Best Time to Visit Siem Reap: Month by Month, Honestly (2026)

The best time to visit Siem Reap is November to February, and that answer has a cost that the guides repeating it do not mention: those are also the months when the temples hold three times as many visitors per day as they do in July, and when hotel rates reach their yearly peak. Siem Reap has no bad month. It has twelve different trades between heat, rain, crowds, water and price, and the right one depends on which of those you care about.

Search results on this question are a wall of the same paragraph: dry season good, rainy season bad, go in December. They skip the numbers that decide a trip. April’s average maximum is 35.8°C, not “warm.” September gets 288 mm of rain, but almost all of it falls after 2:00 p.m. The Tonle Sap is a sea in October and a mud flat in April. Khmer New Year puts hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, who enter the park free, into Angkor on April 14 to 16. And the sunrise everyone gets up for happens at 5:37 a.m. in June and 6:31 a.m. in January, which is nearly an hour of sleep.

Climate figures below are long-term monthly averages from the Deutscher Wetterdienst station record for Siem Reap, cross-checked against the Siem Reap airport record. Sunrise and sunset times, festival dates, Angkor Pass prices and visitor figures from Angkor Enterprise were checked against official and operator sources in October 2026.

Dry Season Is the Right Answer to the Wrong Question

Every month in Siem Reap can be sorted on five axes, and they do not line up.

Heat. Coolest from late November to January, when daily highs sit near 31°C and nights fall to 20°C. Hottest from mid-March to early May, when the average high passes 35°C and individual days reach 38°C to 40°C.

Rain. Driest from December to February, under 10 mm a month. Wettest from May to October, with September the peak at 288 mm. The rain comes as afternoon and evening storms, not all-day drizzle.

Crowds. Densest from mid-December to mid-March, with spikes at Chinese New Year and the March equinox. Thinnest from June to early October. Khmer New Year in April is a separate category: enormous, domestic and free of charge.

Water. The Tonle Sap, Angkor Wat’s moat, the barays, Phnom Kulen’s waterfall and the Kbal Spean riverbed all peak between August and November and bottom out between March and May.

Price. Hotels peak from mid-December to February, sit in shoulder in March and November, and discount from May to October. The Angkor Pass is $37, $62 or $72 in every month.

“Dry season” answers the heat-and-rain question for people who hate rain more than heat, and it ignores the other three axes entirely. The honest verdict: if you can only optimize one thing, optimize for the thing you personally cannot tolerate. For most people that is the April heat, not the September rain. The month-by-month section below gives the figures to make that call. For the detailed version of the thermometer and the rain gauge, the Siem Reap weather by month guide goes deeper than this page. For how many people will be standing next to you at the Bayon, Angkor crowds by month does the same for visitor numbers.

The Year in One Table

Month	Avg. high	Rain	Rainy days	Sunrise (15th)	Sunset (15th)	Tonle Sap	Foreign visitors	Hotel rates
January	31.7°C	4 mm	1.5	6:31 a.m.	5:56 p.m.	High, falling	Peak	Peak
February	33.5°C	5 mm	0.7	6:27 a.m.	6:10 p.m.	Falling	Peak	Peak
March	34.9°C	29 mm	3.2	6:11 a.m.	6:15 p.m.	Low	High	Shoulder
April	35.8°C	57 mm	7.6	5:51 a.m.	6:17 p.m.	Lowest	Medium, plus Khmer New Year	Shoulder
May	34.8°C	150 mm	17.0	5:38 a.m.	6:23 p.m.	Lowest, starts rising	Low	Low
June	33.6°C	214 mm	18.0	5:37 a.m.	6:32 p.m.	Rising	Lowest	Low
July	32.9°C	193 mm	17.6	5:45 a.m.	6:35 p.m.	Rising	Low	Low
August	32.4°C	209 mm	17.6	5:52 a.m.	6:25 p.m.	Rising fast	Low	Low
September	31.7°C	288 mm	17.4	5:53 a.m.	6:05 p.m.	Near peak	Lowest	Low
October	31.5°C	200 mm	15.4	5:55 a.m.	5:45 p.m.	Peak	Low	Low, rising late
November	31.2°C	51 mm	6.4	6:04 a.m.	5:34 p.m.	Peak, reversing	Rising	Rising
December	30.6°C	7 mm	2.0	6:19 a.m.	5:40 p.m.	Falling	High, peak after 20th	Peak

