Siem Reap, Cambodia, Asia

I was woken up by my dad this morning at 5:45am, and amazingly he wasn’t tired at all. We got about five hours of sleep and he was good to go. I was a bit tired, but still looking forward to seeing Angkor Wat. We actually found the Red Sox game on TV in the room, so we got to watch that for a bit while we got ready to leave. We had breakfast downstairs at 7am, which consisted of a fried egg, toast and fresh fruit. Not bad for free.

At 7:30am we got a tuk-tuk with Sok as our driver, and followed Sofia and Emma’s tuk-tuk to Angkor Wat. The four of us shared a tour guide named Roj for the day, so we could pick up on a little bit of the history. Our first stop was Angkor Wat, and it was pretty impressive. Good thing too after paying $40 for a two day pass. We walked across the bridge and into the first set of buildings before continuing on past the library and into the main temple. Dad was in his element taking pictures, so he didn’t hear much about what the guide had to say. We were lucky to get a good day for pictures though, and with it being the first temple he’s ever seen, I can’t blame him for taking so many pics.

We got back in the tuk-tuk after avoiding the thousands of children trying to sell bracelets and postcards, and we moved on to the next temple. Bayon temple was not much of a structure any more, mostly just rubble, but it was interesting to see. The intricate carvings are really spectacular considering they were done over 800 years ago with just primitive tools. By the time we left Bayon temple the sun was blazing and we were all sweating up a storm. It seemed like a perfect time to escape the heat and get some lunch in an air conditioned restaurant. The place we went to was within the Angkor Wat compound, so it was a little overpriced, but very good. I was also very impressed that my dad tried some Khmer food, chicken amok.

The last temple we viewed today on the small tour was called Ta Prohm, also known as the Tomb Raider Temple. This is the temple that was used in the filming of the Tomb Raider movie, and it was by far the best temple we saw today. There were massive trees growing in, on and around the whole temple, and moss was growing everywhere. It gave it a very cool look with a lot of color compared to the bare rock we’d seen everywhere else. By the time we finished up there, we were all a bit templed out for the moment, so getting back to the A/C at the guest house was a welcomed reprieve.

We hung out on the terrace for a little while having a few cold drinks to combat the sun we’d been fighting with all day. At about 4:30pm we all decided that since we had such good weather, we had better take advantage of it and go see what the sunset looked like tonight. We paid an extra $5 for Sok to drive us out to Phnom Bakheng, a temple that is very popular for sunset. Unfortunately, when we got there, so did the clouds, and the sunset wasn’t quite as good as we were hoping for. The other poor thing was that at the spot, there was nothing in the foreground of the sunset, so it looked like we could have been anywhere in the world taking these pictures. After the sun went down we did get some nice colors in the sky, but we were getting kicked out of the temple as soon as the sun hit the horizon. It was probably for the best though, the stairs going down the temple were incredibly narrow and steep, so it would have been pretty difficult in the dark.

We got back to the hotel and were pretty tired from a long day in the sun. Dad and I grabbed some dinner at the hotel restaurant and are calling it a night. Angkor Wat can now be crossed off my list of things to see, and it was pretty amazing. Tomorrow I’ll get to see how good it looks at sunset, unfortunately that means a 4am wake up call for me!