PHNOM BAKHENG FAMOUS TOURIST RESORT

PHNOM BAKHENG Remains very popular..                                         

After visiting Angkor Wat Temple, where will you go ?

From the hotel in the morning, get yourself a remork. Let’s go to the ticket booth even before they open the counter. Purchase a US$20-pax pass & straight away go to the nearest check-point & there go using a 1-day pass on the free day towards Angkor Wat complex.

Stop to snap few pictures at the entrance and rush into Angkor Wat Complex for almost the whole morning to move from place to place to read all the Khmer heritages.

Phnom Bakheng is the only temple built on top of a hill which can be accessed by two ways, one way is by foot and another is by taking an elephant ride up the slopes. The climb to the temple is reasonably difficult, but not impossible. There are many other places, but people still come here in throngs. This place is famous for sunset as everyday hundreds of tourists flock to enjoy the sunset, offering a view of the Tonle Sap Lake and a distant Angkor Wat, you can spot Angkor Wat from afar. Always overcrowded at sunset.

Be there early, and you might get a place where you can actually see the sun setting over Tonle Sap lake. Be there late, and you'll only see the backs of thousands of people. Sunset on Phnom Bakheng is not really recommendable if you're looking for a romantic thing to do with your girlfriend, but if you want to take some interesting photos, this is the place to be. 

 First, you can watch and document people's strange attempts to climb up the steep stairs of the temple. Second, you can watch the crowd go crazy when the sun approaches the surface of Tonle Sap lake, illuminating it magically with its intensive orange light. They will even start applauding! Third, and this is the no-nonsense thing about sunset on Phnom Bakheng, you can take photos in the best light conditions when everybody else is hectically descending down the hill and the temple empties in some minutes. 


Once you get to the top, you face a new challenge: getting a place to sit and wait for the fabled sunset! and get your sunset shot. Well, a lot of local and foreign tourists ! smiling, laughing, chatting, enjoying new life on the top of Phnom Bakheng !

At 6pm, there are 1000 people, at 6.05pm, there are 500 people and at 6.15pm it's just you and some others. Phnom Bakheng closes at 6.30pm, you'd better pack up quickly and hurry downhill, to 1) not get trampled by the crowd, and 2) still have some daylight left, so you can see where you set foot.