Siem Reap, Cambodia, Asia

This morning’s 4am wake up call was not exactly what I was hoping for today, but dad and I got up anyway. It didn’t appear to be raining or too cloudy, so we thought we could get a good view for sunrise. Sok picked us up at 5am and we headed over to Angkor Wat. The roads were really quiet in the dark of the early morning, until we got to the temple of course. It turns out us and one million other people thought that this was the perfect spot for sunrise. I was certain we weren’t going to get a good place to set up our tripods, but we found a perfect place. We got a spot on the edge of a small pond next the library with a reflection of Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, the weather gods didn’t really help us out this morning. It was too overcast to get a nice sunrise, so we hung around for about an hour to see nothing really. The sky just went from dark to bright, but no nice colors or anything. Totally disappointing.

We got the tuk-tuk back to the hotel so we could grab some breakfast and relax a bit. It was another scorcher today, so we weren’t too excited about going out in the sweltering heat if we didn’t have to. We went into the city center so Dad could check out his first market and we got some lunch at an amazing Mexican restaurant while we were there. Dad was blown away by the market, and it made me realize how much I’ve gotten used to being here in SE Asia. It seemed totally normal to me, but Dad was remarking about the sights, smells, amount of people, just everything. He hated it because the smell inside was pretty awful, especially with the heat, but it was a good way for him to experience the local culture first hand.

Sok picked us up from town and brought us back to the hotel so we could grab a few things before going back out to see another sunset. This time we tried the top of the mountain, that is touted as the best place for a sunset in all of Siem Reap. Unfortunately, we were disappointed again. I was thinking we would have a view of the horizon line that was littered with the silhouettes of temples, but no, just trees. We did get some nice colors again, but only when we were being kicked off the top of the mountain and forced to climb down some ridiculously narrow and steep stairs. The rain also started to spit as we were walking down and it was a full-on down pour when we were in the tuk-tuk. Poor Sok got soaked, but he was prepared with his poncho, so it was all good.

We got back to the hostel and had a bite to eat at the restaurant. We are both pretty tired from the 4am wake up call, so we are taking it easy and just chilling in the room tonight. Tomorrow we have a six hour bus journey to Phnom Penh, so that’ll be interesting! Dad’s never been on a long distance bus before…