I made it from Phnom Penh to Siam Riep in record time on a bus that was pretty decent., except for the Thai pop music video that was on repeat for 3 hours. I got off the bus directly on to a Tuk Tuk and was taken right to the area of town I wanted to stay in, and randomly, right to the guesthouse I had heard about.

Starving, because I had not had anything besides fruit for breakfast, I went to the guest house where I met two other travelers who had come from a hellish ride in via Bangkok and the border. We started talking, and ended up going out to the temples to see the sunset. We made plans to wake up early to see sunrise as well, so at 4:30am I rolled out of bed and started that process. Quick shower, and I went downstairs to wake them up.

Sunrise was beautiful, but busy. There were many people camped out across from the lake, all trying to get the perfect shot. I wish I had a decent tripod here, but after wasting money on a little digital camera that broke, I can’t afford it.

We spent the rest of the morning driving around in our tuk tuk with driver we had rented for the day, seeing many, many temples. Some were interesting, some were not. Since we were there so early, we were able to visit some of the temples while no one was around. One of them, one that is being reclaimed by the jungle, we had for ourselves to explore for a loong time, just us and the jungle noises as we crept across the ruins, and up onto ledges that we were definitely not allowed to be on. Finally the buses of tour groups started arriving, and our four hours of relative peace ended. It became a chore to walk through crowds, wait in lines, and sit in the heat, so we jumped back in the tuk tuk and just told him to take us around the ruins for a while. We did this until around noon when we were so tired we all fell asleep and our driver stopped and asked if we just wanted to go home, since he was driving around three sleeping people.

I am trying to decide if I want to go to the beach, Phnom Penh, or right to Vietnam and spend a good amount of time there.


Sunrise over Angkor Wat

Trees reclaiming a Temple

In front of one of the lesser Temples