It took 30 minutes from Siem Reap city center to the Angkor Wat complex. One can take the motorcycle taxi, tuktuk, or rent a car. This time I chose to took a private tour to catch the early morning sunrise, priced at $10 USD for the half-day tour (excluding entrance tickets and lunch).
The early morning sunrise differ by season. One can see ordinary sunrises, but every summer equinox, the sun rises perfectly above the Angkor Wat, an example of knowledge in astronomy during the golden age of Angkor empire.
However I came during normal time, the sun rises slitghtly in the in the left side of the temple. Shortly after, there were less darkness and early morning sky starts to show.
The private tour, like many others provided in Cambodia, are pretty much worth the price. Every little context and details are provided in the tour, even stories and access to hidden areas one cannot regularly enter are included in the tour.
The temple, while being enormous is just one part of more than 1000 others, with 72 temples being the major and recognized.
The craziest thing.. if we look at satelitte images, it will show these major temples. However, if we zoom in the area, which mostly covered by forest, there are some lesser known even unidentified temples/ruins/artefacts.
Try zooming in any of the forest area, and should you found a brown spots, it could lie ruins of once a great city.. Truly a remarkable archeologiscal site. (It's heaven for history lovers like me)
Notice how the ruins are left naturally in the forest
The tour continues to explore other temples, usually 4-5 major ones depending on the time and duration. We continue to enter the city gates, which the city wall spans around 3km in each side, totalling 12km if one wants to go around either by foot or bicycle.
In each corner lies a temples "Chrung" which means corner (Prasat = Temple). To enter the ancient city, we need to cross the bridge over the moat and will be welcomed by the city gate (Angkor Thum)
Inside the city are numerous temple, however the most infamous one (which lies in the center) is the Bayon temple (also known as the Smiling Faces temple).
The temple, like many others in the area, have experienced multiple shifts between Hindu and Buddha. One can see evidence that some temples have both Hindu and Buddhist artefacts. showing the swtiching cylcle between the two religions.
The temple is very open and you can see some feature are restored (newer limestone tends to be cleaner). Suroundings of the Bayon temple are similar to Candi Sewu in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
One of the Buddha statue in Bayon temple, which locals are currently helding their rituals.
Shortly after Bayon temple, the tour took us to a restaurant in the temple complex area. This time I had a beef rice for around 6 USD (tourist price). It was surprisingly decent as I expect less from restaurant in touristy areas.
The tour continues to the next two temples, tourist called these: The temple run temple, and the Lara Croft/Tomb Raider Ta Prohm Temple.
The Tomb Raider temple is famous as this was the place of shooting for the movie. Many tourists like to recreate this scene by rolling up their sleeves and imitiating the face. I tried doing one but it's a bit of fail xD
The Ta Prohm Temple have many sponge trees which grows freely around the old stones. Some trees are even over 600 years old, such as this gigantic one
The rest of the temple are beautiful.
The last temple to visit for the half day tour is the Banteay Kdei Temple, also known as the Temple Run temple, named after the famous video game due to its mazey feature.
Many tourists like to recreate the temple run content as well in here, but I didn't manage to take much pictures to enjoy the area
The Buddha statue in Banteay Kdei Temple
After a tiring half-day of exploration, we finish the tour and go back to Siem Reap city center. I took a nap and dine in a local Bahn Mi place, to restore my energy for the afternoon session
My goal is to catch the sunset at Phnom Bakheng Temple. The temple are also famously called the Sunset temple.
The entrance consist of three paths one can take. The original path in the center are no longer avaialble, as not only the stairs were small, most of it are broken and has been taken over by nature.
This leaves two paths, one for hike up and the other for hike down. I took the wrong path to hike up, which leaves my route less scenic. But thankfully I arrived at the top of the temple on time after ~20 minute hike.
The sunset was a perfect end for the day. It was tiring, yet I'm very satisfied. Days like these are truly the ones that makes life more valuable.