Itinerary - 2024
Tour dates: 7 - 21 October 2024
15 Days fully guided, Luxury Riverside Hotels
$4299 Twin share, Singles +$880
Feature artist Mark N Brown, an Award winning Plein Air Painter & Painting Tutor
3 - 4+ STAR Luxury Accommodation close to entertainment, shopping, temples and tourist areas.
Tour Guests (not painting) may join our guide to see more of the sights, culture and history of our destinations.
3 - 4+ STAR Luxury Accommodation close to entertainment, shopping, temples and tourist areas.
Tour Guests (not painting) may join our guide to see more of the sights, culture and history of our destinations.
Day 1: Arrive in Siem Reap join our Welcome Dinner
We will meet you when your flight arrives in Siem Reap and transfer you to your hotel.
This evening we will have a "Welcome Dinner" at our hotel's award winning restaurant.
Day 2: Orientation & Sketching the Lake Village
Breakfast and an early start for our holiday adventure with an introduction to Siem Reap township, the Old Market area and some morning sketching close to the Tonle Sap lake. We will stop for refreshments and maybe do some urban sketching by the river or in town.
OPTIONS - Join us for a Street Food & Nightlife Tour Dine-Out. Read more >>
Day 3: Angkor Wat Temple & afternoon workshop
Angkor Wat is the heart and soul of Cambodia. It is the national symbol, and epi - center of Khmer civilization and a source of fierce national pride. Relish your very first approach, that spine-tingling moment will rarely be felt again. We explore and tour our way around the best-preserved temple at Angkor, to be rewarded with the amazing detail incorporated into this structure.
It was never abandoned to the elements and has been in virtually continuous use since it was built. Simply unique, it is a stunning blend of spirituality and symmetry, an enduring example of humanity’s devotion to its gods.
Evening at leisure.
We will meet you when your flight arrives in Siem Reap and transfer you to your hotel.
This evening we will have a "Welcome Dinner" at our hotel's award winning restaurant.
Day 2: Orientation & Sketching the Lake Village
Breakfast and an early start for our holiday adventure with an introduction to Siem Reap township, the Old Market area and some morning sketching close to the Tonle Sap lake. We will stop for refreshments and maybe do some urban sketching by the river or in town.
OPTIONS - Join us for a Street Food & Nightlife Tour Dine-Out. Read more >>
Day 3: Angkor Wat Temple & afternoon workshop
Angkor Wat is the heart and soul of Cambodia. It is the national symbol, and epi - center of Khmer civilization and a source of fierce national pride. Relish your very first approach, that spine-tingling moment will rarely be felt again. We explore and tour our way around the best-preserved temple at Angkor, to be rewarded with the amazing detail incorporated into this structure.
It was never abandoned to the elements and has been in virtually continuous use since it was built. Simply unique, it is a stunning blend of spirituality and symmetry, an enduring example of humanity’s devotion to its gods.
Evening at leisure.
Day 4: Theam's Gallery, and Urban Village Sketching
Theam is an acclaimed artist in Cambodia and in France where he and his sister took refuge from the most recent upheaval in Cambodia. Theam receiving a sound artistic and technical education in a Fine Art School in Paris and in design at the Ecole Boulle before returning to Cambodia. His studio in recent times has morphed into a gallery, art venue with workshop, performance spaces, cafe, gallery dining space, Khmer traditional lifestyle collections and more.
Visit Theam's Gallery Online >>
We take our time and sketch with our artist in the gallery or the local village. A wonderful morning out with art, shopping, cafes and lots to see. Evening at leisure
Day 5: Explore Bayon Temple & Ancient walled city of Angkor Thom
The great walled city of Angkor Thom lay a few kilometers north of Angkor Wat. At the heart of Angkor Thom is the 12th-century Bayon, the mesmerising, if slightly mind-bending, state temple of Jayavarman VII. It epitomises the creative genius and inflated ego of Cambodia’s most celebrated king. There are many temple structures around the inner city area devoted to the gods and reliefs showing epic battles between the Cham and Khmer armies across the centuries.
