Another early start saw us arrive in the afternoon in Siem Reap, famous as the site of the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. We were picked up by a tuk tuk driver to take us to the hotel, which then seemed to mean that we were obliged to use him for all our transport from then on! After a bit of haggling and shopping around we agreed on a price for him to take us to see the sunset at Angkor Wat that evening, and then a full day trip (starting at 4.30am for the sunrise!) around the site the following day.

Although we were pretty knackered it was well worth going to see the sunset, we climbed up a mountain to the temple on the top, which was packed with people, but offered views across the site and some great colours. We weren't entirely sure what time the sun would set, so raced up the hill with de ja vu of the race up Dune 45 in Namibia for the sunrise where half the group didnt make it due to the exertion! Luckily we both made it in plenty of time! Returning back down was more difficult as it got dark really quickly and we hadn't thought to take a torch! The journey back to town was slightly traumatic due to the first wild snake sighting of the trip, but I'm trying to forget about that!

Not really feeling like we had had any sleep, we stumbled out of the hotel into the tuk tuk at 4.30 the next morning. We were some of the first people in the Angkor Wat site, but luckily we tagged on to a tour group and followed them so we knew where was a good place to watch the sunrise! Despite the sunrise itself not really happening due to too much low cloud, the light changes over the main Angkor Wat temple were still spectacular and well worth the early start.

After grabbing a quick breakfast we headed to the Angkor Thom complex, which contained many different ruins which were good fun exploring! They were larger and more spread out than they looked so we spent about 3 hours there, before heading to the jungle ruins that Tombraider was filmed in! This place was pretty cool - the buildings and the surrounding trees had a simbiotic relationship, if they removed one the other would fall down. The massive roots of some of the trees could be seen wrapped around the walls of the old temple. Unfortunately by then we were starting to feel the effect of the early start and decided to head back to our tuk tuk man, walking straight back through the ruins. We had underestimated them and got completely lost for a while down all the narrow passageways!

With just Angkor Wat to return to to look around properly now that the light was better than first thing in the morning, we decided to first go up in a helium balloon that supposedly allowed as a view of the whole site to put it into perspective. We were slightly disappointed to only be able to see Angkor Wat rather than all the other temples we had also been to, but it was still a good view.

We then returned to Angkor Wat and walked around quickly. We didn't think that it was the most impressive temple by far, despite the site being named after it, but maybe that was because it was getting late in the day! The sun had gone in so we didn't feel that we had to stay for the sunset so headed back to get an early night before another early start and day long bus trip to Bangkok.