Siem Reap

We left the hotel at the painful time of 5.20 today and headed straight to Angkor Wat, it was pitch black when we got there and pretty hard to negotiate the steps and cobblestones on the way in but we made it with about 400 other people! It was busy with way too many tourists who got there at God knows what hour to be in the front row as it was already packed at about 5.45. So we watched the sunrise which was actually really beautiful as it hid the huge scaffolding standing right in front of the temple and afterwards headed to a beautiful little temple called Banteay Samre, it was great as there was no one there! So we walked around in peace taking photos, you could only walk around this temple as there was ropes up to stop tourists from entering but for 5 dollars you could bribe the guard to get inside and take photos of each other, we decided to give it a miss. Next we had a quick breakfast and then headed to Benteay Srey, East Mebon, Pre Rup and Benteay Kdei, all were fairly impressive some because of sheer size eg Pre Rup and others because of detailed carvings. During the drive I asked the guide some questions about Pol Pot’s reign and he told us a story about his father who killed a cow to feed his starving children, the Khmer Rouge found out and his father was ordered to go report to the town hall the following day for punishment, his father feared execution and told his family he might not return, 4 hours before he was to report to the town hall the Vietnamese army rolled through possibly saving his life, very lucky! Finally the last temple on our tour was Prasat Kravan which is one of the first temples built, I actually thought it was a newer one as it has been heavily restored and so in very good condition. We then headed back to our hotel for a well earned rest. After a couple of hours sleep we headed back into town, we checked out the market and had a look around, bought a few more souvenirs and then had some dinner and finally home again.