Legend has it that in 1372, a local widow named Penh, discovered four Buddha statues that had been washed up by the waters from the Mekong River. She saw them as bearers of good fortune and erected a temple on the hill to house them, and so the city grew around this structure, known as the Hill of Penh (Phnom Penh).

Phnom Penh has a number of Wats (temple-monasteries), museums and other places of interest in and around the city, as well as sunset cruises on the Mekong and Tonlé Sap Rivers, and a bustling market place. There has also been a recent boom of new hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs sprouting up through the city and a nightlife that promises fun and flavour.

The famous Temples of Angkor are Cambodia's biggest tourist attraction. Situated close to the town of Siem Reap, the former capital and heart of the ancient Khmer Empire was built between the 9th and 13th centuries, and in an area of over 232 square miles (600 sq km) more than 100 temples have been uncovered. Today they stand as a monument to what was the greatest ancient civilisation in South East Asia. The kings of the period built stone temples as a way of asserting their divinity and cities were created around them. Today it is the temples that remain, a mere sacred skeleton of what must have been one of the biggest cities of its time.

The best-known site is Angkor Wat, the spectacular Hindu temple surrounded by a moat and the biggest monument ever built to religion. Covering an area of 81 hectares (200 acres) the splendour and enormous dimension of the complex make it one of the wonders of the world. The walls of the outer gallery are a sculptural treasury, one mile (2km) of intricately carved bas-reliefs.