Temperature and rain are the Deutscher Wetterdienst monthly means for Siem Reap. Visitor levels are read from Angkor Enterprise’s 2025 monthly ticket figures as reported in the Cambodian press. Hotel rates are a judgment from published rate patterns, not a measured index.

Month by Month

January

The honest verdict: the best weather of the year and the fullest temples, and you pay for both. Average high 31.7°C, average low 20.4°C, under 4 mm of rain across one or two days. The 5:00 a.m. tuk-tuk ride is cold enough for a light jacket, which surprises people who packed for the tropics. Sunrise is at 6:31 a.m. on the 15th, the latest of the year, which means a 5:15 a.m. hotel pickup rather than 4:30 a.m. Sunset is at 5:56 p.m., and the park closes at 6:30 p.m.

Angkor Enterprise sold passes to roughly 146,000 foreigners in January 2025, about 4,700 a day. Since almost all of them go to Angkor Wat for sunrise and to Ta Prohm before 10:00 a.m., the crowd concentrates in two places and two hours. The Angkor Wat sunrise guide covers where to stand when the reflecting pool has 2,000 people around it. The rest of the park, especially the grand circuit and the Roluos group, is manageable at any hour.

The Tonle Sap is still high and falling, so Kampong Phluk and Prek Toal are at their best for boats and for the big waterbirds, which gather in the dry months. Skies are clear and the light is hard by 8:00 a.m. Hotel rates are at their peak through the whole month and the week after New Year carries minimum stays. The limitation: nothing about January is a secret, and a three-day pass bought on a January morning is used alongside everyone else who read the same advice.

February

The driest month of the year: 4.7 mm of rain on average and less than one rainy day. Highs climb to 33.5°C and the nights warm to 22°C, so the jacket goes back in the bag by the second week. Sunrise 6:27 a.m., sunset 6:10 p.m.

February 2025 recorded about 133,000 foreign ticket holders, around 4,800 a day, which makes it the densest month per day in the year. Chinese New Year is the reason: February 17 in 2026 and February 6 in 2027, with a week of travel around each date that brings visitors from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in large groups. Angkor Wat at sunrise during that week is the fullest it gets outside Khmer New Year.

Two things change in February that the dry-season paragraph never mentions. The Tonle Sap drops quickly, and by the end of the month Chong Kneas boats run along a dredged channel with mud on both sides. And farmers burn rice stubble across the plain, so the sky turns from blue to white haze by the third week and stays that way into April. Photographers who want the clean skies of the postcards need January or the first half of February. The limitation: peak prices for the whole month, and the equinox crowd begins to arrive in the last days.

March

The month the heat arrives and the first month the budget traveler can breathe. Average high 34.9°C, with 36°C to 37°C afternoons by the third week. Rain returns in small doses, 29 mm over about three days, usually a single evening storm that clears the dust for a morning. Sunrise 6:11 a.m., sunset 6:15 p.m.

The March equinox, around March 20, is when the sun rises directly over the central tower of Angkor Wat for anyone standing on the western causeway. It is a real alignment, built into the temple’s design, and it produces the single most crowded sunrise of the year, with photographers in position by 4:45 a.m. for three or four mornings around the date. If the alignment matters, come. If it does not, avoid the week.

Foreign visitors fall to about 119,000 for the month in 2025, roughly 3,800 a day, and hotel rates slide into shoulder season from mid-month. Haze is at its worst. The Tonle Sap is low, Phnom Kulen’s waterfall is a trickle and Kbal Spean’s carved riverbed is nearly dry, which actually makes the carvings easier to see. The honest verdict: March is the last month for anyone who struggles in heat and the first for anyone who struggles with prices. From March onward, the best time of day for each Angkor temple stops being advice and becomes a rule: open-air sites before 10:30 a.m. or after 4:00 p.m., nothing in between.

