Cycling around the Angkor Archaeological Park, Siem Reap

Cycling is the cheapest and most environmentally friendly way to travel around the Angkor Archaeological Park, which has a recently built network of dedicated bicycle tracks that makes cycling in the park even safer.

• Costs:
  • Pass into the Angkor Archaeological Park : $37 USD for a single day, $62 USD for three days, and $72 USD for a week.
  • Bicycle Rental: $2 to $8 USD per day depending on the bike.
  • Guided cycle tours: $40 to $90 USD per day including bike hire, but not the cost of entry into the park.
• Opening hours: 05:00 to 18:00.

About Cycling around the Angkor Archaeological Park

The Angkor Archaeological Park covers a huge area of over 400 square kilometres so you need transport to visit. The most famous temples are within a few kilometres of each other but nonetheless trying to visit on foot isn’t going to work. The most popular transport options for visiting the park are to rent a tuk-tuk and driver for the day ($10 to $15 USD), an air-conditioned taxi (around $30 USD a day) or a motorbike taxi ($10 USD a day or less if you bargain hard). However, we recommend that if you are fit and able that you forgo the carbon emitting motorised transport and opt instead for pedal power.

To help you decide on whether to visit the Angkor Archaeological Park by bicycle here are the upside and downsides:

• Good points of hiring a bike to visit the Angkor Archaeological Park:
  •  It’s cheap.
  • It’s good for the planet.
  • It’s good exercise.
  • You can move around the park at entirely your own pace.
  • No difficult negotiations with tuk-tuk or taxi drivers.
• Bad points of hiring a bike to visit the Angkor Archaeological Park:
  • It’s a 6 km ride along a busy road from Siem Reap to Angkor Archaeological Park (although most bike rental shops can arrange to drive you and the bike to the park and back for a fee).
  • It’s hot in Cambodia.
  • If the bike breaks down, you will have a problem.
  • The absence of a guide means you don’t get the history of the temples explained (in which case a guided bike tour is an option).

There are lots of different routes you can take around the Angkor Archaeological Park, although bearing in mind you can’t stay overnight in the park at all the range of things you can see by day on a bicycle is limited. By far the two most most popular cycle routes around the park are:

• Little Circuit (17 km): This route goes past Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, and then turns sharply to the East past Takeo and Ta Prohm Temples, and Banteay Kdei before veering south back to the entrance to the park.
• Big Circuit (26 km): This route also goes past Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and then continues northward towards Preah Khan, before turning east to Preah Neak Pean and then south towards the Ta Som, East Mebon and Preah Rup. After which you head back to the entrance to the park.

Both routes are really good. If you have two days spare we recommend that you do both, visiting Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom on the first day whilst doing the Little Circuit and then bypassing these two temples on the second day when you do the Big Circuit.

Location of Grasshopper Adventures in Siem Reap

Grasshopper Adventures is located 7 km by road from Angkor Wat. Grasshopper Adventures offers both good quality bikes for rent and good quality guided bicycle tours. They are not the cheapest, but they are one of the best for both rentals and tours.