Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Last night after I posted yesterday's post and everyone on our room was in bed we had a little bit of excitement in the form of a power cut. All the sockets, the WiFi, the lights and the aircon were affected (obviously). This meant we couldn't charge our phones and wee were probably going to bake to death. A further problem of not being able to charge phones was that they were almost it of battery  (in most people's cases) and they were required for alarms as 4 out of 5 of us had to get up at 4am this morning as we were heading off to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Thankfully after the majority of us had fallen asleep, the power came back on and all was well.  Lauren had to get up and turn all the lights that had come back on off as everyone else was asleep.

We got up at 4am and were picked up by Mr Han's (see TukTuk Tour post) nephew, Mr Dara, in his tuktuk. We whizzed off to get entry tickets at the ticket office which has been moved recently to a location completely out the way. We got there and waited along with scores of others for the ticket office to open at 5am. Sunrise and sunset are very popular times to visit the temples. It cost $37 for a one day ticket which had our photo on it, presumably to stop you giving it to someone else. We got back in the tuktuk and went off to the Angkor Wat complex. There was quite a few people there already when we got there and we jostled around a bit for a good spot to stand on the edge of the reflection pool, which is basically a large pond. And then we stood there until the sun came up behind the iconic towers. We were probably stood there for over an hour but it was beautiful. The sun rose very quickly when it did eventually come up.

After the sun was up, we ventured inside the temples to have a wander round. There was intricate carvings on many of the walls which were quite impressive since it was built around the 12th century. We queued for about 30 minutes to get into the Bakan temple on the middle of the Angkor Wat complex. We had to climb up some very steep stairs to get into it but there was a nice view over the complex from the top.

We wandered round, absolutely sweating, until about 8:45am. It may have been early but it was still at least 30°. We got a drink and went to the loo before returning to the tuktuk. Under the seat of the tuktuk Mr Dara had stashed a cool box and he offered us some bottles of water. We were very grateful. 

We hopped back in the tuktuk and Mr Dara started driving towards our next stop, Angkor Thom. On the way we saw a whole load of monkeys on the side of the road and Mr Dara stopped so we could take photos. We were able to get really close to them. There was some younger ones play fighting while the mother watched.  This soon stopped when the dad came over and pulled them apart. 

At the entrance arch to Angkor Thom we got out the tuktuk and walked along the bridge which has large statues of faces lining the road under the archway. On the other side we got back on the tuktuk and continued to the Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom. This temple originally had over 50 towers but now only had around 30. It took ten years less than Angkor Wat to build, 27 as opposed to 37 years, using stone carried by elephants from far away mountains. We did actually see some elephants today. People were able to get a ride on them from outside the entrance arch to the side of the temple, but a) we had a tuktuk and b) we've seen many things about how riding elephants, especially using seats on their backs, is cruel and they are often mistreated. 

Despite Angkor Wat being the iconic landmark, and being very impressive form the outside, both Lauren and I agreed that the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom was more interesting in terms of detail and decoration. This temple had many many Buddha heads carved out of stone watching over you in every direction. It as pretty cool. We looked around this temple before going back to the tuktuk and going to our final stop for the day.

Ta Prohm temple was slightly less well preserved. There were concrete blocks on the ground and trees had grown in and around the building, which had created some quite interesting sights.  This temple is where the film 'Tombraider' was filmed, but having not seen the film, this didn't really excite me that much. We walked round and took photos before heading back to the hostel. 

As we were driving back we came across another group of monkeys so Mr Dara stopped again for us and we got out and took photos and watched them. There were some very cute tiny baby monkeys being looked after by their mums. One mum just had a grip on the baby's tail to stop it running off. I picked up a bit of discarded food and gave it to the baby. It was so cute. Two other monkeys were sitting on a parked motorbike. One was chewing on the seat, trying to rip the mirror off and admiring itself in the mirror. It was quite amusing to watch although I don't think the motorbike driver would have appreciated it.

We got back to the hostel around 12:15pm. We had been out for almost 8 hours and we were very hot and sweaty. We got into our bikinis and went and sat by the pool. We got some food to keep us going until dinner and spent the rest of the day lounging in and around the pool.

Around 6pm we dried off and put some clothes on so we could go out for dinner. We went down a road called 'Pub Street' which is basically full of bars and restaurants. We stopped at a restaurant where I had stir fried beef and cashew nuts with rice, and Lauren had spag bol.
We then returned to the hostel, showered and collapsed onto our beds. It has been a long but awesome day.

Entrance to Angkor Thom

Ta Prohm