It was pretty much a sleepless night for both of us, so when our alarm went off, we didn't really want to get up. As it was to see a potentially amazing sunrise over Ankgor, we knew we had to do it. Kaka was waiting outside the hotel for us at 5am, so we got in the tuk tuk and he drove us to Angkor. He parked up amongst all the other tuk tuk drivers and said he'd be waiting there for us. We agreed to meet him at 7am.

Angkor sunrise

So we managed to get there just on time to see the magnificent colours of the sky. It was starting to get light real quickly, I didn't want to miss the sunrise, so we waited by the lake just outside the wall. The colours of the sky were burnt orange, shimmering pinks and light blue. You could see the reflection of Angkor on the lake, which made for great mirror images. It was so calm and serene looking at this great building while the sun was rising. I stood there watching for a few minutes, then we wandered on through to the main Angkor Wat building.

Surprisingly, it wasn't too overcrowded at the point where everybody takes pictures. As we were walking up to it, one of the locals told us where to stand. It's the section on the left hand side, by the pond. You can see all 5 lotus bud towers from there. In wet season, this pond is full of water, so it would usually have a great reflection of Angkor. However it's only just coming into rainy season, so the pond isn't quite full yet. It still makes for a lovely photograph though. We waited here until the sun started to come up behind Angkor. By then the sky was blue and it was starting to get hot, even by 6am I was sweating.

Once the sun came up, there were no good colours left in the sky, so we left and got a drink from the local stall. It was expensive, so we didn't eat breakfast there. We headed back to have a wander around Ankgor Wat, but it wasn't open yet, so we went back to the tuk tuk. He drove us to a little restaurant where we had a lovely breakfast. He took us back to Angkor Wat, it opened at 7am, so this time, we were able to go back inside to have a look around.

Angkor Wat

We hadn't hired a guide, although I wish we had now. It would have been interesting to learn something about the history of the place while walking around it. So anyway, the temple was open and we went through to look at this structure. It just so happens to be the largest religious site in the world, and probably one of the most important ones too. I never realised it was such a big site, but when you consider that it's actually made up of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and other temples around, it consists of around 400 square miles, it's huge. I'm glad we didn't decide to hire bikes, it's around 25km from Siem Reap to one of the furtherest ones. Plus you'd have to cycle around all the temples and back, you'd be knackered.

Angkor history

Here is a bit of the background to this magnificent place. Angkor actually means 'capital city' or 'holy city'. Khmer refers to the ethnic group in Cambodia, both in modern and ancient Cambodia. In modern day usage, Angkor refers to the capital city of the Khmer Empire, which existed in Cambodia between the 9th and 12th century AD. These temple ruins around Siem Reap are the remains of Angkorian capitals. They represent the lifeblood of ancient Khmer architecture, art and civilisation.

In it's hey day, the epoch of Angkor was a time when it contained more than a million people. It's hard to imagine the site filled with that many people. At that time, Khmer kings built many structures including; vast waterworks and grand temples. Ankgor's military, economic, and cultural dominance was felt in modern Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and even Laos.

Angkor Wat is visually, artistically and architecturally breathtaking. It's a three tiered pyramid, crowned by five lotus bud towers, which rise 65 metres above ground level. At the height of the Khmer political and military dominance in the area, Suryavarman II constructed Angkor Wat. The temple was built in the form of a huge temple mountain, which was dedicated to the Hindu god; Vishnu. At that time Hinduism was the dominant religion, however, after Jayavarman VIII death, Buddhism returned to Cambodia in a different form. Instead of Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism took hold, and remains the dominant religion in Cambodia today.

History lesson over, so we continued to walk through these grounds. The building is in fairly good condition, considering how old it is. However, there is some structural beams holding things in place, which John was quick to point out. We walked though some of the rooms and I was just trying to imagine what it was used for. The main courtyard were fairly large. There were lots of Khmer murals on the walls so intricately carved. It must have taken years to construct everything. We headed to the lotus bud towers towards the back of the buildings. There was one of the towers we could climb up. We had to climb a set of really steep stairs to reach the top, but once we did, we were rewarded with some excellent views overlooking the front of the building and the buildings near the entrance gates. It was stupendous. We wandered around the upper levels too, but most of it looks the same. So we left this site to go back to our tuk tuk.

Somehow we'd already spent around 5 hours at Angkor Wat, if you include the time we got here, watching sunrise, having breakfast and going back to have a look around the temple. This is where John and I differ. I could have spent a few days walking around these temples at leisure, but he was happy with just seeing them all in a day. So we had to leave to be driven to our next set of temples. Before we set off, we stocked up with cold water to keep us replenished on this hot day. While finding our tuk tuk, we saw another driver sleeping in the hammock, which was attached to his tuk tuk, that's the life!

