Khmer New Year in Siem Reap, as in the rest of Cambodia, is a traditional Buddhist holiday imbued with rituals and meaning. Coinciding with the end of the harvest season, Cambodians will pray to the gods for good rain during the coming monsoon to ensure good crops and good fortune.
Soon in Siem Reap, our adopted home of 12 years, houses will be scrubbed clean and sand castles will be built at pagodas here and around Cambodia, in preparation for the Khmer New Year in Siem Reap, which will take place from Monday 14 April to Wednesday 16 April 2025.
Locals and expats alike will greet each other with “Choul Chnam Thmey!” or Happy New Year. Khmer New Year is one of the most important holidays of the year, alongside Pchum Ben, Ancestors Festival and the Siem Reap Water Festival, which marks the end of monsoon season in Cambodia.
While the official Khmer New Year holiday is only three days, those who are able and can afford it, might take anything from a week to 10 days off work for Khmer New Year to head to their home towns to spend time with family. In terms of its significance as a holiday, it can be likened to the Christmas and New Year period in the West.
Unlike neighbouring Thailand, where cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai see backpackers arriving for Songkran in their tens of thousands for a few days of water-fights and street parties that take on the atmosphere of a wet t-shirt competition, things are done a little differently here in Cambodia, and especially Siem Reap.
Khmer New Year in Siem Reap
While Siem Reap’s Old Market quarter and the riverside will be crammed with revellers dancing and partying during the 2025 Khmer New Year celebrations, Buddhist traditions still take priority here, and Cambodians refreshingly take over the Angkor temples, as well as Pub Street, for a change.
Traditional Khmer New Year Rituals
During Khmer New Year in Siem Reap and across Cambodia, homes will get a spring clean, floors will be scrubbed, and living areas decorated with flowers. Offering tables will be readied with Buddha statues, fruit and jasmine flowers. Incense sticks will be lit and prayers said to ask for happiness, luck and success in the year ahead.
The Khmer New Year holiday marks the end of harvest season and the hottest part of the year. In the countryside around Siem Reap, villagers will enjoy the fruits of their labour before the build-up to the start of the rainy season with home-cooked meals and rice wine with family and friends.
The pagodas around town and in villages are the main focus of fairly solemn events. Different rituals take place at different times of the day for local communities and families. Visitors are welcome (make sure to dress respectfully) and early mornings are the best time to see the most activity at pagodas.
First Day of Maha Songkran
On the first day of Maha Songkran, Cambodian Buddhists will dress up in their finery – freshly pressed white cottons and linens and long handwoven silk skirts for the women – to visit their local pagodas to light candles, burn incense, and make merit with offerings of food to the monks, and gather to pray to mark the start of the New Year.
Sandcastles that symbolise the peaks of Mount Meru, the mythical home of the Gods, will be built in the grounds of pagoda complexes. Devout Buddhists will add their own sand to the sand hills as a symbolic gesture and offering for health and happiness.
Second Day of Virak Wanabat
On the second day of Virak Wanabat,also written as Virak Vanabat, it is a time for Cambodian Buddhists to offer charity and goodwill to the less fortunate, via donations, gestures of support or service to charities. There are more prayers at the pagodas. More grains of sand added to the rising mounds that will be fluttering with colourful flags.
Finally, there is a ceremony dedicated to the ancestors, which will end with rather raucous and rushed processions around the pagoda, led by the monks and bands of musicians. It’s a day of giving gifts to family members, especially children, the elderly, and teachers.
Third Day of T’ngai Loeng Sak
On the third day of T’ngai Loeng Sak, also called Virak Leung Sak, it’s time to offer perfumed water to elders and return to the pagodas to wash the Buddha statues. Bathing symbolises clean starts and there are more prayers and wishes for luck, peace and prosperity.
Villagers and farmers also wish for rain to come during the monsoon season ahead, to ensure good crops and good fortune. This is the day that the Khmer New Year holiday in Siem Reap sees water-fights amongst children and young people on the streets of the city and on Pub Street that night, but on nowhere near the scale of Bangkok’s crazy Songkran festival.
Angkor Sangkranta at Angkor Archaeological Park
Festive activities and traditional games and sports take place for Khmer New Year as part of the Angkor Sangkranta festival events at Angkor Archaeological Park. These typically start in the morning at around 8am and continue until 9pm or so.
