Gateway to Angkor Wat
Siem Reap has colonial and Chinese-style architecture in the Old French Quarter, and around the Old Market. In town, there are Apsara dance performances, craft shops, silk farms, rice-paddy countryside, fishing villages and a bird sanctuary near the Tonle Sap Lake. It is the gateway city for nearby Angkor Wat.
Siem Reap today, being a popular tourist destination, has a large number of hotels and restaurants. Most smaller establishments are concentrated around the Old Market area, while more expensive hotels are located between Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport and the town along National Road 6. There are a variety of mid-range hotels and restaurants along Sivatha, and budget to mid-range hotels in the Phsar Leu area.
Khmer food
Traditional Cambodian cuisine is one of detail, of small amounts of fresh ingredients with intriguing textures, complex aromas and exhilarating flavours, combined to create a distinctly light, delicate and healthy cuisine.
Fist, both fresh and its preserved forms – prahok (fermented) and trei chha-ae (smoked), plentiful from the Great Lake (Tonle Sap) and the Mekong River are predominant components of Cambodian cuisine, as are lemon grass, kaffir lime, galangal, turmeric, garlic and shallot. Cambodian cuisine differs from others in the region in its careful use of chillies, in only a few dishes are they cooked with other ingredients. Rather, chillies are served on the side on the side and left to each person’s taste whether or not to add them to the food.
