--- Same caveat as parts I and II; loads more photos in the album starting here (it takes ages to insert them into the post itself) https://russ-and-mead.travelmap.net/photos/siem-reap?index=176 ---

The day of the big event had finally arrived; after all the weather forecast checking, we were hoping it paid off - it was time to go and see the sunrise at the iconic Angkor Wat temple. Keen to see this, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed at the previously unknown time of 4:30am. We collected our surprise packed breakfast from the hotel and met our usual Tuk Tuk driver Mr Ten to head there.

We had already been prepared with drinks, snacks and coffee for the journey, to ensure we would be in the right frame of mind to appreciate the sight, and not being carted off because we launched someone into the lake out of hanger for getting in our way. 

We got there and found a nice little seat just across the lake from Angkor Wat, so the sunrise would frame it. Good thing is because we're reasonably near the equator, sunrise doesn't hang around, only about 30 minutes between darkness and sun up. It was pretty awesome, although as could be expected after our planning, was fairly cloudy so not quite the full impact.

We sat and watched for a while, letting the crowd disperse and thin out a little. We did keep hearing local kids behind us trying to sell breakfasts to people (pretty smart move) but we fortunately were not interested as we saw a few of them eyeing up people's breakfast containers already in the bin, naively hoping that's not where they got their ingredients. 

We then walked across the temporary floating bridge (original was being restored) and into the complex (not yet in the main tower, apparently the Khmers enjoyed suspense), across a walkway heading towards the temple. We weren't surprised to see people trying to sell stuff, although this was mostly people working for the restaurant nearby or guides for the temple (who were shocked that we wouldn't want them to explain the wonders of the temple). We, finally, got into the actual temple itself, which was well worth the wait. We were glad we did it in this order, seeing some of the smaller temples first, because most of them aren't in the same league as Angkor Wat. 

As we left Angkor Wat we walked across the grounds of the complex and saw a little family of monkeys playing around. One of them actually stole a breakfast out of someones hand (they had bananas in them) and started going to town. I also managed to make a little monkey friend (action sequence starts here https://russ-and-mead.travelmap.net/photos/siem-reap?index=264 )

The next stop on our tour was the Bayon temple, which was very different to Angkor and the other temples we'd seen so far. Not so much in the overall layout, but the in the fact there is quite a lot of towers, all with giant faces carved into them. Pretty insane.

The first two stops took longer than we'd expected, a bit over 4 hours, so with that and the heat, we were a little exhausted and templed out, but by no means done.

Next up was the Terrace of the Elephants:

Then the Terrace of the Leper King:

After that was Ta Prohm Temple, made famous by the Tomb Raider film (apparently - neither of us have seen it but seems like it would be a good setting for a film - the trees growing over everything were particularly cool).

Lastly was Banteay Kdei...

After that it was swim, dinner at the favourite place (Haven), so done.