Angkor Day 2: A Sunrise to Remember 🌄

The second day started with an early morning adventure that involved setting our alarms at 04:30 to witness the mesmerizing sunrise at Angkor Wat. The early wake-up call was a bit tough when on holiday and some coffee was needed, but was entirely worth it as we watched the temple bathed in the gentle morning light, creating a memory that will stay with us forever. As this is the most beautiful way too see the temple, there was quite a crowd next to the right reflection pool, trying to capture one of the infamous shots. We were presently surprised though as we had seen pictures in videos of hundreds of people gathering in the morning, which was not the case. A perk of going off season, with the draw back of a cloudy morning sky. We did think the clouds looked rather pretty in the morning glow.

Angkor Wat is definetely most impressive when you walk towards its imposing structure for the first time. Very humbling sight, matched by few. Guiness World records considers it the “ largest religious structure in the world” standing tall at 64m, surrounded by a 200m wide and 5km long moat, putting many European castles to shame. Built as a Hindu temple in the 12th century it was the pride of the Khmer Empire, and still is of the Cambodian people featuring on its flag. It means “ temple city/capital city” and was the center of Angkor Thom. Over a million people once lived in the area, and part of the reason it is so well preserved in contrast to other temples of Angkor is because it has never been abandoned and hence maintained over the centuries. So when it was rediscovered by French explorer Henry Mouhot in the 1860s there were still people living around it, and using it as a place of worship.
In his travel notes he describes Angor Wat as:
“ One of these temples a rival to Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo, might take a place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Rome Or Greece, and presents a great a great contrast to the barbarism into which the nation is now plunged”

As the faith of the population changed so did Angkor wat, becoming a Buddhist temple around the 12th century. You can still see original Hindu sculptures and reliefs so it is a mixed temple. There are Buddhist monks living close by and we saw some walking around, hence why you should dress respectfully and only photograph with permission.

We went inside after admiring the view, it was still relatively empty in some areas, based on pictures in high season everyone is in queues inside. We opted against a guide and just read up on lonely planet on some of the famous bas reliefs. Even though the sun only just rose it was really hot due to the high humidity, so sweaty the sunscreen runs down your skin. We both agreed the true masterpiece to us was the outside, as the inside apart from the bas reliefs was just a bit sisnilar to a big monastery or museum we have seen in the past. So we didn’t stay too long considering the early morning and floods of groups arriving.
We did stop to buy some souvenirs including a small oil painting, which you can really buy anywhere and probably would have been cheaper at the local market, oh well: Painting country number 2 ✔️.

A bit spontaneously and not something either of us usually would do, we did a mini photo shoot. The pictures are a bit cringey , touristy but surprisingly nice and well worth the 10 for 10$ , and they make for a pretty framed picture.

The benefit of an early morning was that we were back at our hotel before noon. We finished the day with some middle eastern food which was prepared by a truly lovely lady. It was raining as usual in the afternoon/ evening but that’s what rain jackets are for.Read more