The Angkor Wat and Floating Village 3-Day Trip runs over three full days, each with a different rhythm.

Day one covers the classic small circuit and ends with sunset from a hilltop.

Day two heads out to distant temples and the Tonle Sap lake.

Day three begins before dawn for the famous sunrise at Angkor Wat.

All timings below follow the standard schedule; because the trip is private, your guide can adjust any stop to match your pace and the weather.

Day 1: The Small Circuit and Sunset from Phnom Bakheng

Day one of the Angkor Wat and Floating Village 3-Day Trip runs as a small group day tour and begins with hotel pickup in Siem Reap between 8:00 and 8:30 am. Your guide and the private vehicle take you first to the Angkor ticket office, where you buy the Angkor pass that covers entry to every temple in the park.

By 9:00 am you reach the South Gate of Angkor Thom, the last capital of the Khmer empire. The causeway is lined with statues of gods and demons pulling a giant naga serpent, and the gate tower itself carries four enormous stone faces looking in four directions.

From 9:15 to 11:45 you walk through the walled city: the Bayon, with its 216 smiling faces carved into the central towers; the Baphuon, a tall pyramid of sandstone rebuilt block by block; the Phimeanakas temple inside the old royal palace grounds; the Terrace of the Elephants, a long parade wall decorated with hunting scenes; and the Terrace of the Leper King, with its rows of carved guardians.

Lunch comes at 12:00 at a local restaurant near the temples, with a vegetarian option available. A short break follows at about 12:30 in Preah Dak Village, where you can see how families live beside the temples of Angkor.

At 1:10 pm you enter Ta Prohm, known worldwide as the Tomb Raider temple. Here huge fig trees and silk-cotton trees have grown over and through the stone galleries, and the roots wrap doorways and courtyards in a way no other temple repeats.

From 2:20 to 4:20 you visit Angkor Wat itself, the largest religious monument on earth. The walk across the long causeway leads to the famous bas-relief galleries, a near kilometer of carved scenes from the Ramayana and the Churning of the Sea of Milk, then up the steep stairways of the central sanctuary.

At 4:30 you leave Angkor Wat and walk up the slopes of Phnom Bakheng, a hilltop temple built in the 9th century. From the summit you watch the sunset spread across the jungle and the towers of Angkor Wat in the distance. The vehicle meets you at the base around 6:15 pm and returns you to your hotel by 6:45 pm.

Day 2: The Outer Circuit, Banteay Srei, and Kampong Phluk

The second day of the Angkor Wat and Floating Village 3-Day Trip switches to the outer circuit, and pickup is again at 8:00 am, this time in a private air-conditioned vehicle. The ride out is part of the day: you leave the temple park and pass through farming country on the way to Banteay Srei, about an hour's ride from Siem Reap.

At about 9:00 am you reach Banteay Srei, the pink sandstone temple built in the 10th century and known as the Citadel of Women. Its walls carry some of the finest carving in all of Angkor, with delicate scenes of Shiva, Krishna, and other Hindu gods cut into the rose colored stone. The next stop is Beng Mealea at around 10:30 am, a sprawling temple built in the 12th century that was never fully restored. Trees grow out of collapsing towers, hallways are blocked by fallen blocks, and the jungle covers most of the site, so you scramble over stones much as early visitors did.

By noon you turn back toward the Roluos Group, the oldest temples in the Angkor area. Bakong, the first temple mountain of the Khmer empire, rises in five tiers; Preah Ko stands nearby with its six brick towers; Lolei sits on an island in a dried reservoir. Together they date to the late 9th century and show where Khmer temple building began. A local lunch break fits in around 1:00 pm before the afternoon on the water.

From about 2:30 pm you spend the heart of the afternoon at Kampong Phluk, the stilt village on the Tonle Sap lake. A private boat carries you through the flooded mangrove forest, where the trunks stand in the water, then out to the open lake. The village houses rise on tall wooden stilts, and the boat passes the local school, the pagoda, and the fishing families who live above the water.

You glide back through the forest at around 5:00 pm and reach your hotel in Siem Reap by about 6:00 pm. Because this part of the Angkor Wat and Floating Village 3-Day Trip is private, you and your guide may swap the order of Banteay Srei, Beng Mealea, the Roluos Group, and Kampong Phluk. This matters most in the rainy season, when high water alters how the village appears and how far the boat can travel.

Day 3: Sunrise at Angkor Wat and the Countryside

The closing day of the Angkor Wat and Floating Village 3-Day Trip starts in the dark. The vehicle departs your hotel at 4:40 am, and by 5:10 you are inside the park at the north reflecting pool, ready for the magnificent sunrise over Angkor Wat. As the sky lightens, the five towers mirror themselves in the still water, and the clouds pick up gold, orange, and pink before the sun climbs above the horizon. This is the moment the whole trip is arranged around, and the early start means you share the causeway with few other visitors.

After the sun is fully up at around 6:40 am, you walk through the galleries of Angkor Wat in the soft morning light before the heat arrives. By 8:00 am you are seated at a local family restaurant in Siem Reap for breakfast.

From 9:00 to 10:00 am you stop at Preah Dak Village, where you see rural living around the temples of Angkor: houses on stilts, kitchen gardens, and the family ovens where palm cake is baked. You taste the warm palm cake right after it comes out, an everyday local treat made from palm sugar and rice flour.

The last loop of the Angkor Wat and Floating Village 3-Day Trip takes in five more temples, all of them with space to wander. At about 10:15 am you climb Pre Rup, the brick and laterite state temple of King Rajendravarman II from the 10th century, where the view over the plain is one of the widest in the park. Preah Khan follows at 11:00 am; built by King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century to honor his father, it stretches across an enormous courtyard with long vaulted corridors, carved garudas, and a two story pavilion at its center.

Just before noon you cross a wooden bridge over the water to Neak Pean, whose Khmer name means the coiled serpents, with its central tower rising from a circular pool.

At about 12:15 you reach East Mebon, a temple mountain that once stood on an island in the now dry East Baray; giant stone elephants guard its four corners. The final stop is Banteay Kdei at about 12:30 pm, a quiet Buddhist temple from the 12th century where the corridors are cool and the crowds are thin.

From there the guide returns you to Siem Reap, and you are at your hotel right around 1:00 pm, completing the Angkor Wat and Floating Village 3-Day Trip. From the sunrise over the towers to the boat ride through the flooded forest, the trip carries you from the stone temples of the Khmer empire to the floating houses of the Tonle Sap.