Angkor 2-Day Sunset and Sunrise Small-Group Tour

Day 1: Banteay Srei, Grand Circuit Heritage temples with sunset

Pickup from your hotel between: 7.50 -8.10am (Depending on your hotel location)
Drop off at your hotel between: 5.30 – 6.00 pm
Start your Small Group 2 days Angkor Tour by exploring the most interesting temples outside Angkor Thom city. Departing your hotel around 8.00 am, you begin with first stop at Pre Rup Hindu temple built as the state temple of Khmer king Rajendravarman and dedicated in 961 or early 962. It is a temple mountain of combined brick, laterite and sandstone construction.

Continue your Small Group 2 days Angkor Tour with a drive to the intricately carved and well-preserved Banteay Srei. The detailed reliefs on this smaller sandstone structure are regarded as the finest, most skillfully crafted in Cambodia. Banteay Srei has only been accessible since the late 1990s, when the Khmer Rouge left the area.

Return your journey back and visit Neak Pean temples, an artificial island with a Buddhist temple on a circular island in Jayatataka Baray and continue your afternoon to Preah Khan temple, a ruined but highly atmospheric mélange of tree roots and crumbling stone structures. Construction of this site was commissioned by the great ‘temple builder’ Jayavaraman VII (in honour of his father) and a visit to this smaller site makes for an interesting contrast with the more imposing Angkor Wat. Preah Khan is currently being restored by the World Monument Fund and in places is in remarkably good condition. End the day by enjoy at temple ruins, the perfect vantage point to witness the magical sunset. Late afternoon return to town after a memorable day exploration on your Small Group 2 days Angkor Tour.

Day 2: Angkor Wat Highlights and Sunrise Guided Tour

Pickup from your hotel: 4.15am – 4.35am (Depending on your hotel location)
Drop off at your hotel: 12.30-1.30pm
On the second day of your Small Group 2 days Angkor Tour, begin with a pre-dawn departure from your hotel for sunrise outside Angkor Wat. Enter the great temple in darkness from the little-visited eastern side, and creep along hoary cloistered corridors past the longest stretch of bas-relief carvings in the world. Soak up the atmosphere of dawn at Angkor, from the edge of one of the ancient library pools.

We then explore the interior of the great temple, spending a thorough two hours discovering the corridors, central chambers and upper terraces of this truly great temple. Your expert local guide will decipher the myriad of stories behind the bas-relief carvings, and give you an insight into life during the height of the Khmer empire.

We end our touring at Angkor with breakfast outside the temple (take away, from your hotel), and a short rest. Continue the morning on your Small Group 2 days Angkor Tour by visiting the southern Gate of Angkor Thom, flanked by a row of 54 stone figures on each side – gods to the left and demons to the right – and the fortified city of Angkor Thom. At ‘The Bayon’ (12th century) we see its beautifully crafted central towers, covered in more than 200 enormous faces, then explore the famous Terrace of the Leper King, and the Terrace of Elephants.

Enjoy lunch at your own expense, and a rest break before move on to the jungle-enveloped Ta Prohm – one of the most atmospheric of all temples in Angkor. Once home to 2,740 monks, Ta Prohm today looks much as it did in the early 1850s, when French explorer Henri Mouhot ‘rediscovered’ this crumbling site. After exploring the maze-like interior of Ta Prohm, return to your hotel after a long but fulfilling day, which will leave you with a lifetime of memories of one of the wonders of the world.