Siem Reap, Cambodia Day 11

Today we visited Angkor Wat - what a day to remember! We woke up whilst it was still pitch black at 4am this morning surprisingly not feeling too tired, we were up and out of the hostel very quickly excited to see James Bond who will be our tour guide for the day. As we drove in the cold we had to make a quick stop at the ticket outlet in order to buy our $37 day pass before we could enter Angkor Wat, we were the first ones to arrive and after a twenty minute wait, the place got very busy very quickly, it was absolutely packed by 5am!

Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the world stretching over 400 square kilometres and it is one of the seven wonders in the world - no wonder it was busy. Lucy and I remember googling and researching Angkor Wat before we started our travels and we could not believe the day has actually arrived. You have a choice when to visit Angkor Wat during the same day whether to choose sunrise or sunset (if you are purchasing a one day pass instead of three days) so we decided through other peoples opinions sunrise would be the best. Everyone goes to the famous Angkor Wat to watch the captivating sunrise creep above the temple and really was a once in a lifetime view, we would definitely recommend this to anyone visiting Cambodia.

All of the temples were astonishing, most the them were homes for local monkeys and the place was just simply huge - We visited the four main temples in total including the same temple Tomb Raider was filmed in, this took us to 1pm and by that time we were officially templed out and knackered. During that time a bizarre but funny situation happened where I bought a coconut (as you do) to sip on the long walks and whilst walking up to one of the temples a monkey approached me and stole it! I was warned by photographers to be careful as they could bite so I took no chances and let him have it which funnily enough up being a fantastic photo opportunity for other people to take pictures of him perched on a temple wall digging into my coconut.

During the afternoon we sat by the pool and relaxed, we didn't move from our hostel until it was time for dinner. We thought we should treat ourselves to a foot message after the long morning and it was a great idea, $2 for half an hour - not bad! We had something easy to eat at a lovely local restaurant close by, it was a delicious end to yet another great day!

Siem Reap is totally blowing us away...