The Cambodian Arts & Crafts, e.g. Sculpture in wood or stone, or the art of weaving, and arts like classical Cambodian dance and shadow puppets, were devastated by the murders of the Khmer Rouge, which also fell victim to many artists, almost entirely. In Siem Reap emerged in the years since the restoration of a peaceful civil society, a series of workshops and groups of artists who revive these arts.
Classical Cambodian dance is presented publicly at the Angkor Village Theater, and some hotels (eg Grand Hotel d'Angkor, Koulen Restaurant). With a mixture of pride in their own history and culture, and probably also a sense of the needs of tourists this art is sometimes called the Apsara dance. The dancers wear traditional costumes while that resemble those of the Apsaras, which are seen on the walls of many temples in Angkor. Today, the dancers wear, in contrast to their historical or heavenly role models, outerwear.
The west, especially in the form of the Indonesian wayang shadow puppets known in Cambodia also has a long tradition. In Siem Reap, for example, found in the restaurant of the Hotel La Noria weekly screenings of children of Krousar Thmey Foundation (see References) instead. In the traditional stories are sometimes supplemented with contemporary characters and content to provide current topics and encourage, for example, Solidarity, respect for the elderly, child protection and the fight against AIDS (see also sex tourism). It should also hear traditional Cambodian music with their instruments. The shadow puppets are made in Siem Reap itself, inter alia, in the workshop of the House of Peace Association.
One of the oldest Buddhist temple in the city, the Wat Bo, can be seen on the walls of numerous notable paintings depicting scenes from the life of Buddha. Wat Thmei houses a stupa containing the bones of victims of the Khmer Rouge, to commemorate the murdered man to. Another place of remembrance of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime and civil war is the land mine museum on the road from Siem Reap to Angkor. It is established and maintained by Mr. Aki Ra joined the age of 13, the Vietnamese army to fight against the Khmer Rouge and during the war, landmines defused. The offering includes a variety of mines by his paintings, in which he handled the trauma of war. The donations of the visitors, Mr Aki used to finance his work is still required, the disarming of mines that are found by farmers in the area, too.
The banks of the Tonle Sap lake along there are a number of villages, which consist partly of piles and some of which are often known as houseboats and floating villages. During the annual rise of water levels draw the residents who live from fishing, to the entire village. Also on the "big lake" is the Prek Toal bird sanctuary, which, with its abundance of fish and the surrounding flood plain that a wide variety of nesting birds.
In the northeast of the city is the Jayavarman VII Children's Hospital. Financed by donations, organized by the Swiss doctor Beat Richner mainly in Switzerland and France, it offers children free medical care. Under the title Beatocello he plays regularly on Saturdays cello concerts, and tells about the work of the Children's Hospital.
Dith Pran (1942-2008), a Cambodian photojournalist who survived the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, was born in Siem Reap.