To see the sunrise one has to get up at 5 am in the morning. Not very good when you only fell asleep around 3 am.. But I did manage to get up and get on a motorcycle taxi to tale me to Angkor Wat. Angkor gets really crowded in the early hours and everyone gathers at the pool on the left side of the temple as this is the most scenic one with lots of pink water lillies and a nice palmtree to cover that big green grid thats right in the middle of Angkor Wat, covering ongoing reconstruction work.
I remember they used to have the same kind of green grid for years in Venice on the Marcus Square, but eventually used a fabric that with a picture of the building printed on it. The Cambodian Goverment should do the same here in Angkor Wat, for 20 Dollars a day entrance fee it should be coverd ;-). But I don’t want to complain, Angkor Wat is probably the cleanest placed all over South East Asia, like an ancient Disneyland. There is no rubbish whatsoever on the ground as guards constantly sweep the ground and collect all sorts of garbage, left behind by not so thoughtful tourists.
After about 1,5 hours at Angkor Wat, the temple has a completely different atmosphere when you come in the morning, I continued to go to Ta Prohm, one of the temples that the jungle has reclaimed and which is now preserved in that state to show tourists what the temples looked like when they where discovered by Europeans. I have to say it is my favorite temple and after the initial 45 minutes that I walked around I knew I had come back and take a little more time to enjoy this amazing scenery. It’s also the Temple where Angelina Jolie aka Lara Croft walked around to fight some bad ass Tomb Raiders. Finally my need for sleep took over; I returned to the hostel and decided to resume my exploration of the temples in the afternoon. Around 2 pm I once again cycled to Angkor and took good look at Preah Khan before returning to Ankors favorite Sunset Spot: Phnom Bakheng. When I hiked up the previous day, there were three people walking around the temples, but for sunset it was slightly different, with easily up to 300 people watching the sun set over the Tonle Sap Lake. Again I had to cycle back in the dark, but this time I was prepared and had brought a flashlight to not be run over by some frenetic Tuk Tuk driver. At night I joined the Irish guys that shared the room with me for a stroll down Pub Street, the party lane of Siam Reap.