Travelfish newsletter Issue 341 : Is Angkor Wat crowded and if so what to do?

Feb 27, 2019

Hi all,

This week the newsletter is late due to a lack of WiFi—sorry! New on the site is Kompong Thom, updated into a new shiny PDF for Travelfish members. Coming this week is Khao Sok National Park in southern Thailand.

The kind of place where even a door frame is beautiful. Photo: Caroline Major

This week’s Soap Box on the crowding at Angkor Wat. The piece got so long we’ve stuck with just that this week. We’re sure you have some thoughts on the crowds at Angkor, so please do let us know what you think! Will be returning with the interview and news wrap format next week.

Good travels,

Stuart, Sam and the Travelfish crew

Support Travelfish!

If you'd like to chip in (if you haven’t already) for using the site, we'd love you to sign up for a year-long subscription for just A$35. See more here.

Soapbox

Is Angkor Wat crowded and if so what to do?

Last week I spent three days traipsing around Angkor Wat with my mother. It had been quite a few years between visits, and after reading so many stories about the overcrowding, I was surprised at just how uncrowded it actually was.

Angkor Wat gets way more crowded than this. Photo: Caroline Major

Yes it was late February, so angling towards shoulder season, and the weather has been incredibly hot, which we were sure was keeping some people at bay, and yes we were quite selective in which temples we visited and when—but none of this is a particularly secret sauce.

We started with Banteay Kdei and Srah Srang—a minor temple and major pond. Arriving late afternoon, we had the site largely to ourselves. Walking all the way through, we saw perhaps a dozen other tourists—in total. Lingering at the western end of the temple watching the setting light dapple through the trees and onto the ruins, it was just us, one other tourist and a friendly security guard who politely asked us to make our way out as it was closing time. For my mother, who had never been to Cambodia before, it was a magical introduction to the ruins.

Premium members only:

Book a round the world with roundtheworldflights.com (must travel from the UK via Asia, Australia, New Zealand AND the Americas) and get £30pp off your trip. Offer valid for departures to December 2019.

start designing your own round the world trip »

The next morning, we went for what we expected to be the major mob scene, Angkor Wat at dawn. And yes, it was busy, with the pre-dawn people pouring in and setting up by the two ponds. We went instead for perching ourself on the ledge of one of the libraries and watching the sun rise from there. By the time the sun broke the horizon there were perhaps 500 people between the two libraries, the ponds and the rear inner wall. It sounds like a lot, but Angkor Wat is vast and handled them reasonably well.

Churning the sea of milk. Photo: Caroline Major

Later, we approached the main affair and made our way around the bas–reliefs. It wasn’t till we got to the Churning Of The Sea Of Milk that it started to feel busy, but it was still far from intolerable. We spent another 45 minutes walking around the bas-reliefs, then entered the inner sanctum. Here the crowds were starting to be felt, and, another 30 minutes later as we walked out of the site, the groups were pouring in—and I mean pouring. Hundreds of people—often in very large groups of 30 to 40 people apiece, with guides using microphones to talk to them, were trundling in to the site.

That afternoon, we hit the Bayon. It was around 4pm and boiling hot, and while there were a fair number of people there, it still felt manageable—the monument was breathtakingly beautiful in the late afternoon light. It was also totally bereft of large groups.

Travelfish partners

GetYourGuide lists a vast selection of short tours to and around Angkor Wat including sunrise tours, sunset tours and everything in between tours. See their website for more information..

The following late morning we started with exploring Angkor Thom on foot, wandering the Baphuon, the Royal Palace and the Terraces. We started later, not getting in there till around 11am, so it was hot as, but the crowds were well spread around, with little in the way of queues and still plenty of opportunities to take photos with the site looking deserted. It was only when we reached the Terraces, alongside two large 20+ groups where we decided to cut our visit short and move on.

You’ll be lucky to see Angkor with this few people. Photo from 2007. Photo: Stuart McDonald

Ta Phrom was another late afternoon choice—we didn't arrive till about 4pm and while it wasn’t deserted like Banteay Kdei was that first afternoon, it was still far from the mob scene I expected. The site has so many small and hidden away enclosures I was easily able to stand in one filming a panorama, with the birds calling overhead and not a human voice to be heard. Then a group walked in—36 people accompanied by a guide with a microphone—and the calm was shattered.

That day for sunset, rather than trying the forever famously mobbed Bakong for sunset we went with Pre Rup. By the time we got there around 5:15pm the ledge of the top terrace was already full, so we dropped to the second terrace where there was still plenty of perching space. By the time the sun set though, there were people standing close behind us and the top level was humming with crowds. Again, even for sunset, get there early.

On our final morning, we drove out to Banteay Srei, a compact but lovely site about 45 minutes from Siem Reap. We arrived on opening and shared the site with less than a handful of others. By the time we walked out at 9am there were 18 tour buses in the car park. It would have been awful with all those people.

The summit of Bakheng is not always a madhouse. Photo: Caroline Major

So, there is no secret sauce. Go early, earlier the better. Allow yourself enough time so you can sit and wait for a tour group wave to roll past you—they’re all in such a hurry they don’t linger long and the peace returns rapidly.

More broadly, from the authority’s point of view, setting a maximum group size of a dozen people (and thereby removing the need for microphones) would be a game changer in improving the experience for everyone.

All this said, visit a top shelf monument in peak season and at a peak time and you will most likely encounter peak crowds. With this in mind, here are some thoughts for a multi-faceted approach for the Apsara Authority to consider (should they be reading):

Group control

This is the obvious clanger and I'd expect would see severe resistance from tour groups due to the increased cost for them, but a strict limit should be introduced onto the groups entering the park. There are two reasons for this:

Late light to the summit. Photo: Caroline Major

Firstly the larger groups (20+) which have a guide with a microphone badly damage the ambience for everyone else. When you’re trying to admire bas-reliefs flanked by large groups with guides using microphones—in different languages—you cannot think straight.

