Angkor ruins day 1

I got up really early at 04:45 and went down to jump on the bike I rented from the guesthouse and rode to Angkor Wat. It was still dark and the road was not lit so I couldn't see the holes in the road. After about 20 minutes of pedalling I reached the ticket office and bought a three-day pass for a whopping €40,-. On the ticket was a picture of me taken at 05:30 in the morning (not a pretty sight)...

I got back on the bicycle and reached Angkor Wat at 05:45. It was already pretty busy with a lot of tourists and it was still dark. Soon it became lighter and lighter and Angkor Wat became more visible... At 06:10 it was completely light and I was a bit disappointed with the "sunrise" (did I get up this early just for this???). I overheard some people saying their tuc tuc driver told them to wait until 06:45 so I hung around. At 06:50 I was rewarded with the sun coming up from behind one of the towers of Angkor Wat which was really beautiful and I forgot all about the early wake-up.

I wandered around the temple for an hour admiring all the carvings on the walls and the architecture and then got some coffee from a vendor outside the temple. Then, I biked on to the nearby hill/temple where everybody goes to see the sunset. I was not impressed by the view (just treetops all around and a glimpse of the towers of Angkor Wat) so I decided not to go here for the sunset (also considering that I was told that there are even more people to watch the sunset than there are to watch the sunrise). I biked on to Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple which features a lot of towers with big faces facing all wind directions.

Because I still had a lot of time and energy left I decided to do the grand tour on bicycle after eating a sandwich. The first city ruin outside of Angkor Thom has a really good visitor center that explains the architecture and history of the site. The site itself is half covered by jungle and is partly collapsed which gives it a special atmosphere. I continued along the grand tour visiting the other ruins along the route.

I ended my day at the ruins where they shot the Tombraider movie. The temple is covered with trees that grow up and through the buildings and is really beautiful. Despite the fact that there were massive groups of Japanese tourists here all trying to take a picture of the famous spots from the movie there were also some more quiet parts which I really enjoyed.

I rode back to Siem Reap and took a very necessary shower (I was one of the few idiots that was biking around at the hottest part of the day). Then I arranged a mototaxi to take me to some more remote temples tomorrow and got myself a bus ticket to Bangkok for the day after tomorrow. At the temple bar I met the Dutch girls (Annemiek and Sandra) again and Marianne (Germany) who I had met on the bus from Don Det to Phnom Penh. We had dinner and drinks together.