Guidebooks to Angkor

A few suggestions for your shortlist.
Published/Last edited or updated: 9th August, 2017

More on Angkor

If you wander into Monument Book Store on the riverside to the south of Old Market, you’ll discover, among many others, about half a dozen shelves piled high with guidebooks to Angkor—but which one should you get? Here are a few that belong on your shortlist.

Travelfish says:

This is a translation by Peter Harris of the accounts of a Chinese emissary who visited Angkor in 1296, when the empire was still at the height of its reach and strength. Zhou Daguan spent a year in Angkor and carefully recorded details of daily life, from the architecture, the customs and religions, trade, the natural world, holidays, agriculture and much more. His is the only surviving witness of daily life at Angkor and his perspective is fundamental to much of what we understand about the capital of the Khmer empire at this time. Some of his accounts will shock you, while you can still see scenes that he described more than 700 years ago being acted out today. See more on ... Travelfish members only (Full text is around 800 words.)

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Reviewed by
Nicky Sullivan

Nicky Sullivan is an Irish freelance writer (and aspiring photographer). She has lived in England, Ireland, France, Spain and India, but decided that her tribe and heart are in Cambodia, where she has lived since 2007 despite repeated attempts to leave. She dreams of being as tough as Dervla Murphy, but fears there may be a long way to go. She can’t stand whisky for starters. She was a researcher, writer and coordinator for The Angkor Guidebook: Your Essential Companion to the Temples, now one of the best-selling guidebooks to the temples.