Sunrise from a hill top in Cambodia - Phnom Bakheng

The previous post in this series is here.. We are now in Day 5, our third day in Cambodia.

Sarak offered to take us back to Angkor Wat for Sunrise on our last day given my previous time lapse attempt was a dud. However he said that the sunrise from the hill facing Angkor Wat at Phnom Bakheng will be really beautiful. Only thing is that we have to walk in pitch darkness with iPhones as flashlights for a good 25 minutes at 4:30 in the morning to go up 3 km to the temple.

San was ready to drop and started suggesting I do the sunrise and come back to the hotel to wake her up. This was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Less crowds. Sunrise.. beautiful sunrise.. so I pestered her to join me. Made chai for her at 3:45 AM as an incentive.

She was glad she came and I was just so happy we got to be there together. The photo below was not edited. The sun flare on my yoga shirt happens on the iPhone because of a spec of dust in the lens…. we did get a lot of yoga photos as well.. Saruk encouraged me to do Yoga here and was taking his photography to another level..

We waited a good 30 minutes for the horizon to start brightening. The stars in the sky put on a display as there was no light pollution in the area!

We walked up, got a timelapse as well (it is part of the video highlights reel). it was chilly in the morning and both of us had a cold. We were up and active all thanks to Tylenol. When we came down after the sunrise we saw the temple from the base, a nandi that was still intact and the descriptive boards that we couldn’t read in the darkness earlier.

The video highlights reel including the timelapse of the sunrise..

After this we were dropped back at the hotel. We were to have breakfast, check out and meet our driver back at 8:45AM. We were to see two more temples on the way to the airport….

An evening to remember in Siem Reap City

The previous post in this series is here..

It had been a long day. We had woken up at 3:45AM to leave the hotel at 4AM and had made 6 stops by noon. Had eaten parts of the packed breakfast (San could eat a lot more than me given the allergies) and some energy bars and kept going. By 1PM when we came back to the hotel we were exhausted. After a 3 hour nap and some Wagh Bakri chai, we decided to go enjoy golden hour along the river.

The plan was to walk along the river, cross over to the night market restaurant area, eat dinner and walk back to the hotel. It was just a 20-25 minute walk. The river walk was beautiful. Then we walked to the same area where we had found dinner and decided to go to a different restaurant. I thought the writing was in Telugu from a distance.. turns it out was in the local language. The food was decent. We both were developing a sore throat. So we stuck to simple safe items. We were the only ones in the restaurant as it was still early.

Enjoyed the food and walked back.. Saw a cat restaurant on the way back and was missing the little one. She loves cats. I am told that one day I will be a Crampa (cat grandpa).. and that is all the pa I will get.. but given I am allergic to most cats, that privilege will be lost on me.

A video highlights reel..

We got back to the hotel by 7 and it was lights out. Our driver had promised one more sunrise, this time we would actually get to see the sun come out over the forests atop another temple on the hill. We were to leave the hotel by 4:30AM.. again. San was in two minds and said she will decide at 4AM, but I begged her to join me in the morning and we dozed off.

The mother of all temples - Angkor Wat

The previous post in this series is here..

We had seen the outside perimeter of the Angkor Wat temple earlier in the morning when watching the sunrise. Instead of going into the temple with the crowd, we had visted Bayon temple, the tomb raider temple, Banteay Kdei temple and Kravan temple and finally made our way to Angkor Wat.

Our driver said we could walk around ourselves and follow the crowd or better take an official guide from the entrance for 15 USD. So he found a guide who was his friend. This guy had practiced English lines with a Boston accent and he recited the lines at the right locations. He happened to be a decent photographer (not the same caliber as our driver but not bad). He told us there are 3 courtyards. The outer which we were in, the middle courtyard and a top courtyard which involved climbing a bunch of steep stairs.

The sun was up and there was no shade once we reached the middle courtyard. So we told our guide “while we have the energy, lets go to the top and do the difficult stuff first”. He was surprised by the request but said “whatever you want!”. So up we went, saw the main shrine first, then we came down and everything else was relatively a piece of cake.

The building below is the library in the background. No books. That building was just amazing. The moat around the temple was equally amazing. 1.3 km by 1.6 km with a 90 feet moat around the entire perimeter that was manually dug and filled !

The four main corridors converging below a square rock that align perfectly on a compass with the main directions.. marvellous engineering from a 1000 years ago!

We walked around the middle courtyard and made our way out through some stores to the parking lot. The guide said “I have to walk back a km to the point where we started our tour. you guys go straight up and turn right and your driver will be waiting for you”.

So in an hour and a half we had seen Angkor Wat Temple instead of 3 hours.

A video highlights reel..

When we came out, our driver asked us if we saw abc, xyz etc.. and we were like “Nope”. He skipped those. Later we had to google the Ramayana mural and dasavatar and figured out he had casually shown us some stuff but we did not go around the middle courtyard completely because we avoided a crowd. I was temporarily upset but got back to reality pretty quickly. We saw as much as we could see at that speed.

It was really hot and humid and I was getting a migraine. We really wanted to eat and get back to the hotel for a nap. We had started at 4:30 AM and it was close to Noon. We had walked miles in each temple. So we told our driver to tell his guide friend to do more coverage next time. He realized we were exhausted and suggested we drink some coconut water (we had wanted it the previous day). The coconut water outside the temple in the shacks was delicious and sweet. Next stop was our hotel. We stopped on the way at the market and while our driver waited we went through the market and shopped for T-shirts and linen pants with elephants on them.

We had some leftover from the breakfast that had been packed in the morning before seeing Angkor Wat. So we skipped lunch and took a nap in the hotel. The headache was getting pretty severe and San was tired as well. We rested for almost 3 hours and it was time to visit Siem Reap by ourselves in the evening.. We were to start at 4:30 AM again the next morning!