Australian archeologists recently found the remains of a "vast city and village area" to the north of Angkor buried for centuries beneath a forever encroaching jungle. Read: How lasers revealed a Lost City - The Guardian >>
We stop to sketch, tour Bayon with our guide and break off for lunch. We will go and explore the inner temples and then one of the less frequented city wall gates and moat area before heading back to the hotel. Evening at leisure
Theam is an acclaimed artist in Cambodia and in France where he and his sister took refuge from the most recent upheaval in Cambodia. Theam receiving a sound artistic and technical education in a Fine Art School in Paris and in design at the Ecole Boulle before returning to Cambodia. His studio in recent times has morphed into a gallery, art venue with workshop, performance spaces, cafe, gallery dining space, Khmer traditional lifestyle collections and more.
Visit Theam's Gallery Online >>
We take our time and sketch with our artist in the gallery or the local village. A wonderful morning out with art, shopping, cafes and lots to see. Evening at leisure
Day 5: Explore Bayon Temple & Ancient walled city of Angkor Thom
The great walled city of Angkor Thom lay a few kilometers north of Angkor Wat. At the heart of Angkor Thom is the 12th-century Bayon, the mesmerising, if slightly mind-bending, state temple of Jayavarman VII. It epitomises the creative genius and inflated ego of Cambodia’s most celebrated king. There are many temple structures around the inner city area devoted to the gods and reliefs showing epic battles between the Cham and Khmer armies across the centuries.
Australian archeologists recently found the remains of a "vast city and village area" to the north of Angkor buried for centuries beneath a forever encroaching jungle. Read: How lasers revealed a Lost City - The Guardian >>
We stop to sketch, tour Bayon with our guide and break off for lunch. We will go and explore the inner temples and then one of the less frequented city wall gates and moat area before heading back to the hotel. Evening at leisure
Day 6: The Stilted Village Kompong Phluk
Today is super fun! We leave early and stop at a great traditional local village market close to the great lake. Then head off to boat down river to Kompong Phluk, the Stilted Village out on the edge of the Great Lake Tonle Sap.
The village of Kompong Pluk is a friendly, otherworldly place where houses are built on soaring stilts about 6 -10m high. Nearby is a flooded forest, inundated every year when the lake rises to take the Mekong’s overflow.
As the lake drops, the petrified trees are revealed like something out of Grimm's Tales. Exploring this area by wooden dugout in the wet season is very atmospheric.
We boat out onto the Great Lake passing the flooded forest and stop in a village house for luncheon and to sketching from their balcony. See how people live on the lake in these wooden houses. We return late afternoon to the hotel.
Day 7: Painting Workshop with our artist
Today is pretty lay back with a morning cafe stop and some plein air sketching maybe in one of the outlying village house sketching a rural farm house, rice fields, maybe the kitchen or the buffaloes as they amble by.
See first hand how people live. We will stop for luncheon here and enjoy some home cooked delicacies with our host.
OPTIONS: Visit Ta Prohm, The 'Tomb Raider Temple' >>
Today is super fun! We leave early and stop at a great traditional local village market close to the great lake. Then head off to boat down river to Kompong Phluk, the Stilted Village out on the edge of the Great Lake Tonle Sap.
The village of Kompong Pluk is a friendly, otherworldly place where houses are built on soaring stilts about 6 -10m high. Nearby is a flooded forest, inundated every year when the lake rises to take the Mekong’s overflow.
As the lake drops, the petrified trees are revealed like something out of Grimm's Tales. Exploring this area by wooden dugout in the wet season is very atmospheric.
We boat out onto the Great Lake passing the flooded forest and stop in a village house for luncheon and to sketching from their balcony. See how people live on the lake in these wooden houses. We return late afternoon to the hotel.
Day 7: Painting Workshop with our artist
Today is pretty lay back with a morning cafe stop and some plein air sketching maybe in one of the outlying village house sketching a rural farm house, rice fields, maybe the kitchen or the buffaloes as they amble by.
See first hand how people live. We will stop for luncheon here and enjoy some home cooked delicacies with our host.
OPTIONS: Visit Ta Prohm, The 'Tomb Raider Temple' >>
Day 8: Transfer to Battambang
We drive to the old capitol and grab a bite to eat before heading to the hotel.
