Our alarm woke us at 0345 and this was followed by a backup phone call from hotel reception. We all showed up in the lobby on time at 0430 and directed into 5 Tuk Tuks (2 in each) for a half hour ride to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise and reflections from one of the pools – in fact the only pool as the others have no water in them during the dry season. Fantastic views although the sunrise was a bit subdued as there was some cloud cover but that did not lessen the experience. There was one person there with a remote helicopter or UAV with some form of camera on it. While he was no doubt getting some really good photographs it was at the expense of hundreds of people who did not need the UAV in their photos nor needed the droning noise. He was probably lucky to escape a swim in the pool but then that would have caused ripples – in more ways than one!

We walked through Angkor Wat and Sam, our local guide, had lots to tell us about it. We were amazed at the size of Angkor Wat not previously realising quite how large it is. Built during the 12th century it is the largest temple in the world built for the Hindu God Vishnu. It has the longest stretch of bas-relief carvings in the world. If you want to know the rest of it you will have to look it up. The pictures included here do not do it justice.

After the tour of the Wat we sat down at a local outdoor restaurant to consume our breakfast box provided by the hotel and proceeded to order a coffee frappe. Yep, it was warm enough for a frappe. Now it is back into the Tuk Tuks and off to Angkor Thom.

Although Cambodia is a Buddhist country various kings over the centuries have changed the formal beliefs of the country from Hinduism to Buddism and vica versa. These are reflected in some of the temples we have and will be visiting as statues have been changed or just removed. In some cases the reliefs have been chiseled out although you can see the outline of what was there. This is interesting because we saw the same thing in Turkey and Spain when Churches were converted to Mosques and vica versa and one instance in Cordoba Spain where a church was built in the middle of a mosque (Mezquita).

Now about Angkor Thom city, the 11th century capital of the Khmer Kingdom with a population at that time of more than 1m people. London at that time had a population of 35,000! This temple has a large number of spires with a stone head on each of the 4 sides. Everywhere you go you are being watched. From there it was off to drive by the Terrace of Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper Kings before going to the Tep Pranam Pagoda to receive a water blessing from one of the monks. We did not receive quite as much water as the locals do; they have buckets of water thrown over them.

Refreshingly sprayed our cavalcade of Tuk Tuks headed back to the hotel where we had a 3-4 hour break, and no doubt a sleep for some, before departing for an afternoon tour in our bus. This afternoon we visited two overgrown temples; the jungle-enveloped Ta Prohm which was once home to over 2,700 monks and, Preah Khan, the Temple of the Sacred Sword, which is being restored under the auspices of the World Monument Fund. You might best recall the temple of Ta Prohm being used as a location in Angelina Jolie's film "Tomb Raider".