The Vespa pulls up outside the hotel at six, just as the heat lets go of the day. Four hours later it drops us back at the same door. In between, on the After Dark food tour run by Adventures Cambodia, Siem Reap stops being a city we were looking at and becomes one we ate our way across.
It starts with rice wine, not dinner
The first stop is a family distillery, where the shelves are lined with big glass jars of rice wine infusing with fruit and spice. There is a welcome drink, then a tasting, small bottles set out along a low table. It sets the tone for an evening that turns out to be less a tour of restaurants than an introduction to the people running them.
Then the night market
By seven we are at the night market, eating standing up and stall to stall, then sitting down on red plastic chairs at a metal table with something grilled on a banana leaf between us. This is the part most visitors skip, usually because they cannot tell which stall to trust. Our guide can, and the ordering happens in Khmer over our shoulders while we are still working out what we are looking at.
Dinner, then one last cocktail
Around eight it slows down. A sit-down Khmer dinner at a traditional restaurant, live music, and enough time to stop counting dishes. Everything is included, drinks and alcohol along with the food, so nobody is doing arithmetic at the table. The last stop, close to nine, is a cocktail somewhere quieter, and then home by ten.
What is worth knowing before you book
You barely walk. The evening moves stop to stop on the Vespa, which makes it a comfortable way to see Siem Reap at night and a rare one that suits travellers who would rather not spend four hours on their feet. The shared tour caps at six people, so it never becomes a convoy, and the guide is talking to the table rather than addressing a crowd.
It runs every evening, six to ten, rain or shine, with ponchos handed out and a switch from Vespa to Jeep if the rain really sets in. The shared tour is $68 a head and goes by Vespa. The private version is $89, starts any time between five and seven, and travels by Vespa or vintage Jeep. Both are booked online and paid by card. One thing to know first: the menu is built around fish, pork and egg, so vegetarians are catered for and vegans are not.