Evening at leisure. Maybe a cocktail or drinks
Day 9: Exploring the old capital, Battambang
We explore Battambang Old quarter, central market area, Tourists and riverside streets, Some sketching with our artist.
Evening at leisure.
Day 10: A Workshop with our Artist. Afternoon go see the Bat Cave
Today is pretty lay back with a Painting Workshop after breakfast by the hotel pool shaded area
Any medium we will work through to a finished painting Late afternoon we head out to see the bat cave flight of the bats at dusk before returning to our hotel. Evening at leisure.
Day 11:Visit Phnom Ek Temples and Local Art Gallery
Morning tea follows a very interesting tour of a well known and quite beautiful Phnom Ek temple also the site of killing fields during the Pol Pot uprising. Return to visit a Gallery group of Local Artists and relax in their cafe whilst enjoying the artworks. Evening at leisure.
Day 12: Transfer to Siem Reap
We all depart from the hotel to journey back to Siem Reap hotel and stop along the way for some roadside charcoal chicken, maybe some sketching or just relax. Evening at leisure.
Day 13: Plein air painting with Mark N. Brown
We all deserve a day with our artist so he can show us what he has got hidden in his paint box, so we have organized a morning of painting, sketching, drawing or watercolor, whatever your medium today is the day to give it a go. We stay for lunch and drinks then make our way back to the hotel pool, your room for quick nap or freshen up ready for diner out. Your choice.
Oh yes maybe some last minute night shopping possibly some cocktails.
Day 14: Free Day - Farewell Dinner & Art Show
Today is a free day for you to catch up on last minute shopping, massage or those unfinished paintings and sketches.
Tonight we have our Farewell Dinner and Art Show
Day 15: Departures
We all depart from the hotel to our flights or onward travel.
We drive to the old capitol and grab a bite to eat before heading to the hotel.
Evening at leisure. Maybe a cocktail or drinks
Day 9: Exploring the old capital, Battambang
We explore Battambang Old quarter, central market area, Tourists and riverside streets, Some sketching with our artist.
Evening at leisure.
Day 10: A Workshop with our Artist. Afternoon go see the Bat Cave
Today is pretty lay back with a Painting Workshop after breakfast by the hotel pool shaded area
Any medium we will work through to a finished painting Late afternoon we head out to see the bat cave flight of the bats at dusk before returning to our hotel. Evening at leisure.
Day 11:Visit Phnom Ek Temples and Local Art Gallery
Morning tea follows a very interesting tour of a well known and quite beautiful Phnom Ek temple also the site of killing fields during the Pol Pot uprising. Return to visit a Gallery group of Local Artists and relax in their cafe whilst enjoying the artworks. Evening at leisure.
Day 12: Transfer to Siem Reap
We all depart from the hotel to journey back to Siem Reap hotel and stop along the way for some roadside charcoal chicken, maybe some sketching or just relax. Evening at leisure.
Day 13: Plein air painting with Mark N. Brown
We all deserve a day with our artist so he can show us what he has got hidden in his paint box, so we have organized a morning of painting, sketching, drawing or watercolor, whatever your medium today is the day to give it a go. We stay for lunch and drinks then make our way back to the hotel pool, your room for quick nap or freshen up ready for diner out. Your choice.
Oh yes maybe some last minute night shopping possibly some cocktails.
Day 14: Free Day - Farewell Dinner & Art Show
Today is a free day for you to catch up on last minute shopping, massage or those unfinished paintings and sketches.
Tonight we have our Farewell Dinner and Art Show
Day 15: Departures
We all depart from the hotel to our flights or onward travel.
Weather in central North Cambodia
Autumn in October/November is generally stable with 18 to 28°C and can be a little bit humid at times. Sunny days, very little rain and cool nights make Angkor Temples and North Cambodia a great place to be in October or November.
Itinerary last updated: June 2024 - proposed itinerary and subject to change
Autumn in October/November is generally stable with 18 to 28°C and can be a little bit humid at times. Sunny days, very little rain and cool nights make Angkor Temples and North Cambodia a great place to be in October or November.
Itinerary last updated: June 2024 - proposed itinerary and subject to change