This is the time of year when Cambodians from across the country descend upon Angkor Wat and Angkor Archaeological Park and the temple grounds are filled with Khmer families and groups of friends.
Activities that traditionally occurred in villages take place throughout Angkor Park over all three days, on the grassy areas around the Angkor Wat moat and in Angkor Thom, near the Royal Palace and the Bayon.
You can expect to see traditional ball games and tug of war, giant chess games, and ox cat and buffalo racing. The highlights for many, however, are the bokator and dancing, including traditional round-dancing and the Cambodian Madison. (If you want to learn more, Wikipedia has a good list of traditional Cambodian games.)
Bokator demonstrations take place throughout the day, with hundreds of practitioners of the medieval martial art participating in bouts and also encouraging the public to try their hand at the sport. Dancing also takes place in a number of areas, peaking in the late afternoon and early evening, especially on the final day of the holiday.
A Cambodian event wouldn’t be complete without street food and stalls are set up right around Angkor Archaeological Park, most stalls in the area across from Angkor Wat – as well as along the riverside in Siem Reap, which is closed to traffic.
Unfortunately there are also a lot of tacky commercial booths on the riverside, because apparently Khmer New Year is also the time to think about opening a new bank account, getting a new mobile phone number, or buying a tractor, mattress or food processor. Even after 12 years living in Siem Reap, we’re still trying to work this one out.
Concerts take place in the evenings on stages in Angkor Archaeological Park, the biggest stage is usually near the Bayon, where you can expect to be invited by locals to join in and do a bit of round dancing. Don’t refuse!
Start to check the Angkor Sankgranta Facebook page for more information a week or so before Khmer New Year. But don’t be surprised if details aren’t added until very close to the holiday.
Khmer New Year Festivities in Siem Reap
Siem Reap town also sees some Khmer New Year action. Concert stages are usually set up in and around the Royal Gardens, also known as Siem Reap’s ‘Central Park’, and in the area along the Siem Reap River near Raffles Grand d’Angkor Hotel. Recent years have seen anything from Cambodian pop to heavy metal bands perform.
Cambodians, expats and tourists, fill the streets of the Old Market area, particularly Pub Street and surrounding streets, which see the biggest crowds over the three main nights with massive street parties punctuated by fireworks.
Outdoor pubs with plastic chairs and tables and small stages also pop up along the riverside, and the street outside the Kings Road complex is usually closed for a huge party that predominantly sees young Cambodians dancing well into the night.
Recent years have seen a lot more shirtless male tourists with water guns, indiscriminately wetting people, locals and tourists alike. This hasn’t traditionally been part of the Siem Reap Khmer New Year celebrations and is not something a lot of people here want to see.
In recent years there have been rumours that the water fights might be restricted to private parties, Pub Street, Sok San Road (‘Bar Street’) and the backpacker hostels.
Should You Add Khmer New Year in Siem Reap to Your Itinerary?
While some writers and bloggers discourage tourists from visiting Siem Reap during Khmer New Year, we personally think it’s one of the best times of year to come if you want a taste of the traditional culture and Buddhist rituals, as much as contemporary life,and to interact with Cambodians socially. You can expect to be warmly welcomed by some of Southeast Asia’s friendliest people.
If you’re looking for three days of the wet and wild partying associated with Songkran in Bangkok and Chiang Mai then it’s probably best to go to those cities instead. That’s not really what makes Khmer New Year in Siem Reap special. It’s more about the chance to observe Buddhist ceremonies and participate in traditional rituals that are disappearing elsewhere.
Khmer New Year Dates for 2025
Below are the dates for the next Khmer New Year in Siem Reap in 2025, however, the festivities usually begin a few days earlier, especially if there’s a weekend before the Khmer New Year holiday, as there is this year, with street food stalls and beer bars set up along the riverside.
Khmer New Year 2025 – Monday 14-Wednesday 16 April 2025
If you’re heading to Siem Reap for Khmer New Year, see our guides to Siem Reap’s best boutique hotels, things to do in Siem Reap and, if the monsoon starts early, things to do in Siem Reap when it rains. For families, we have a Siem Reap for families guide. Our Siem Reap Angkor Wat FAQs answers questions about visas, money, weather, what to wear, etc.
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First Published 12 April 2015; Last Updated 27 March 2025
