Here’s a route, that you can do in whole or part, that is packed with ancient wonder and takes advantage of some of Cambodia’s rapidly improving roads. The whole route, apart from temple detours, follows sealed bitumen roads that are in good condition from Siem Reap to Kralanh to Sisophon to Banteay Chhmar to Samroang and back to Siem Reap. I like to call it the North-Western Grand Circuit. Here’s a Google map of what that route looks like.
The map above includes all the sites within the vicinity of the route but of course, you can pick and choose as you wish depending on what interests you and in some cases whether you are up for treks down rough dirt roads although most listed here have reasonably easy access.
I’ve included Ta Muen Thom, a little bit off the route and on the KH-Thai border but it would be a shame to miss if you were only going this direction once. I’ve also included the Kdei Ta Kom group of temples and Prasat Preah Phnom which requires a short stretch of dirt road before rejoining a sealed bitumen road that will take you back to Siem Reap via Angkor Chum.
While most certainly the big highlights of this trip are Banteay Chhmar, Banteay Torp, Ta Muen Thom, and Spean Toap, here are my picks of all the highlights along the way and you can click to visit the page for more info on each particular site
Transport
For me, this was a self-guided journey which I traveled on Honda Wave which is a very common bike in Cambodia. It handled it quite easily as most stretches of this journey are 80 km/h limited and in some parts through populated areas 40 km/h. The roads are in surprisingly good condition and once you are off the RN6 not really that busy but you do have to be wary of random cows, dogs, chickens, and farm tractors jutting out onto the road as they do.
Traveling time, just on the sealed roads is around 6 hours broken up over the days. In total, I think I did just under 600 km including many detours to smaller obscure temples with the whole journey being completed over three nights and four days. Doing it again I think I would stay an extra night in Banteay Chhmar so as to leave fresh in the morning en route to Ta Muen Thom leaving enough time to fit in Prasat Krabei and then on to Samraong and the guesthouse for the night.
For more info on traveling Cambodia by bike see the Cambodia Motorcycle Riders Forum on Facebook. Alternatively, you could certainly hire a car and driver to do the journey which is best organised from Siem Reap.
Where to Stay?
There are not a huge amount of options but enough in just the right places. On my tour around, I chose to stay at the Pyramid Hotel in Sisophon (around $20), then the Banteay Chhmar Guesthouse (around $8), and finally the Choranai Guest House (around $15) in Samroang. This was in the low season of the Covid era, so prices may rise a bit as things return to normal, and different rooms of course have different prices. All were clean, quiet, and safe.
Are there more temples and attractions?
There are, depending on how far you want to trek off that main circular route, for more see Siem Reap Province, Banteay Meanchey Province and Utdor Meanchey Province