Cambodia: Angkor, Phnom Penh and a stretch of Mekong
It's not even five in the morning and I'm already sweating. Siem Reap is pitch dark, the tuk-tuk driver I'd arranged the night before is leaning on his handlebars half-asleep, and we set off down a black road toward the temples with the warm air rushing past like someone left an oven door open. I love this hour. Nobody sells you anything yet; the day hasn't decided what it'll be.
I came to Cambodia the way I travel everywhere: slowly, on a small budget, following markets and the smell of street food more than any itinerary. Angkor was the magnet, of course. But the country that wrapped itself around it — the dust, the palm trees, the brown thread of the Mekong — is what I actually fell for.
Sunrise over Angkor Wat
You've seen the photo a thousand times: the five towers, the pink sky, the reflection in the pond. What the photo doesn't tell you is the crowd murmuring in the dark, the frogs, the moment the silhouette slowly bleeds out of the night. It's touristy and it's overwhelming and both things are true at once. I'd bought my pass the day before to skip the morning queue, and I'd screenshotted a temple map onto my phone — because out among the ruins, the signal gets thin and you don't want to be hunting for bars at dawn.
After Angkor Wat I let the tuk-tuk carry me around the wider site for hours: the giant stone faces of the Bayon, the tree roots strangling Ta Prohm like something out of a dream. My driver waited in the shade, we agreed a price for the whole day, and somewhere around noon the heat won and we both gave up gracefully for a cold sugarcane juice.
« You don't visit Angkor. You let it slowly rearrange you. »
About connectivity, since that's the house specialty: in town, data was genuinely cheap and genuinely good — I'd installed an eSIM before flying in, and in Siem Reap and later in Phnom Penh it just worked, fast enough for maps, messages, the odd video call home. Out among the temples and once I got into the countryside it thinned out, dropping to something slower or vanishing in patches. Honestly, that's fine. I'd rather have a strong signal in the cities where I need to book a bus or find a guesthouse, and a quiet phone in front of a thousand-year-old wall.
Phnom Penh, loud and tender
I took the bus down to the capital — long, flat, cheap, the landscape sliding by in shades of green and dust. Phnom Penh hits you like a wall of sound: motorbikes everywhere, riverside cafés, the Royal Palace glittering, and the markets I'd come for. I spent a whole morning lost in the Russian Market, haggling gently over a scarf I didn't need, eating noodles on a plastic stool. The city also holds heavier places — the memorials of the Khmer Rouge years — and I went, quietly, because you can't really understand the warmth of this country without sitting for a moment with its grief.
Here the eSIM earned its keep again: ride-hailing apps work in Phnom Penh, so I'd order a tuk-tuk through my phone instead of negotiating in the heat, and I could send my family a live video walking the riverfront at dusk, when the whole city seems to come outside to breathe.
A stretch of the Mekong
I couldn't leave without putting my feet near the river that ties this whole region together. I took a slow boat out for an afternoon, past stilt houses and fishermen and kids waving from the banks, the Mekong wide and brown and utterly unbothered by any of us. Out there the signal mostly gave up — and I let it. I'd told everyone where I was going the night before, from the guesthouse wifi, and then I just watched the water. Some afternoons aren't meant to be posted in real time.
📶 Camille's tip
Cambodia is outside the EU, so your European roaming won't follow you here — sort out your data before you land. Set up your eSIM before the flight so it's live the second you reach Siem Reap or Phnom Penh, where coverage is cheap and solid; expect it to get patchy out among the temples and in the countryside, so download an offline map and screenshot your temple plan and bus bookings in advance. Check your phone's compatibility in 30 seconds here and find your Cambodia plan on the destinations page (for an EU/EEA trip, you can use the Europe plan instead).
What I take away
Cambodia gave me the two things I chase hardest: temples that make you feel very small, and markets that make you feel very alive — with tuk-tuks rattling between them and a heat that forces you to slow down whether you like it or not. Strong signal in the cities for the practical stuff, a quiet phone at sunrise and on the river for everything that matters more. That's the right balance, and this country knows it.
— Camille, somewhere between a temple and a market stall.