Phnom Penh surprised me. I came expecting a stopover on the way to Angkor and stayed far longer than planned, drifting between the yellow dome of the Central Market, the palace lawns at dusk and the cafés of the lanes behind the river. The city sits where the Mekong, the Tonle Sap and the Bassac meet, and the light here is wide and soft in a way I have only seen in river towns. It is hot, noisy and occasionally chaotic, but it is also generous, unhurried and full of small kindnesses.
These twenty routes are the walks, boat rides and day trips I return to. Some are joyful, a few are heavy and deserve a quiet day of their own, and several lead out into the countryside of rice fields, sugar palms and old hilltop temples. Go out early, rest through the midday heat, and save the evenings for the river.
