Go back to dawn of a great civilisation and the glory of Angkor Wat

In a series of weekly features, City Plus looks at destinations for weekend breaks out of Hong Kong and gives you a handy guide on what to expect, what to do and what to pay. This week, it's Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in Cambodia.

Why Siem Reap and Phnom Penh?

No one living in Hong Kong should leave without at least one visit to Cambodia, and to Siem Reap in particular. This town is the gateway to the temples of Angkor, including Angkor Wat. The Angkor sights constitute some of the most atmospheric and architecturally extraordinary in the world. Siem Reap is easy and cheap to get to from Hong Kong, while Phnom Penh has its charms and is certainly good for a one-night stopover.

What is there to see and do?

Far more than you could fit into one weekend. Angkor - the glory of the Khmer civilisation that shaped Cambodia from the 9th to the 14th centuries - covers a vast area and has about 100 temples. A two-night break may give you only one full day in Angkor, so you might want to limit yourself to Angkor Wat and a second temple, perhaps the breathtaking Ta Prohm.

Swallowed up in jungle, Ta Prohm gives you an idea of how it must have felt to hack through dense jungle, Indiana Jones-style, to rediscover these mighty temples as the French colonisers did in the 19th century. The best way to get around the temples is on a tuk tuk-style motorbike for about US$15 a day. Elephant rides are available for US$10 between Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple.

If you spend a night in Phnom Penh, take time to see a darker side of Cambodian history at Tuol Sleng Museum, a high school that became the largest centre for detention and torture under the murderous regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The 'killing fields' of Choeung Ek, with its monument of 8,000 skulls, is 15km from central Phnom Penh.