Angkor in Two Days: The Order That Actually Works
9 min read
The short answer: sunrise at Angkor Wat, then straight out to Ta Prohm while everyone else walks inside; Bayon mid-morning; back to town from eleven until four; then Angkor Wat a second time at 16:00, because the temple faces west and only in the afternoon is its façade lit. Day two goes to the outer circuit, or out to Banteay Srei. If you would rather someone else drove and explained it, the Angkor Wat 2-Day Tour with Sunrise and Sunset splits the two days in a similar way – sunrise and the inner temples on day one, back at the hotel by 12:45, then the outer temples and sunset at Phnom Bakheng on day two – from €30.29 per person, rated 4.9/5 from 5,198 reviews. The Angkor pass is not included.
Check availability and prices for the two-day sunrise-and-sunset tour
Almost every two-day itinerary you will be offered runs the same way: sunrise at Angkor Wat, then Angkor Thom and Bayon, then Ta Prohm, then the outer temples on day two. It is not wrong. It is just the same plan everybody else has, which means you meet the same people at the same hour in the same doorway.
Two facts change the order, and neither is on the map.
Angkor Wat faces west – and that is unusual
Nearly every Khmer temple faces east. Angkor Wat faces west, which is why its sunrise photograph is a silhouette: at dawn the sun comes up behind the towers and you are looking at the dark side of the building. That is a wonderful picture, and it is the only picture you will get at that hour.
In the late afternoon the sun swings round and lights the façade directly – the full length of the western causeway, the galleries, the carvings. The temple looks completely different, and there are far fewer people in it, because the crowd that queued at 05:00 went back to the hotel at eleven and the sunset crowd has gone to a hill.
So do not treat Angkor Wat as a single visit. Treat it as two: the silhouette at dawn and the building itself at four in the afternoon.
The heat decides the middle of the day, not you
From November to February it is around 25 to 30 °C and pleasant. In April it regularly sits at 35 to 38 °C and can touch 40 °C, and the rainy season from May to October brings heavy afternoon downpours, with September and October the wettest months of all.
Any plan that has you walking a temple complex between eleven and three in April is a plan written by somebody who was not there in April. The two-day routes below keep that window loose deliberately.
Day one: the inner circuit, in the order nobody uses
05:00 – Angkor Wat, sunrise. Be at the northern reflecting pond, front-left corner. Expect thousands of people in peak season, and take a torch for the 350 m causeway.
06:30 – leave Angkor Wat. This is the move. The crowd walks into Angkor Wat after sunrise and then drifts north to Angkor Thom. If you go straight to Ta Prohm instead, you get the tree-and-ruin temple before the coaches, at a time of day when the light comes through the canopy sideways rather than straight down.
08:30 – Angkor Thom and Bayon. The faces on the Bayon towers need side light, which means morning or late afternoon; at noon they flatten out completely. Add the Terrace of the Elephants and Baphuon while you are inside the walls.
11:00 – stop. Go back into town, eat, sleep, swim. This is not a wasted hour, it is what makes the afternoon possible.
16:00 – Angkor Wat again, the west façade. Now the building is lit and you can actually look at it. This is also the right time for the Bakan, the upper tier – it opens around 07:40 and closes around 17:00, children under twelve are not allowed up, and it is closed on Buddhist holy days, about four days a month. A sleeved top is genuinely required there; a scarf over bare shoulders will get you turned away at the stairs.
17:30 – sunset. Phnom Bakheng is open until 19:00 and has the famous view and the famous queue. Pre Rup is open until 19:00 too, faces the right way, and is quieter.
Day two: the outer circuit and Banteay Srei
Day two has no fixed answer, because it depends on what day one made you want more of.
If you want more carving: head out to Banteay Srei, about 32 km from town – small, pink sandstone, and the most finely carved thing in the region by a wide margin. It is covered by your Angkor pass. Pair it with Kbal Spean, the riverbed carvings known as the River of a Thousand Lingas, which is also on the pass.
If you want more scale and fewer people: do the grand circuit – Preah Khan, Neak Pean, East Mebon, Pre Rup. These take about as long as the inner circuit and carry a fraction of the visitors.
If you want jungle: Beng Mealea, around 60 km out and largely uncleared, is what Ta Prohm was before the walkways. Also on the pass.
If two days of temples is enough: take the second day off the temples entirely and go to the floating villages on the Tonlé Sap or into the countryside. Temple fatigue is real and arrives faster than people expect, and there is no prize for pushing through it.
