Siem Reap
War Museum Cambodia
Understanding modern Cambodia through the people who fought its wars
Understanding modern Cambodia through the people who fought its wars
The War Museum Cambodia is an open-air museum in Siem Reap displaying tanks, artillery, aircraft, weapons and landmines from Cambodia's wars between 1970 and the late 1990s. Its guides are veterans, many of them landmine survivors, who share their own experiences. It is open daily from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm, entry is $5 with a guide included, and a visit takes one to one and a half hours.
September 2026
Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
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The War Museum Cambodia in Siem Reap is an open-air collection of tanks, artillery, aircraft, weapons and landmines from the country’s three decades of conflict, from the civil war of the 1970s to the last years of the Khmer Rouge in the 1990s. Its guides are veterans, many of them landmine survivors, who share their own stories as they walk you round.
At first glance it looks like a garden of rusting machinery: tanks and armoured carriers half-hidden under mango trees, a helicopter and a fighter jet on the lawn. The objects are interesting, but the real value of the visit is the people. Walking round with a man who fought in these wars, and who may have lost a leg to a mine, turns old metal into history you will not forget.
Most visitors know about the Khmer Rouge years of 1975 to 1979. Fewer realise that Cambodia was at war, in one form or another, for almost thirty years. The museum covers that whole period, and the guides fill in what the labels leave out.
Siem Reap province saw heavy fighting in this period, and parts of the Angkor area were front lines. Landmines left from these years have killed and injured many thousands of Cambodians since, and clearance continues today.
Most of the collection is outdoors, spread through a shaded garden, with a few open-sided sheds for smaller weapons and ordnance. Everything has been made safe.
Soviet-made T-54 tanks and armoured personnel carriers, rusting where they stand. Some came from battlefields around the country.
A Mil Mi-8 transport helicopter and a Shenyang J-6 fighter, the Chinese-built version of the MiG-19.
Field guns, anti-aircraft guns, mortars and truck-mounted rocket launchers used by the different armies of the period.
Cases of defused anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, with explanations of how they were laid and why they are still so dangerous.
AK-47s, machine guns, helmets and field gear. Guides may let you hold some of the deactivated weapons.
Photographs and information boards on the wars, the landmine problem and the lives of those affected.
The museum’s guides are former soldiers, and many are landmine survivors. Some fought for the government, some for the Khmer Rouge or other factions, and several served on more than one side over the years, as many Cambodians of their generation did.
A guide is included with your ticket. They explain the equipment, but the heart of the visit is their own experience: how they were recruited, what they saw, and how they rebuilt their lives. Ask questions gently and let them decide how much to share. A tip at the end is customary and much appreciated. For many of the guides, this work is also a way of making sure a younger generation of Cambodians, and visitors, do not forget.
| Opening hours | Every day, 8:00 am to 5:30 pm |
|---|---|
| Entry | $5 per person; confirm locally |
| Guide | Included in the ticket; tips welcome |
| Payment | Cash, US dollars or riel |
| Time needed | One to one and a half hours |
| Setting | Mostly outdoors, on grass and unpaved paths |
The museum is on the western side of Siem Reap, a few hundred metres off National Road 6, the road towards the old airport. From the Old Market or Pub Street it is 10 to 15 minutes by tuk-tuk. PassApp and Grab both work well, and many tuk-tuk drivers will wait for you.
It fits neatly into an afternoon after a morning at the temples, or into a half-day in town combined with the memorial at Wat Thmey.
If you have seen enough temples for one day, this makes a thoughtful afternoon that shows a different side of the town:
Check APOPO’s tour times before you set off, as visits there run on a schedule. The three stops are all within a short tuk-tuk ride of each other.
The APOPO Visitor Centre shows the other side of the landmine story: how trained rats help clear Cambodia’s remaining minefields. It makes a hopeful companion to the War Museum.
For the Khmer Rouge years themselves, the Wat Thmey memorial on the road to the temples is Siem Reap’s memorial to the victims. In Phnom Penh, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek tell that story in far greater depth.
We often add the War Museum and APOPO to a slower day in Siem Reap, so that our guests leave with a sense of modern Cambodia as well as the temples. Both fit well into our Siem Reap Slow Travel and Phnom Penh & Angkor Discovery journeys. Tell us your interests and we will shape the day around them.