As Andrew mentioned, we had a very early morning rise, with the alarm going off at 3:30 a.m. The goal: watch the sunrise over the 900-year old, famous Angkor Wat temple complex, the largest religious structure in the world (over 400 acres)! The temple is believed to have astronomical significance, since several lines of sight from within the temple show specific towers to be at the exact location of the sunrise at equinox. We arrived and it was still dark, so much so that we had to use our phone flashlights while walking the path to the temple. We were able to get a lot of shots of Angkor Wat from different views and lighting backgrounds, from before sunrise until after. A famous shot is to take the picture of the reflection of the temple off the water in front of it, with the sun rising behind the temple stupas. We did not nail it. Okay, the weather didn’t cooperate; it was quite cloudy in the morning, but it was still a beautiful site (google Angkor Wat sunrise to see some incredible photography).

After morning pictures, we had our hotel provided breakfast boxes on site. Next, our tour guide Dat (pronounced like the fruit “date”) walked us through the grounds and temple, explaining the vast history of the temple. We spent about 4 hours on the grounds, taking in so many different facets and details of this stunning site. If you’ve ever been to a place where words and photos just can’t mimic being there, this is one of those places!

Next, we headed to Ta Prohm Temple, referred to as the “Tomb Raider Temple” due to its depiction in the movie, but I like to call it “the temple that was eaten by the jungle.” They didn’t use mortar to build this temple, so after it was abandoned the trees took root and literally overtook the temple. It’s an incredible site to see! Some of the trees in the photos are a few hundred years old (but the temple is 800+ years old). The Angkor and Angkor Thom area has hundreds of temples (about 72 major temples and hundreds of smaller/minor temples). There has been a significant effort to restore and conserve these stories of history since the early 1900s, but they decided to leave this temple mostly untouched so visitors could see how the temple has merged together with the jungle.

Our 3rd and final temple for the day was Bayon Temple, what I like to call “smiling Buddha temple.” Each tower that juts up across the entire temple grounds has 4 smiling Buddhas (1 on each side of the tower) chiseled into the stone, close to 200 in total. You couldn’t help but smile and feel happy looking at all these beautiful Buddha faces. At Angkor Wat, Daniel…”attempted” to do Andrew’s famous leg-up move for photos. Well, now it was Andrew’s turn, so he quickly got on the ground and threw his leg up to show up Daniel’s lack-of-stretching-and-inflexible-leg-performance. As we were walking out, we noticed a large monkey. We were warned to be careful in this temple in particular, as they love water bottles and food and will come down and snatch items away from you. This monkey that we saw was actually quite serene and seemed a little shy, but he (she?) was cute!

We headed back to the hotel for a break and to freshen up. For dinner, we were going to New Hope restaurant, which is a training restaurant and one of the projects that G Adventures has to give back to communities. They also created a way for women to get involved (rather than just the men going out to work), so we each got picked up in a “tuk tuk” (2 per vehicle) to be taken to the restaurant, all driven by women who would escort us around the city for the rest of the evening. We’ve been impressed with how many projects G has set up to give back to communities. Dinner was actually great. We heard it was just plain food (read “meh”) but we actually really enjoyed it! They make extra money for the school by selling alcoholic drinks, so “the more you drink, the more you help us out” they told us. We were happy to oblige. We are giving back, after all!

After dinner, we went to the Phare Circus, which we found out is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest running circus show! They’ve actually traveled all over the world and it’s a fun experience that we would describe as being similar to Cirque do Soleil, with lots of acrobatics, dancing, and tricks. After the show, we were all reveling at the experience and talking about the fact that the announcer mentioned they were the longest running show, at just over 24 hours. We all realized they meant the longest running single performance/show, not over time (years), and we were amazed that they had a circus show that ran for more than a day straight through! Enjoy some of the videos.

Another long day in the books! Tomorrow is also a long day, so I’m splitting up Siem Reap into two posts. Talk soon!

Jeff