Two days in Siem Reap split cleanly in half: one with the people who live here — social enterprises, a farming village, a cooking fire — and one with the temples they have lived beside for eight hundred years.
The Siem Reap Green Journey is a 2 day responsible-travel tour of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Day one is spent with the community: a female-driven tuk tuk, the APOPO landmine-detection visitor centre, lunch at a social-enterprise training restaurant, a walk through Chhreav farming village and a hands-on Khmer cooking dinner at sunset. Day two covers Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom, the Bayon and Angkor Wat at their quietest hours, with a village noodle-making class in between. It is built for travellers who want their spending to stay local.
The restaurants, drivers, guides and village hosts on this itinerary are local businesses and social enterprises. Nothing on day one routes through an international operator.
Day one runs on a female-driven tuk tuk — still unusual in Cambodia, and a direct, checkable piece of income for the driver and her family.
Day two is timed around the crowds rather than the opening times: Ta Prohm early, the Bayon after the coach groups have moved on, Angkor Wat at golden hour.
Cambodia still contains millions of unexploded landmines. APOPO trains African giant pouched rats to detect them by scent — light enough not to trigger a mine, fast enough to clear in thirty minutes what takes a human four days.
Lunch at a training restaurant that takes on young Cambodians from difficult backgrounds and puts them through a full hospitality apprenticeship. The food is very good; the point is who cooked it.
An afternoon in Chhreav, then a sunset cooking fire — and on day two, rice-noodle making in Preah Dak, a village that has been making them the same way for generations.
Early at Ta Prohm, breakfast beside the Srah Srang reservoir, then Angkor Thom, the Bayon and Angkor Wat as the light turns.
Every timing below is a starting point, not a rule. Tell us your flights and we rebuild the shape of the trip around them.
A 10:00 AM start, a tuk tuk, and a day spent with the enterprises and villages that make this town work.
Your driver for the day is a woman working in a trade that is still overwhelmingly male in Cambodia.
The landmine-detection rats, the demining story, and the scale of what is still buried in this country.
A social-enterprise kitchen training young Cambodians into hospitality careers.
A few hours off through the hottest part of the day.
A walk through a working farming village — rice, livestock, kitchen gardens and whoever happens to be on the porch.
A hands-on Khmer cooking session out in the countryside, eaten as the sun goes down over the paddies.
Early, but not brutal — and with a village morning folded into the middle.
The jungle temple first, while the light is soft and the galleries are close to empty.
At a locally owned restaurant beside the old royal bathing reservoir.
A village walk and a hands-on rice-noodle class — the staple of Khmer breakfast, made from scratch.
The walled city and its stone faces, after the morning coaches have cleared out.
Finishing at the largest religious monument on earth, in the best light of the day.
5 days / 4 nights
The full arc of Cambodia — the capital's difficult history, the countryside between, and sunrise over Angkor Wat.
3 days / 3 nights
Two golden hours a day, a long rest in between, and no 4am alarm. Angkor at a human pace.
Send your dates and group size. We come back with a costed version of this trip, reshaped around you.
Plan Green Journey