April

The hottest month, with an average high of 35.8°C, a low of 25.4°C and 38°C to 40°C afternoons before the first storms arrive in the last ten days. Rain averages 57 mm over seven or eight days, almost all of it in the final week. Sunrise 5:51 a.m., sunset 6:17 p.m. Humidity rises through the month, so late April feels heavier than mid-March at the same temperature. Stone terraces at the Bayon and Pre Rup radiate heat by 10:00 a.m.

Khmer New Year is April 14 to 16 in 2026 and April 14 to 16 in 2027, both three-day national holidays. Siem Reap hosts Angkor Sankranta, organized by the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia, with the opening ceremony in front of Angkor Wat on the evening of the 13th and stages, games, exhibitions and water zones running from about 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. along the Siem Reap River, in the Royal Gardens and on Pub Street, plus ox-cart races out at Angkor Gyeongju on Road 60, following the 2025 pattern. Cambodians enter the park free and arrive from every province. Angkor Wat on April 14 is shared with tens of thousands of people, hotels fill with domestic visitors weeks ahead, and anyone walking Pub Street between noon and dark gets soaked. The Khmer New Year in Siem Reap guide has the closures and the etiquette.

Foreign ticket holders in April 2025 numbered about 76,000, around 2,500 a day, half of February. Hotel rates are shoulder outside the festival days. The honest verdict: April is the month to choose only for the festival, and then with a hotel that has a shaded pool. For the heat strategy that makes the month workable, the April and May survival guide is the one to read, and hotels with a pool worth coming back for at 2:00 p.m. is the one to book from.

May

The rains begin and the prices fall. Average high 34.8°C, still fierce, but with 150 mm of rain over 17 days, which means an afternoon storm roughly every other day from the second week. The first storms are the violent ones: dust, wind, an hour of heavy rain between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., then a clear, cooler evening. Sunrise 5:38 a.m., sunset 6:23 p.m.

May 2025 brought about 55,000 foreign visitors, around 1,800 a day. Hotels move to low-season rates in the first week and stay there until October. Three national holidays fall early in the month in 2026: Visak Bochea and Labor Day on May 1, the Royal Ploughing Ceremony on May 5 and the King’s Birthday on May 14. None of them close the park. The Tonle Sap is at its lowest, 2,500 to 3,000 square kilometers and about a meter deep, and this is when the Mekong begins pushing water back up the Tonle Sap River. Kampong Phluk is a village of 6-to-9-meter stilts standing over dry ground, which is its own strange sight, reached by boat along a shrinking channel.

The honest verdict: May is for travelers who need a pool and a price more than they need a clear sky, and who will set a 4:45 a.m. alarm. The limitation: humidity is the highest of the year by the end of the month and the first rains turn the dirt tracks at Beng Mealea and Ta Nei to mud.

June

The greenest month that nobody books. Average high 33.6°C, rain 214 mm over 18 days, sunrise at 5:37 a.m., the earliest of the year, and sunset at 6:32 p.m. Days are at their longest, which gives a dry morning of six or seven hours before the clouds build. Rice is being planted across the plain north of the airport road and the Angkor barays and moat are filling.

June 2025 is inside the stretch where Angkor Enterprise’s monthly figures average about 47,000 foreign ticket holders, roughly 1,500 a day, a third of January. Hotel rates are at their lowest. The afternoon storm pattern is established: build-up from 1:00 p.m., rain between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on something like half the days, often clearing before dark. A temple day that runs 5:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. loses almost nothing.

The honest verdict: June is the best month for Angkor itself if you measure by people per temple, and the rainy season guide explains why some repeat visitors will not come at any other time. The limitation: sunsets are a gamble, Phnom Kulen’s road is slippery after rain, and the humidity makes 33°C feel like April.

July

The month with the latest sunset of the year, 6:35 p.m. on the 15th, and the one when European and Australian school holidays bring a modest bump of families. Average high 32.9°C, rain 193 mm over about 18 days, sunrise 5:45 a.m. Mornings are humid rather than hot.

