Using an eSIM in Siem Reap

What Siem Reap is like on a phone

Siem Reap has one very clear job: to be the base for visiting the monuments spread across a wide area north of town. Nearly everyone here gets up before dawn at least once for the sunrise and spends the day in a tuk-tuk. The town is compact, its rooms and restaurants gathered on a handful of streets, so coverage in it is comfortable. Inside the park, which is forest and stone ruin, things work quite differently.

When you land

The airport now serving the town is a fair way east — not the old field beside it — so the transfer takes longer than older guidebooks say. Turn the line on before leaving the terminal to confirm your pick-up, since hailing from there is not as easy as in a big city. The other common arrival is by coach from Phnom Penh or the western border, dropping at a stop outside town where you take a tuk-tuk in. Visa and arrival-document conditions are revised from time to time, so check with the Cambodian immigration authority before every trip.

Where coverage changes

In town, around the old market and the restaurant streets, the line is good and copes with the evening crowd. Out north into the park, the main roads between the big temples keep service because they are used all day; but step into the galleries and inner chambers of a stone temple and it falls away noticeably, with thick walls and few openings. The temples furthest north, ringed by forest, are far thinner. South of town, at the lake and the floating villages, the line goes as the boat leaves the channel for open water.

What a day here costs in data

A temple day uses less than you would guess, roughly 600MB to 1.2GB, because you photograph a great deal but mostly upload back at the hotel. What genuinely needs you online is showing the entry pass as a code on screen — tiny in data but it must open instantly at the gate, so always keep a screenshot. Town days run higher, since people sit in cafes working or planning the next leg. Film long videos daily and upload every night and you will want more.

Districts travellers ask about

• The old market quarter — The centre, with the densest run of restaurants and bars; good, though in the evening when the whole street fills, uploading a photo is noticeably slower than by day.
• The Wat Bo riverside — The quieter far bank, guesthouses and cafes spread out along it; consistent, and the choice of long-stayers because you can actually work here during the day.
• Sok San road — A road of newer rooms and restaurants running west; good near the centre, less consistent toward the far end where the buildings thin out.
• Inside the park — The roads between the big temples carry service because they are used all day, but in the galleries and inner chambers it drops far enough that a message may not go straight away.

Day trips out of the city

• The floating villages on the lake — Boats leave from a pier south of town, down a channel and out onto open water, with the line fading the further from shore you get. Water levels and the routes boats can take change with the season, so ask the operator on the day rather than trusting older information.
• The temples furthest north — Out beyond the main circuit into country ringed by forest, much thinner than around the big temples; agree times with your tuk-tuk driver beforehand and carry water and cash, because the stalls are far apart.
• The jungle temple to the east — A long drive through fields and forest, cutting out in patches the whole way, and quiet at the temple itself under collapsed stone and trees; say when you expect to be back before you set off.