Day 9 - Angkor Wat

Dear all,

 

We set the alarm clocks for 4h20. We settled with the guest house that a tuk tuk driver would be at the guest house entrance at 4h45 to take is to Angkor Wat and whatch the sunrise already insede the temple.

I think it is not possible to see the sunrise from inside the temple, as the ticket office "only" opens at 5AM amd although we did not see it, the queue it is probably quite large.

There is a ticket checkout at about 1km to the temple and another one when we already left the tuktuk and we were walking towards the temple. So I would say that it is almost impossible to sneak in without a ticket. Once we go inside the first gate, there is a long path towards Angkor Thorn and by a small lake it is a good spot to wait for the sunrise.

It is a pity the huge amount of people trying to sell their goods there (silk, trousers, coffe, sandwiches, souvenir, you name it) and most of all tourists not being able to to be silent and /or using flash for a sunrise picture.

We recorded about 1h20 minutes of video, and we hope to be able to make a speeded up version once back home with that "raw material".

First sun rays

Getting brighter

And brighter..

And brighter..

And brighter...

Sunrise

Unfortunatly the camera settings were in the "wide field of view" and I think that catching roughly more than the temple would be better, but the result was what is shown in the pictures above.

After the sunrise we waited a bit longer for the large amount of tourists to enter the temple, as we do not like that much to be queueing if that can be avoided by waiting a bit longer.

Peter & Marta entering one of the temples

Inside Angkor Thorn

The temples are quite impressive, with a lot to see, being easy to spend quite some time inside each one of them.

Peter Lamb @ Angkor

Unfortunatly there are some locals inside the temples trying to scam you. We were given two incense sticks, and taken near a buddha for some luck ritual, then he asked us to rubb his knees and put money under a small blanket. The guy almost yeld: "You have to put money for good luck! Put the moneeeeyyyyyyy!"...

Peter lamb & Marta being silly tourists

Leaving Angkor

We returned to the same place where we made the sunrise pictures to take one more after the temple visit and I seized the chance to have another one with a different camera setting, by reducing the camera's field of view:

Wide field of view

Narrow field of view

Most likely the video and sunrise pictures would have result better with those camera settings.

One of the pictures it is a "must have" is on the pathway towards Angkor Wat. We took this pictures on our way back to the tuktuk.

Marta @ Angkor Wat

Peter @ Angkor Wat

The flying pictures are already a classic by Peter Lamb. It could not be missed at Angkor Wat.

Peter Lamb flying

Peter Lamb

Angkor wat is indeed a special place.

Marta @ Angkor Wat

That was a day to be a tourist, as we did not feel that would be nice to take our bikes and lock them at the entrance pf the temples. Afterall, if someone would take our bikes it would be a huge loss for our trip. So, here there is our tuktuk pictures.

Our driver speedimg down the road

Marta & Peter being tourists

All the temple area is now prepared for tourists. They know that if tourists come to watch the sunrise, most likely they did not have breakfast, so why not selling breakfast for tourists "just for 6 USD"?

The small tour it is what is recommended for tourists who are visiting Angkor Wat for just one day. This includes two other temples beside the main one.

Marta & Peter

We visited one other temple after this one, but for a reason I am still trying to find out, I have no pictures about it.

 

We came back to hotel about 15h and we just seized the time by the pool area.

Marta & Peter in the pool

Just before the sunset, we went to the city center to find some place to do our laundry and we had dinner at a local restaurant (way far from tourists!!). We ate grilled meat on sticks, some bread with butter and a drink each. Total price 12 000 Riels = 3USD, great!

We stopped by the tourism information center and we got to know that we could go to Battambang by boat, but that would cost 25USD per person, and we might have to pay for the bicycles too. We tried to ask for another type of boat that the locals also use, as we were almost sure that for that price it would be a boat for tourists, but we could not get any other information. So we planned to take the bus the next day for Battambang.

 

That is all for now folks!

 

Best,

Peter & Marta

 

 

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