Visitor numbers stay low, roughly 1,500 foreign ticket holders a day, with slightly more children in the Ta Prohm corridors than in June. Hotels stay on low-season rates and many add the fourth night free or a transfer. The Tonle Sap is rising steadily and Kampong Phluk’s channel is navigable by motorboat again, though the flooded forest is not yet deep enough for the paddle boats. Angkor Wat’s moat is full and still, which is the reflection the dry-season visitor never sees.

Worth it if you are a family tied to school dates, or a photographer who wants dark wet stone and dramatic cloud rather than white sky. Not if you need a reliable sunset from Pre Rup or Phnom Bakheng: the Angkor sunset guide is honest that July delivers one clear evening in three.

August

The month with the most rainy days, around 18 by the Deutscher Wetterdienst record and over 21 by the airport record, though total rainfall, 209 mm, is lower than September’s. Average high 32.4°C, sunrise 5:52 a.m., sunset 6:25 p.m. Rain is frequent but short, and the pattern is still afternoon-heavy.

The Tonle Sap takes its biggest leap in August, when inflow from the Mekong peaks at the end of the month. Kampong Phluk’s flooded forest fills and the paddle-boat loop through the trees opens, which is the single best Tonle Sap experience of the year and only possible from roughly August to December. Prek Toal’s birds are dispersed across the flooded forest, so the bird sanctuary is at its weakest while the villages are at their best. The Tonle Sap lake guide explains how the two seasons pull in opposite directions.

Angkor is quiet, around 1,500 foreign visitors a day, and hotel rates stay low. The honest verdict: August is the month for the lake, with the temples as a bonus. The limitation: the dirt approach to Beng Mealea and the forest tracks at Koh Ker are at their muddiest, and Ta Prohm’s root-covered corridors are slippery enough to matter with children.

September

The wettest month: 288 mm of rain on average over 17 or 18 days, the heaviest single storms of the year and the lowest foreign visitor numbers. Average high 31.7°C, which is January’s temperature with three times the humidity. Sunrise 5:53 a.m., sunset 6:05 p.m.

The September equinox, around September 23, repeats the March alignment of the sun over Angkor Wat’s central tower for anyone who gets a clear dawn, which in September is perhaps one morning in three. Far fewer people try, so the causeway is almost empty for it. Pchum Ben sometimes falls in September: in 2027 it is expected on September 29 to October 1, and the Pchum Ben visiting guide covers what that means for restaurants and buses.

Hotel rates are at their yearly floor and the town is at its quietest. The limitation is real: some afternoons the rain starts at noon and does not stop, side streets in the Wat Bo and Sok San areas flood for a few hours after the worst storms, and the road to Phnom Kulen can close briefly. September is the month to bring a second pair of shoes. The what to pack guide has the list.

October

The most undervalued month of the year, especially its last ten days. Rain drops to about 200 mm over 15 days, with a visible change in the second half as storms shorten and skip days. Average high 31.5°C. Sunrise 5:55 a.m., sunset 5:45 p.m. The sky starts to clear, the countryside is at its greenest and the Tonle Sap is at its largest, around 16,000 square kilometers, with Kampong Phluk and Kampong Khleang standing deep in water and the flooded forest at its fullest.

Pchum Ben is October 10 to 12 in 2026, the last three days of a 15-day period when Cambodians return to their home pagodas with food for ancestors. Siem Reap’s pagodas are busy and worth seeing early in the morning with covered shoulders and knees. Many small restaurants and shops close for the three days, buses to and from Phnom Penh sell out, and tuk-tuk drivers go home to their provinces, so a driver booked in advance is worth more that week than any other. October 15 and October 29 are single-day royal holidays with no practical effect on visitors.

Foreign visitor numbers are still low, around 1,500 a day, and hotel rates are low until the last week, when they begin the climb toward November. The honest verdict: October 20 to 31 is the best-value window of the year, with most of November’s weather, none of November’s prices and the lake at its peak. The limitation: a week that gets stuck under a late typhoon tail can be as wet as September, and nobody can tell you which week.

