Time of the visit: april the 7th,2025

For 90.000 riel(roughly around 21,5$) a tuktuk driver took me from Cambodia's capital Pnom Penh to Oudong's temple mountain.The journey took about an hour. The driver stopped right next to the tourist information office, where I got a map of all the temples. A few meters away are the stairs leading up to the temple complex. The driver was willing to wait three hours. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, my shirt was soaked with sweat from the high temperatures.Once at the top, you follow a path that goes slightly up and down and leads past various temples to the temple of Vihear Preah Ath Roes, from where it goes back down to the market, which is enormous but only partially used during the week, but suggests that it must be very busy with visitors from the capital at the weekends.

I also visited the quite big and nice Uddom pagoda complex next to the market.All in all I needed around 2h (including a coffee in the market) for that entire area.Since I was faster than I had thought before I ordered the driver to go to Oudong city itself in order to visit the former residence of the king when Oudong used to be the capital of Cambodia.That area is now a big Buddhist complex with many new pagodas.The driver had been to Oudong's famous mountain complex many times, but the old royal compound was a surprise for him. I had to direct him there. This area is only about 12-15 minutes away from the mountain complex. A future UNESCO World Heritage Site? Unfortunately not, as the town itself is hardly authentic anymore, and the mountain complex, while picturesque and impressive, is only of national importance and artistically nothing special .Nevertheless I recommend anyone who stays in Cambodia's capital Pnom Penh for a few days to visit Cambodia's old capital Oudong/Udong/Ondong....a fantastic day trip that I wholeheartedly enjoyed.