Angkor Thom (big Angkor)

Once we'd found our driver, we left and he took us to Ankgor Thom. This site contains the bulk of the other important temples. It's a 3km walled city with a moat. It was the last capital of the Angkorian empire. When Jayavarman VII re-captured the capital from Cham invaders in 1181, he started to build a new capital city, so he constructed Ankgor Thom. He started with Baphuon and Phimeanakes, he built an enclosed city around them adding an outer moat. He also constructed some of Ankgor's greatest temples including; Bayon. There are 5 entrance gates to the city, each gate is crowned with 4 faces. We headed here next after Angkor Wat.

Bayon

We got dropped off in front of one of the gates, although I don't know which one, they all looked the same to me. We were greeted by hundreds of giant stone faces all staring at us! These type of faces have become one of the most recognisable images connected to classic Khmer art and architecture. This temple actually has 37 standing towers, most of which have 4 faces carved into the stone. Nobody knows for sure who the faces represent, but they think it could be Loksvara, Mahayana Buddhism's compassionate Bodhisattva, or a combination of Buddha and Jayavarman VII.

This temples has some intricate carvings on the walls containing real life scenes from a historical sea battle between the Khmer and the Cham. There are also many unique carvings which reveal scenes from everyday lives, which are spread amongst the battle scenes. These include market scenes, cockfighting, chess games and childbirth. Some unfinished carvings could indicate that Jayavarman VII had died.

I quite liked walking around this temple, there weren't so many people here, so you could wander around without bumping anyone. It was too hot now, so we just took some shade and looked around inside wherever we could. It was quite impressive, looking at all the different carved faces all around the temple. There were a few people posing for modelling type photos around here, standing in the doorways and stairs. We didn't hang around for too much longer as had other temples to visit.

Baphuon, Terrace of the Elephants, Prasat Top

We did visit some other temples in the Ankgor Thom area, but only briefly stopping to have a look. We still had other sites to visit after this one and we were getting hungry for lunch. Even if it was only 11am or so, in our defence we did get up at 4am though. We walked around Baphuon, it's been under extensive restoration. It has a large reclining Buddha on the west side, carved into the wall, which has been restored, but part of the head is still missing. We also saw Terrace of the Elephants; which is a 2.5 metre tall, 300 metre long terrace wall carved with elephants. It was quite cool, but we missed the section below with the elephants and only saw the top level. Because we didn't go on the ground floor level, we subsequently missed Terrace of the Leper King, but didn't realise until after we'd actually left the site. The left temple we saw at this site was Prasat Top, which is in honour of a powerful monk, Jayamangalartha. He was the son of Jayavarman VII Brahman monks. We were pretty much the only ones at this small temple, which was pretty cool. There wasn't so much restorative work, so was good to see it in its original condition.

After there, our driver took us to a lovely restaurant for lunch. We sat overlooking a lake while eating, meanwhile, the tuk tuk drivers all lay resting in hammocks while they wait for us. It wasn't the cheapest place, but the driver even said some places where people eat have given them food poisoning, so best to be on the safe side. The food was ok, nothing amazing though. Then it was time to leave to go to the site where all those cool trees in Tomb Raider were filmed with Angelina Jolie.

Ta Prohm

We entered the site where some of the scenes of Tomb Raider was filmed. It's more like a jungle here, there are so many trees with some massive roots. Some of which are fig, and silk cotton trees. There were some pretty old unrestored temples. It's suppose to be really touristy, but luckily there weren't too many people here. There is one tree in particular is probably the most famous one on Tomb Raider was Ta Prohm. We walked up to this temple and it's only partially cleared of jungle overgrowth. It also also been left mostly unrestored, although now, there is some construction work going on in some of the temples here at Ankgor Thom. Some of it is closed off to the public, but luckily we could get to see Ta Promh though. The temple was one of Jayavarman VII's first major temple projects, in which he dedicated it to his mother. It was originally built as a Buddhist monastery and was wealthy at that time. It controlled over 3000 villages.

So we walked though the temples and found the famous tree roots. The roots completely took over the building! It's amazing how it managed to grow there. We posed for our picture, then wandered off to look at the rest of the big trees and roots. One tree, the root was growing from the roof, strangely enough. There was another tree that had a hole in, big enough for me to climb in, so I went inside! I just about fit in there. We found lots of cool trees and John started to climb some of them. We carried on walking through the jungle, I was starting to feel like I was Angelina Jolie!

We were nearly templed out, but had one more to visit on the way back. I can't remember the name, but we were literally the only ones there for a few minutes. At first, we thought it was a small temple, but it was huge. It was really rustic and not really restored at all. There were lots of bricks crumbled down around it. It was definitely worth a visit on route back though.