Today we got up at 4h30 in the morning and got in a van on our way to Angkor Wat, to watch the sunrise there. On the way we had to do a quick stop by the visitor centre so that they could take a photo of our faces as we were all barely awake to put on our visitor passes. When we got to Angkor Was, we could just start to see the sky starting to become lighter and lighter and slowly but surely pink and orange colours started appearing behind the temple as the sun rose.
After taking some nice photos I decided to explore the temple a bit to see if there was anywhere to get a nice photo of the sunrise from within the temple. I then went to breakfast with the rest of the group before our real tour of Angkor Wat was meant to commence.
Our guide introduced some of the history of the temple and how and why it was built, before showing us around the different floors, each representing a different aspect of life, the top being heaven, the gardens being the universe. We got to visit a lot of the temple and went to the top on some very steep stairs to go to heaven, where we could see the surrounding jungle and the rest of the temple.
Following this visit, we went on our way to visit the second temple of the day, this one smaller. On our way there we stopped briefly to cross one of the various gates and were told how one one side the faces represented gods and on the other they represented demons.
Finally our last temple of the morning was the temple where they filmed Lara Croft in 2001, a temple that had partially been reclaimed by the jungle, which giant trees covering it with roots and growing tall above it.
Following our various visits, we went to get lunch in a local Cooperative, which helps local people learn skills to work in tourism and got a delicious local meal, with an amazing passion fruit juice.
For the afternoon we had some time off where I was able to catch up on some zzzs for a bit before we were picked up to go quad biking. Once we got there we were introduced to how the quad bike works and given safety equipement. We then took a lap on the safety track to test out the quad before heading off into the surrounding countryside. We started off by driving around on dirt roads crossing some villages where we were met by waiving kids as we zoomed past them, before crossing into fields where we would kick up so much dust, to the point we couldn’t even see who was in front of us or behind us, basically fog. We drove for an hour through various roads, occasionally crossing packs of cows that would cross in our path and look at us like crazy people as we crossed through their pack. Finally we stopped for the sunset before it was to drive back the quad.
For dinner, we went to our Guide’s house who leaves in the same city, and were served some local food to celebrate early the Cambodian New Year which is in a week.