Secondly, many of the monuments have beautiful small enclosures which would be flat out fitting a 30+ group into—and even if you manage it, what about anyone else?

I’d suggest a maximum group size of six, which would remove the need for a microphone and allow for less crowding as each group would move at its own pace—or follow a different route through a monument (more on this later).

Not peak hour. Photo: Caroline Major

Tour groups won’t be keen on this because of the cost of engaging extra guides—this could be addressed in part by using audio guides (more on that later), or by offering the guiding as an optional add on to guests—many people at the monuments don’t use a guide at all and there are plenty of excellent alternatives (in audio, print and online) for exploring the monuments in a self-guided manner.

Group control part two

The large tour bus groups, often with groups above forty, need to be convinced of the benefits for everyone else in them either reducing the size of their groups, or being more imaginative in their offerings so they are not all doing the same routing at the same time. 10 am at Angkor Wat is a procession of group after group ... after group of 30 to 40+ people. This is an awful experience for everyone, including those on the group. Break them up or steer tham away.

Travelfish partners

Looking for a hotel in Siem Reap?

Get an extra 7% off selected properties in Siem Reap and Cambodia with the coupon code “Tfishpromo”.

Crowd steerage

While many are not keen on the wooden walkways that are appearing at many monuments, they do have many benefits. They help protect the monuments and, one would hope, reduce the number of sprained ankles people score when clamouring over tumbledown parts of temples.

Not as overgrown as Ta Phrom, but getting there. Photo: Caroline Major

Unfortunately these generally run in a single direction or have no clear flow to them. An improved system could have them colour coded into a series of routes (say red, blue, and green marked by coloured tape on the floorboards) so that people could choose to follow an alternative route if one was looking too busy. Likewise groups could be forced to alternate between them, (group 1 takes red, group 2 takes blue, group 3 takes green) again dividing up their numbers and impact. Furthermore the existence of say a red, blue and green track at Ta Phrom would be a boon to audio tour providers to offer three alternative tracks guiding people through.

Feel like you missed something on the red trail? Turn around and walk the blue trail, then the green trail—what is the rush? Of course, if you want to go off piste and explore in your own chosen direction, of course that should be permitted—as long as you are in a group of four or smaller.

Audio tours

I had some excellent experiences with audio tours recently in Phnom Penh—the audio tours for Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields in particular are excellent and very easy to follow. I tried a couple at Angkor but the main issue I had was the points where you should start listening are not always clear or correct, meaning you start listening and can’t figure out what the recording is referring to.

Entering the basket of bottles. Photo: Caroline Major

This is largely a problem because listening points are not clearly marked at the ruins, unlike to Tuol Sleng/Killing Fields where each point is numbered and signposted. If there was an official recording for each monument (Angkor Wat has one, but none of the other monuments do that I noticed) then it could easily be tied to marked points along the way. Yes this would be a problem when there are a plethora of recordings by other providers, so we would suggest only marking it for the official recording. The others though could often do a far better job explaining where you should be standing or sitting when you push play.

Audio tours could be arranged for a surcharge on the price of the existing ticket, so, if you didn’t want it, you would still be able to explore with your own information or a traditional guide.

Travelfish partners

GetYourGuide lists a vast selection of short tours to and around Angkor Wat including sunrise tours, sunset tours and everything in between tours. See their website for more information..

The primary advantage of the audio tours is they immediately give the traveller the means to wander totally at their own pace, which should allow the crowds to further spread out. A secondary advantage is with no guides chatting away, the monuments will be quieter and with fewer distractions. A third advantage is the quality and presentation of the tours could be streamlined to a higher standard. The disadvantage of course is if you happen to be an Angkor tour guide, this isn’t such a hot prospect for your future employment, though that said, the vast majority of visitors I saw were not using an official guide anyway.

Straight from the set of Alien. Photo: Caroline Major

Temple tiering

What is a must see temple? When is the best time to see a must see temple? Angkor at dawn...Bakong at sunset... Authorities could consider tiering temples into “Premium” and “all the rest” and limit access accordingly, with one important caveat, being—you can see anything you want in a non-peak time of the day.

For example, lets say the top temples (by popularity, not necessarily by “quality”) are: Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Phrom and Bakong. Regardless of what pass you are on, you are only permitted to see one of these premium temples in a day. So, if you see Angkor Wat at dawn, you can't see Bakong after 4:30pm (for sunset) and you can’t see Bayon before 10am or after 4pm. If you do want to see both at peak times, then you’ll just not be able to see them on the same day.

This could be a little complicated to set-up and I’d imagine the tour groups would be totally and utterly not on board with this, but in one way the management of something like this would be simple because most of the temples are designed like fortresses.

Do watch your step. Photo: Caroline Major

A temple as a fortress

Many of the sites are designed like fortresses, with specific, clearly positioned entrances and exits. Because of this, the sites do lend themselves to a more granular ticketing approach—as it is tickets are often closely examined when you enter a specific site.

Alternatives

When you buy your Angkor Pass, it would be really helpful to be given a leaflet suggesting alternative, less busy sites. For instance, instead of Ta Phrom, head to Banteay Kdei, swap Bakong for Pre Rup, see Angkor at sunset rather than sunrise and so on. The sheer variety of temples can be overwhelming for the first time visitor and some gentle pushing in another direction is often all that would be needed.

Just ignore all the above and get out of bed early!

So what do you think? Is Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples overcrowded? How do you think crowds could be better managed? Please tell us how you approach the ruins.

You're receiving the Travelfish newsletter because you signed up at Travelfish.org.

Travelfish weekly newsletter

Discussion about this post