November

For the balance of everything, the best month, with a caveat about the last week. Rain falls off a cliff: 51 mm over about six days, most of it in the first half. Average high 31.2°C, lows dropping to 22°C, humidity falling daily. Sunrise 6:04 a.m. and sunset 5:34 p.m., the earliest sunset of the year, which means sunset at Pre Rup requires being in position by 5:00 p.m.

The Tonle Sap is at its peak and begins to reverse in November, when the Mekong drops below the lake and the Tonle Sap River turns back toward Phnom Penh. Bon Om Touk, the Water Festival, marks that reversal: November 23 to 25 in 2026, and expected around November 13 to 15 in 2027 once the government publishes the 2027 holiday sub-decree. Phnom Penh holds the national boat races. Siem Reap holds its own provincial races and evening illuminated floats on the Siem Reap River in the center of town, on a far smaller scale, and the Bon Om Touk in Siem Reap guide covers where to stand. Independence Day on November 9 is a single holiday with no closures that matter.

November 2025 recorded about 102,000 foreign ticket holders, roughly 3,400 a day, two thirds of January and more than double September. Hotel rates rise through the month. The honest verdict: November 1 to 20 is the window this guide would pick for a first visit with no other constraints. The limitation: by the last week the high-season crowd has arrived, and the Water Festival fills hotels with Cambodian visitors on top of them.

December

Peak season proper, with the coolest nights of the year, 20.7°C on average, a daily high of 30.6°C and 7 mm of rain across two days. Sunrise 6:19 a.m., sunset 5:40 p.m. The light is the clearest of the year, before the February burning begins, and the Tonle Sap is still high enough for the flooded forest at Kampong Phluk through most of the month.

The Angkor Wat International Half Marathon is Sunday, December 6, 2026, its 31st edition, starting in front of Angkor Wat at 5:45 a.m. with the 10 km, 5 km and 3 km races following between 6:10 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. Park roads around Angkor Wat are restricted that morning, hotels fill from Thursday, and race packs are collected December 3 to 5 at Angkor Century Resort and Spa. Registration closed on October 23, 2026, with no race-day entries. The 2027 race is expected on December 5, the first Sunday, pending confirmation. The half marathon guide has the entry rules and what spectators can see.

December 2025 recorded roughly 88,000 foreign ticket holders, about 2,800 a day, but the number hides a split: a quiet first half and a packed last ten days. From about December 20 through the first week of January, rates reach the highest of the year with minimum stays, the sunrise causeway is at January density and restaurants on the Wat Bo side need booking. Peace Day on December 29 is a national holiday. The honest verdict: December 1 to 18 is almost as good as November with cooler nights and clearer skies. December 20 onward is the week to pay for only if the dates are fixed. The December and January guide separates the two halves in detail.

The Festivals That Move the Calendar

Cambodia’s lunar holidays shift by two or three weeks a year, and the government publishes the following year’s official list by sub-decree in September. The 2026 list is Sub-Decree No. 167 of September 18, 2025. The 2027 dates below are the lunar expectations, provisional until the 2027 sub-decree appears.

Event	2026	2027	Effect on a visitor
Chinese New Year	Tuesday, February 17	Saturday, February 6	Densest week at Angkor Wat per day, large regional groups, peak rates
Khmer New Year and Angkor Sankranta	April 14 to 16	April 14 to 16	Free domestic entry, hundreds of thousands in Siem Reap, water fights, hotels full
Visak Bochea	May 1	May 20 (provisional)	Pagoda ceremonies, no closures
Royal Ploughing Ceremony	May 5	May 24 (provisional)	Single holiday, no effect in Siem Reap
Pchum Ben	October 10 to 12	September 29 to October 1 (provisional)	Small businesses close, buses full, pagodas busy
Bon Om Touk	November 23 to 25	Around November 13 to 15 (provisional)	Boat races on the Siem Reap River, hotels full with domestic visitors
Angkor Wat International Half Marathon	Sunday, December 6	Sunday, December 5 (expected)	Park road restrictions at dawn, hotels full for the weekend
Christmas to New Year	December 24 to January 2	Same	Highest rates of the year, minimum stays

The equinoxes, around March 20 and September 23, are not holidays but behave like one at Angkor Wat’s western causeway for three or four dawns.

