Angkor Small Circuit vs Grand Circuit: Which Temples, in Which Order

The small circuit is roughly seventeen kilometres and covers Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom with the Bayon, and Ta Prohm. If you have one day, this is the day.

Angkor Wat was built in the first half of the 12th century by Suryavarman II as a Hindu temple to Vishnu and later turned to Buddhist use. At around 162 hectares inside its moat it is the largest religious monument on earth. The outer gallery carries about 600 metres of continuous bas-relief — the Churning of the Ocean of Milk on the east side is the one to find — and the central towers are a model of Mount Meru. The upper level enforces its dress code at the stairs: shoulders and knees covered, no vests, no argument.

Angkor Thom is not a temple but a walled city, laid out by Jayavarman VII around 1200 behind eight metres of wall and a moat, with five gates whose causeways are lined by gods and demons hauling on a serpent. At its centre the Bayon carries over 200 enormous serene faces. The thing most visitors miss is at eye level: the outer galleries show not gods but ordinary Khmer life — markets, a cockfight, a woman giving birth, the naval battle against the Chams. This is the single best argument for hiring a guide.

Ta Prohm is the one the French conservators deliberately left half-swallowed, so silk-cotton and strangler fig roots still pour over the galleries. Jayavarman VII built it in 1186 as a Buddhist monastery and university, and an inscription records that it supported more than 12,500 people, with another 80,000 in the villages that fed it.

The grand circuit runs about twenty-six kilometres around the outside of Angkor Thom and takes in Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon and Pre Rup. Most visitors never do it, which is precisely the point.

Preah Khan is the one to give real time to. Built by the same king as Ta Prohm and larger, it has the same trees through the same galleries with a tenth of the visitors, and a long processional axis you can walk end to end almost alone. If the queue for Ta Prohm's famous tree has turned into a twenty-minute shuffle by mid-morning — and it does — Preah Khan is the honest substitute rather than a consolation.

Neak Pean is a small island temple set in a reservoir, reached on a boardwalk. In the wet months it is one of the loveliest things in the park; in the dry months the reservoir empties and the boardwalk crosses mud. Worth checking before you build a morning around it.

East Mebon's stone elephants stand at the corners of what used to be an island in an enormous artificial lake. Standing there and realising the ground you drove across was under water tells you more about Khmer hydraulic engineering than any museum panel.

Pre Rup is where the day should end. It is the better of the two sunset temples — warm laterite that goes properly orange, a view over uninterrupted forest, and none of the scrum at Phnom Bakheng, which caps its numbers and starts queueing in the middle of the afternoon.

One day: small circuit, no question. Sunrise at Angkor Wat if you want it, the temple's interior when the crowd goes to breakfast, Angkor Thom and the Bayon late morning, Ta Prohm in the afternoon.

Two days: small circuit, then the far temples — Banteay Srei 37 kilometres north-east, consecrated in 967 and carved in a pink sandstone that holds detail nothing else here keeps, plus Beng Mealea, a 12th-century temple on Angkor Wat's scale left uncleared and crossed on walkways over its own collapse.

Three days: add the grand circuit, and put it in the middle rather than last. It is the gentlest of the three days and it works better as a breather between the small circuit and a long drive out to Koh Ker than as a tired finale.

Four days or more: the outlying sites. Koh Ker, two hours north-east, was the capital for about two decades in the 10th century and has Prasat Thom, a seven-tiered sandstone pyramid 36 metres high with a wooden stair to the top. Preah Vihear sits on a cliff on the Thai border, three to three and a half hours each way, with a final climb by local 4x4. Both charge their own admission on top of the Angkor pass.

Remember the pass arithmetic: the three-day pass spans a ten-day window, so a day off in the middle costs nothing. At four temple days the seven-day pass at USD 72 is cheaper than the alternatives.

Tuk-tuk is the normal way and the right one for most people on the small circuit. Around USD 18–25 for the day, open sides so you get air moving, and the driver waits at each temple rather than dropping you — which is why it is hired by the day, not by the trip.

Private car with driver runs roughly USD 35–55 a day and earns it from March to May, when the heat sits in the mid-thirties from late morning, and on the long runs to Banteay Srei, Koh Ker or Preah Vihear.

Bicycle or e-bike is genuinely good from November to February and genuinely punishing in April. The small circuit's seventeen kilometres is flat and the back lanes between temples are the best part of the day — rice fields, villages, no buses. The grand circuit's twenty-six kilometres is a longer but quieter ride. Start at dawn and be off the bike by noon.

A licensed guide costs USD 35–45 a day on top of transport. Take one for Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat, where nothing is labelled. You do not need one for Banteay Srei, Pre Rup or the lake. Cambodian guides are registered with the Ministry of Tourism and wear a numbered badge, which is worth glancing at.

Water and shade. There is no shade in the Angkor Wat courtyards and almost none on the Bayon's upper terrace. Carry more water than feels sensible, start early, and take the middle of the day off in the hot months — the temples are still there at four o'clock.