What to book, and what it costs
All five tours below pick you up in Siem Reap and spread the temples over two days, but not all of them keep the one-sunrise, one-sunset shape this article argues for: the first three do, the Kulen tour has a sunrise on day one but no sunset, and the private tour has no sunset and offers sunrise only as a day-two add-on. None of them includes the Angkor pass. Prices are per person except where the table says otherwise.
| Tour | Duration | From | Rating | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angkor Wat 2-Day Tour with Sunrise and Sunset | 2 days | €30.29 | 4.9/5 from 5,198 reviews | most first-time visitors |
| Angkor Wat Complex: 2-Day Sunrise and Sunset – 11 temples, air-conditioned minibus | 2 days | €32.16 | 4.9/5 from 586 reviews | the same plan for travellers over 70 |
| 2-Day Temple Highlights – Banteay Srei, Bayon, Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, sunset on day one (rice fields on the private option, Phnom Bakheng in the small group) | 2 days | €43.66 | 4.9/5 from 477 reviews | readers who picked the carving option; not for children under 8 |
| 2-Day Angkor Wat, Kulen Mountain, Beng Mealea and Tonle Sap | 2 days | €61.47 | 5.0/5 from 30 reviews | people who want day two away from the circuits |
| 2-Day Private Angkor Temples Tour | 2 days | €218.28 per group of up to 2 people | 5.0/5 from 24 reviews | couples who want a private guide in their own language |
The first one is the one most people should book. It costs €30.29 per person, carries 5,198 reviews, and it splits the days the way this article argues for: sunrise on day one, sunset on day two. Its booking page lists people over 70 and wheelchair users as not suitable, although it also shows a wheelchair-accessible label – ask the operator before booking if either applies to you. That price is the guiding and the transport.
The Angkor Wat Complex tour runs almost the same two days – eleven temples, an air-conditioned minibus, sunrise on day one, sunset at Phnom Bakheng on day two – and is the one to choose if someone in your party is over 70; it lists babies under one, people over 95 and wheelchair users as not suitable. The Temple Highlights version is the one that already contains the carving answer – Banteay Srei and Preah Khan are in the itinerary – but it runs the other way round: outer temples and a sunset on day one, then Angkor Wat at sunrise, Ta Prohm and Bayon on day two. The sunset over rice fields with a drink is on the private option; the small group watches it from Phnom Bakheng. It is not suitable for children under eight.
See dates and prices for the two-day temple highlights
If you would rather spend day two off the main circuits altogether, the four-site version does that in one booking: Angkor Wat at sunrise, then Kulen Mountain, the uncleared ruin of Beng Mealea and the floating village of Kampong Phluk. On top of the tour price, the booking page lists the Angkor pass (37 US$), the Kulen Mountain pass (20 US$), the Beng Mealea pass (10 US$, or a valid Angkor pass) and the Tonle Sap boat ticket (15 US$), all per person.
See dates and prices for the two-day tour with Beng Mealea and Kampong Phluk
Going private buys two things: a guide and vehicle for your party alone, so you set the pace at each temple, and a guide in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or Japanese. Pickup is fixed at 08:30 on both days (05:00 on day two if you add the sunrise at checkout), there is no sunset in the itinerary, and lunch is not included. The price is for the group, up to two people, not per person – which makes it reasonable for a couple and pointless for anyone travelling alone.
The Angkor pass is separate in every case: 62 US$ for the three-day pass, which is the one that fits a two-day plan, and it is cheaper than buying two single days at 37 US$ each. The full arithmetic is in our pass guide.
Doing it by tuk-tuk instead works perfectly for the routing above, with one caveat worth repeating: a driver is not a guide, and on a two-day plan that gap gets wider, not narrower. By the fourth temple, “which king built this one” stops being a small question. If none of the five above fits, all 242 guided temple tours from Siem Reap are listed in order of how often they have been reviewed.
Two mistakes that cost a whole morning
Booking sunrise on both days. The second one is never as good, you are tired, and you have given up the afternoon light on Angkor Wat to get it. One sunrise, one sunset.
Saving the Bakan for “later”. Between the 07:40 opening, the 17:00 closing, and about four holy-day closures a month, the upper level is the one part of Angkor that can simply be unavailable on the day you finally get round to it. If it matters to you, go up on day one and ask at the gate that morning whether it is open at all.
The rest of Angkor will still be there on day two. That tier might not be.
Our recommendation
For most people, and for a small budget: the Angkor Wat 2-Day Tour with Sunrise and Sunset from €30.29. Rated 4.9/5 from 5,198 reviews, and built around the one decision that matters – sunrise once, sunset once.
If day two should feel like a different country: the two-day tour with Kulen Mountain, Beng Mealea and Kampong Phluk from €61.47. Add the Kulen, Beng Mealea and Tonle Sap fees to the tour price and expect a lot of time in a car, in exchange for a jungle ruin and a floating village instead of a fourth set of galleries.
For couples who refuse to be herded: the two-day private tour from €218.28 for the group. Your own guide, your own pace at each temple and your own language; pickup is at 08:30 (05:00 with the sunrise add-on), there is no sunset, and lunch is not included. It is not for solo travellers, and not for anyone counting euros.
For families with children under twelve: book one of the group tours – except the Temple Highlights tour, which is not suitable for children under eight – but know that the Bakan is closed to under-twelves whatever you pay, and that a 05:00 start lands hard on small children. Under-twelves enter the park free with a passport as proof of age. Two days of temples with children often works better as one day of temples and one day on the water.
If you only have one free morning: do not book a two-day tour at all. One guided day and the one-day pass is the honest answer, and our pass guide does that arithmetic.
