An awfully big adventure

Temples, open-air trains and floating tents – Cathy Winston finds out why you should see Cambodia with kids

i baby! Hi baby!” came the smiling call. My daughter set her face mutinously, very much on her newly five-year-old dignity. “I am not a baby,” she declared. But if she was occasionally bemused as to why locals were constantly waving to her and monks wanted to take selfies with her, Cambodians’ love of children is one reason it’s a great destination for a family holiday. There’s far more than the Unesco World Heritage site of Angkor Wat to discover too, although which kid wouldn’t love venturing into overgrown temples with their snaking tree roots, spotting unexpected carvings which look oddly like dinosaurs and marvelling at the giant heads of Bayon and Angkor Thom?

So Siem Reap, the closest town to the ancient temples, was our first stop in a two-week adventure around Cambodia, visiting the colonial city of Battambang and capital Phnom Penh, relaxing on two sections of coast at Sihanoukhville and Kep, as well as the unspoiled Cardamom Mountains. Watching tuk tuks flood through the narrow gate at Angkor Thom, overseen by serenely blank gazes of statues lining the bridge, it felt as if we should be entering this majestic complex with rather more pomp and circumstance. Almost 900 years on from its heyday, the ancient city of the god kings of Angkor and the glory of the Khmer empire has lost none of its power to impress.

With symbolic decorations on every surface, telling tales of myth and legend in intricately detailed carvings of gods, demons, snakes and dancers, I could have spent a week exploring.

Accompanied by a five-year-old, I reluctantly abandoned that idea along with any thought of seeing the sunrise over Angkor Wat’s five famous towers. But with gorgeously dressed characters from Hindu epic the Ramayana wandering around and monks offering us an unexpected water blessing, her attention was as swiftly captured as my own.

At Bayon, the immense carved smiling faces are mesmerising for any age, and while we’re both yet to watch Tomb Raider, you don’t need Angelina Jolie to love Ta Prohm, the twining roots of the spung trees snaking around the stone as the branches spiral to the sky. Here, with our guide’s help, we found the mysterious carving that looks like a