Ankor Wat Sunrise

So Day 3 consisted of getting up really early (4:30am) to head to Ankor Wat to see the sunrise. Ankor Wat is a "world heritage site" group of temples that were built in the 12th century that are said to be absolutely breathtaking at sunrise & sunset - also I think to avoid the heat - and are THE main tourist attractions in Cambodia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankor_Wat

Because we had arranged a ride the night before, our driver - who we thought was bringing 2 tuk tuk's - brought his car and lets just say it was quite the ride. When we got in, mind you this is 5am, he turned on his disco lights, tv screens that were on the back of the seats and hip hop tunes that were blasting so loud! Sara, without a doubt, embraced it and was taking videos in no time! It was quite the morning!

Its such a huge area that its usually common for people to get 2 or 3 day passes, which cost the same amount, so we ended up getting a 3 day pass that has your picture and everything! We walked in and sat in a spot that seemed to be a popular place that you could get some good shots...you should have seen all of the nice cameras people had there! Lens envy! haha....I ended up getting some good shots though, even though soon after the intial sunrise, it hid behind some clouds. We may try sunrise again on our last morning here. We shall see though.

After the main temples, he also showed us some other popular ones including the one that was part of the Tomb Raider: Laura Croft Movie. The one with all of the trees actually growing out of, around or on top of the temple walls themselves. And these tree roots are no twig! They are really old, massive trees. Gives it a bit of perspective & amazement at how old these structures actually are!

We were pretty exhausted come 10:30 so we got dropped off at the hostel and got freshened up and went out into town to grab a quick lunch. We went walking around the markets for a bit, but realized we were kind of zombie-like so we came back & took a glorious nap!

Our driver from this morning (who was actually a friend of Simons driver from Phnom Phen) invited us (including Simon) for dinner at his place & it was quite the experience. We got to ride on scooters for the first time (for me anyways) and when we showed up he told us that his friends got 2 ducks, which we later saw him carrying freshly killed - feathers & all....and lots of beer. It was really cool just hanging out with locals and learning about their upbringing & way of life. The families all live on the same land so we got to meet a lot of the family - including an adorable 3 week old newborn. The houses were no more than a nice barn would be back home but they never have winter here so that's not a problem, but the rain from the thunderstorm made things quite muddy and seeing there hammock beds, rainwater collecting system & cooking areas were quite an eye opener. But either way, we had an amazing time, ate delicious 'as local as you get' food with some great people. They then wanted to go singing - which was just like Korea's noraebangs (singing rooms) so how could that NOT be fun!

What an entertaining day!
xoxo