A cursory look at the new Siem Reap Angkor airport

[Warks]

Travelled to Vietnam Cambodia in March-April 2024. We'd flown from HCMC to Phnom Penh and taken a private car to Siem Reap for our visit to Angkor Wat and surrounds. As the car took over six hours but gave us a nice look around the countryside, we decided it wouldn't be a return trip so booked a one way flight back from the brand new Siem Reap Angkor airport (SAI). The old airport was relatively close to town, a tuktuk ride away, but the new one is an hour's drive out of town. For about half the distance the road is just the normal Cambodian roads, slow going with trucks, scooters, tuktuks and cars. Wide enough for a central "passing lane" some of the time. (fun fact: Cambodians in Cambodia use their horns about 1-5% as much as the Vietnamese). Suddenly there's a left turn onto a brand new almost empty elevated divided road, fully lit by solar street lights (I assumed they were solar panels on each). By elevated I mean just a couple of metres of rock and earth to raise it above the surrounding plain. This took us the rest of the way to the new airport. There were a couple of towers going in nearby suggesting some sort of hotels being built. I didn't get pics outside the buildings or of the approach road, sorry. The funny thing is that the whole distance from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap we didn't go over a single hill and Cambodia is basically flat away from the borders I guess. But at this site there were a few hills and they clearly had to excavate a fair bit of earth to build it.
We flew domestically so I didn't get a look at the international terminal. Domestic is very small, only five gates. Realistically I guess you can only fly to PP from here and possibly Sihanoukville but I didn't see any flights going there. We were one of only two flights going out that afternoon as indicated by the board photo.

Had to have a laugh at the "confiscated items" cabinet near the entrance.



I wonder if this is the haul of the first month or so.


Many gates: 1, 2, 3 and... 24 and 25.

Very Cambodian pictogram for the mens.


Barrier tape tells you who built the place.


The international terminal. The whole complex looks to be inspired by the design of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.



It really feels like the middle of nowhere.

Had one more pic to post but hit the limit.

 

[Warks]

I mentioned originally how the airport seems to be built on the only rise in this part of Cambodia. You can see here the embankments around the edges showing how much earth had to be moved.