January 31, 2010 – Day 402 – Siem Reap, Cambodia

Sunrise is a busy time in Siem Reap. You would be surprised at just how many crazy foreigners are up and (mostly) dressed to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. You would be even more surprised that lazy folks like us did it too.

Angkor wat by moon light

Only thing is, we skipped around the backside of the main temple of Angkor Wat instead of sitting with the hundreds of chattering tourists by the front nearly dried up ponds. We were incredibly lucky this very early morning because of the very bright full moon on this particular date. We watched the moon set behind the famous wat and that was worth getting up at 5AM just in itself!

Not very serene up front

Sunrise turned out to be foggy and more of just plain ol’ getting light rather than a colorful magical rising of a glowing orange orb in a pink sky. But that turned out to be the highlight of the morning. Instead of waiting around anymore we went inside the wat and were lucky enough to be the only ones (except for one security guard) in there!

Empty Halls

Lindsey exploring Angkor Wat

We had the whole place to ourselves for nearly half an hour before slowly a few tourists started to trickle in. It was really fantastic. So serene, so old, so intense and so full of time and stories noiselessly bursting from the walls. (Doubly worth getting up while it was still dark outside.)

Angkor Wat at sunrise

As if luck wasn’t already on our side this morning, just about the time we were finished exploring the wat, sunrise was just beginning to liven up out front. It was indeed the promised orange glowing sun backed by a colorful pink and yellow melting sky.

Steep!

Bayon Temple

From Angkor Wat, we carried on through the “small circuit” today and saw so many temples we are officially sick of temples and if we ever see another, we might just run the other way screaming and crying. Some great stuff in there though, definitely worth every minute.

Little guides

Bayon Temple

Travel Tip – Angkor Transport Options:

There are a few options for seeing the temples of the ancient city Angkor. You can rent bicycles for $2/day from just about any guest house OR you can hire a tuk tuk through the guest house or on the street for about the same price all day. The roads are paved and well connected in a circle around all of Angkor’s temples ad ruins so both transport options are just as easy in that respect. (Note: you can also rent a private taxi or probably your own rental car—no scooters here– if you have the desire and money but it is kind of wasteful and totally unnecessary).

The ruins are about 6km from town (that’s an estimate really but it takes about 15 minutes via tuk tuk from pretty much anywhere you would be staying) and Cambodians are known to hold the title of world’s worst drivers. Besides, you need a decent amount of times (days) to see your money’s worth of Angkor if you decide to save money and rent bicycles. Not recommended if you have just one day but might be a good option for the smaller circuit of temples if you have 3 or more days. Just hire a tuk tuk for the much larger/farther outer circle and then again for the outer lying temple group if you really want to pack in that third day. If you really just enjoy biking through bad traffic and terrible drivers, grab a map from any guest house and ask them to point out the small and big circles of temples so you don’t miss anything major. Plus you can always stop wherever you feel like if something not marked on the map catches your eye.

Hiring a tuk tuk is a convenient and relatively speedy way to see the ruins of Angkor. The driver will wait for you at each temple stop and you can spend as much or little time at a temple as you like. They are not your guide, just your driver so you have free reign of your time and don’t need to deal with a yapping guide the entire day. If you want the history of Angkor, google it. Guest houses are the most common way to hire tuk tuks although you can certainly try to hire one off the street. Those we talked to in both areas were charging the apparently standard rate of $12/day for the small circle of temples (that includes Angkor Wat [most famous wat at Angkor], Bayon [with the faces], a few more smaller temples, and also the Tomb Raider temple with the tree growing over the top), $15 for the big circle of temples, and $25 for the outer lying temple group. This means that, from sunrise to sunset, you have the services of that tuk tuk driver. They only drive you (or up to 4 people, maybe 6 if you’re terribly skinny and crunched in together) so no group tour things either.

Obviously biking is cheaper but not quite as fun for most people. The temples are pretty far apart, maybe a kilometer sometimes more, and this can make a very long day on top of the distance to and from town in the first place. Be sure to watch where you are riding because cars, motos, and tuk tuks pass at random and often times drive much to fast (and erratically in general) on the extraordinarily bumpy roads circling the temples.

If you hire a tuk tuk driver through you guest house, it would be nice to tip him (directly, not through the guest house tour desk) a couple dollars for getting you there for sun rise and/or especially if you ask him to do a sunrise and sunset run in the same day. Many times the drives work on a flat monthly salary so they are no even profiting from your $15 tour. Instead that money all goes to the guest house and he still gets his regular salary, no extra commission. A couple dollars goes a long way in a country where a $6 room is unanimously considered by locals to be “very expensive.”