Culture, customs and what to wear
A short guide to being a good guest — greetings, temples, monks and money
Chumreap suor
The Cambodian greeting is the sampeah: palms pressed together in front of the chest with a slight bow, and the words chumreap suor. The higher the hands and the lower the bow, the more respect it carries — chest height for a peer, nose height for someone older or senior, forehead height for a monk or an image of the Buddha.
A handshake is acceptable from a foreigner and nobody will be offended by one. Returning a sampeah instead will make you friends. Women greet men and women the same way.
What to wear at the temples
This is the practical bit, and the one the old version of this page never covered. Angkor is an active religious site, not only a ruin, and the dress code at the major temples is enforced — people are turned away at Angkor Wat every day.
Around monks and pagodas
Everyday manners
Money, and what things cost
Cambodia runs on two currencies at once. The riel is the national currency, and the US dollar is used alongside it for anything above small change — hotels, tours and restaurants are usually priced in dollars. Change from a dollar payment often comes back in riel, at a round rate of about 4,000 riel to the dollar.
Bring clean notes
Torn, marked or heavily creased US notes are frequently refused. So are old-series notes. Bring newer bills in small denominations.
ATMs
Widely available in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, dispensing dollars and riel, almost all charging a fee per withdrawal. Sparse in rural areas — draw cash before you leave a town.
Cards
Accepted at hotels and larger restaurants, rarely at markets, street food or rural stops. Carry cash for the day.
Tipping
Not obligatory and never demanded, but normal now in tourism and genuinely appreciated. For guides and drivers, a daily amount at the end of the trip is the usual form; your planner will suggest a range if you ask.
Dance, weddings and medicine
The Robam Apsara is the classical dance of Cambodia, once confined to the royal court and drawn directly from the thousand-odd apsara carvings in the Angkor temples. Dance has been part of Khmer culture for over a millennium, and an evening performance is worth an evening of your trip.
A traditional Khmer wedding ran to three days and three nights — the groom's family arriving with the dowry to three particular songs, a tea ceremony for the ancestors, the symbolic hair-cutting that marks a fresh start, and blessing strings tied on both wrists by every guest in turn. Most families now compress it into a single day, but if you are here in the dry season you will hear one before you see it.
Khmer traditional medicine — Krou Khmer — uses roots, bark, leaves and herbs, and dates from the Angkor period. It is still practised, and now taught and recognised at the National Centre of Traditional Medicine.
Things worth bringing home
Cambodian craft survived the twentieth century better than it should have. Silk weaving here goes back to at least the first century and the patterns still quote the carvings. Silversmiths make boxes and jewellery in Angkor motifs; the restoration of Angkor created a new generation of stone carvers; and there are lacquerware, ceramics, basketry and kite-making traditions alongside them. Kite-makers fix a bow to the frame so the kite sounds a note in the wind.
Buy from the workshops where you can watch the work happening rather than from a stall reselling it — your guide knows which is which.
See it rather than read about it
Dance performances, craft workshops, village visits and markets all fit inside a private itinerary. Tell us what interests you.