in Cambodia early morning and helps you transfer to your hotel for checking in.

Then your local guide takes you into the heart of ancient Angkor, a holy city that took centuries to build and whose scale is still breathtaking today—it sprawls across an area of roughly six by sixteen miles. The Khmer aristocrats who built the temples and monuments here between AD. 800-1200 were motivated by their Hindu and Buddhist beliefs.

You’ll begin at the South Gate of Angkor Thom, the capital city of Khmer rulers. You’ll see both Bayon and Ta Prohm, and make brief stops at Baphoun and the Elephants Terrace, where amazing bas-reliefs depict the huge beasts almost life-size. At the nearby Terrace of the Leper King, equally intricate wall carvings depict rank after rank of court attendants to mystical rulers. You conclude your explorations of Angkor’s most notable features with a tour of the Ta Prohm Temple. Afterward, you break for lunch

Later, you’ll visit Angkor Wat (whose name means simply “City of temple”) and wait for the sunset, the most opportune moment for seeing this masterpiece of Khmer architecture. Angkor Wat is a large pyramid temple, built between AD 1113 and 1150, surrounded by a great moat 570 feet wide. Note the bas-relief carving throughout the temple. Who knows what you might feel as you stand in the courtyard of this temple whose towers represent Mount Meru, the center of the universe.

Return to the hotel and overnight at your hotel.