By Situation

You are a photographer

January and the first half of February for clear skies and hard light, with the sunrise crowd as the price. March 18 to 22 for the equinox over the central tower, booked a year ahead. August to October for dark wet stone, full moats, cloud and empty temples, with sunsets lost to weather one evening in two. Avoid late February to mid-April, when the burning haze turns every sky white. The Angkor photography guide has the lens and light detail by temple.

You are traveling with children

December 1 to 18, or late October to mid-November. Cool mornings, dry stairs at Ta Prohm, the Tonle Sap full enough for the paddle boats, and hotel pools that are pleasant rather than necessary. Avoid April entirely: the heat is dangerous for small children on open terraces, and Khmer New Year adds crowds. July and August work for families locked to school holidays if the plan is temples before noon and a pool after, and the rainy day with children guide covers the afternoons. The Siem Reap with kids pillar sets out the heat rules.

You are on a budget

May to early October, and in particular September 15 to October 31. Hotel rates are at the yearly floor, tuk-tuk drivers are negotiable because the day is otherwise empty, and the Angkor Pass costs exactly what it costs in January. Accept afternoon rain, carry a poncho, and plan the temples for 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The daily budget guide shows how much a low-season day costs against a January day.

You cannot tolerate heat

December and January, nothing else comes close. Highs near 31°C and dawns at 20°C make a full morning at the temples possible without the midday retreat. November and early February are acceptable. Never March 15 to May 15. If those are the only dates possible, choose a hotel with a shaded pool, keep every temple before 10:30 a.m., and treat the April and May heat guide as instructions rather than suggestions.

You want the Tonle Sap at its best

August to early December for the flooded forest at Kampong Phluk and Kampong Khleang, with October the peak. January to March for Prek Toal’s waterbirds, which gather as the water falls. Never March to May for the villages, when boats scrape along mud channels and the “floating” village sits on stilts over dry ground. The floating villages comparison and the Prek Toal guide take each season separately.

You have fixed dates in April or in late December

Both are workable with planning. April: a pool hotel, 4:45 a.m. alarms, nothing outdoors from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and either embrace Angkor Sankranta on the 14th to 16th or schedule those three days for the Tonle Sap and the museums. Late December: book the hotel and the sunrise driver months ahead, do the grand circuit and Banteay Srei rather than fighting for Ta Prohm at 8:00 a.m., and read how many days Angkor needs to avoid buying a pass for more days than the crowds will let you enjoy.

What It Actually Costs

The season changes the price of a bed and almost nothing else. The table separates what moves from what does not.

Item	Cost	Seasonal change
Angkor Pass, one day	$37	None
Angkor Pass, three days	$62	None
Angkor Pass, seven days	$72	None
Koh Ker ticket	$15	None
Beng Mealea ticket	$10	None
Kbal Spean ticket	$5	None
Phnom Kulen ticket	Sold separately from the Angkor Pass at the mountain checkpoint	None, but the waterfall is a trickle from March to May
Half marathon entry, 21 km, foreign	$60 early, $70 standard (2026)	Annual event, closes late October
Hotel room, same property	Not quoted here	Peak mid-December to February, shoulder March and November, low May to early October
Tuk-tuk, day hire in the park	See the budget guide	Little change in the quoted rate, more room to negotiate in low season
Rain poncho	A dollar or two at any minimart	Only needed May to October

Angkor Pass prices and the Koh Ker, Beng Mealea and Kbal Spean tickets are from Angkor Enterprise’s ticket page, angkorenterprise.gov.kh, which also lists the park hours of 5:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The Angkor Pass guide covers validity windows and the after-5:00 p.m. sunset rule. Hotel prices are deliberately not quoted: the gap between a May rate and a Christmas rate at the same hotel is the largest single seasonal cost in a Siem Reap trip, often larger than the flights’ variation, and the hotel prices by month guide tracks it rather than freezing a number here that would be wrong by publication.

Two costs that the season adds without a receipt. In the hot months, a day with a car instead of a tuk-tuk, for the air conditioning between temples, is the difference between a full morning and a half. In the wet months, a second pair of shoes and a dry bag for the camera are the cost of Ta Prohm after rain.

What Other Guides Get Wrong

1. “Visit between November and February” with no mention of what that costs. It is the right weather and the wrong price, and it is when the sunrise causeway holds thousands. A guide that gives the season without the crowd and rate consequence is giving half the answer.

2. Repeating a round number for daily visitors. Angkor Enterprise’s own figures for 2025 give about 4,700 foreign ticket holders a day in January and about 1,500 in September, with a yearly total of 955,131. The ten-thousand-a-day claims come from pre-2020 peaks or from counting Cambodian visitors on holiday weekends, who enter free and are not in the ticket data.

3. Describing the rainy season as a washout. Rain in Siem Reap is an afternoon storm, usually between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., on about half the days from June to September. Mornings are mostly dry. A temple schedule built around 5:00 a.m. starts, which is how Angkor should be done in any month, loses very little.

4. Treating April as just another dry-season month. It is the hottest month of the year at 35.8°C on average, with 40°C days, and it contains Khmer New Year, when the park fills with Cambodians who enter free. April is a different trip from January and needs different planning.

5. Ignoring the Tonle Sap’s calendar. The lake is six times larger in October than in April. A floating-village tour booked in March is a boat ride along a mud channel. A guide that says “the Tonle Sap is a good half-day trip” without a month is sending some readers to the wrong lake.

6. Giving one sunrise time. Angkor Wat sunrise is 5:37 a.m. in June and 6:31 a.m. in January. Hotels and drivers set pickup by the actual time, and a traveler who read “be there by 5:00 a.m.” in a January guide arrives in the dark to stand for ninety minutes. Check the date, then subtract 45 minutes for the drive and the checkpoint.

Detailed Guides

• Siem Reap weather by month settles the thermometer and rain gauge figures for each month in more depth than this page, including humidity and the number of hours a day you can be outside.
• Siem Reap in the rainy season settles whether May to October is a mistake or the best-kept schedule in town, with the hour-by-hour storm pattern.
• Siem Reap in April and May settles how to do Angkor at 38°C: the timetable, the hotel type and what to drop.
• Siem Reap in December and January settles what peak season gives you for the peak price, and which weeks inside it are quieter.
• Angkor crowds by month settles when the tour buses arrive and at which temples, using Angkor Enterprise’s monthly figures.
• Khmer New Year in Siem Reap settles whether to come for Angkor Sankranta on April 14 to 16, what closes and how to stay dry on Pub Street.
• Bon Om Touk in Siem Reap settles what the Water Festival looks like on the Siem Reap River against the national races in Phnom Penh.
• Visiting during Pchum Ben settles what closes during the three-day holiday, what pagodas expect of visitors and how to get a bus seat.
• Angkor Wat International Half Marathon settles how to enter the first-Sunday-of-December race, the start times and what spectators can reach.
• What to pack for Siem Reap settles the kit by season: the jacket for January dawns, the poncho and second shoes for September, and the shoulders-and-knees rule in every month.
• Siem Reap hotel prices by month and when to book settles how far rates move between May and Christmas and how far ahead each season needs a booking.

Where to Go Next

With the month chosen, the next question is how many days to give the temples and in what order, which the 3-day Siem Reap itinerary answers hour by hour around the 5:00 a.m. start and the midday heat. The pass that covers those days costs the same in every season, and the Angkor Pass guide explains the validity windows that let a rainy afternoon cost nothing. For the lake that changes more than anything else in this guide, the Tonle Sap lake guide takes each season in turn, and for the bed whose price moves most, where to stay in Siem Reap sorts the neighborhoods by traveler type before the month sorts the rate.