As it turned out the 5am risers didn't see much of a sunrise due to low cloud. By the time I rose from my slumbers. all this cloud had burned off and it was going to be a hot one.

The breakfast buffet was enormous with Asian and Western options and an Egg station. I stuck to my standard bread and jam with coffee as there are no toilets in the temples, to cater for a dodgy tummy. The 5am-ers went to Angkor Wat but it was absolutely packed by sunrise seekers and they didn't actually go into the complex.

We bought our temple tickets yesterday afternoon. They cost $40 each for a three day pass.

Our guide told us that the franchise for the temple tickets was given by the government leader to one of his cronies, who gets to keep every cent. This has enabled him to build a huge new hotel complex here in Siem Reap and he is now a millionaire. This echoes the situation in Vietnam where the government set the taxes and kind of divvie up the profits. This being a communist state, it is all contrary to the ethos of communism, where everyone is supposed to be equal.

Nam told us that, in general, the population are scared of their government as there have been thousands of cases when people speak out against the party and then they just disappear, permanently.

Anyway, back to our temple-packed day.

The first stop was Angkor Wat. Mirian took us in the back way which was less busy, so we were going in the opposite direction from most of the other visitors. It was a bit like swimming against the tide at times! It is a huge complex, built on the orders of King Jayavarmon VII at the end of the 12th Century. It took 36 years to complete and was constructed of sandstone, lave rock and limestone which was quarried miles away and transported on bamboo platforms across the land and rivers. Each block has been cut with the utmost precision, you can hardly slide a piece of paper between them. Once cut and placed, the stone carvers set to work. If they made a small mistake, they left it but a major mistake, such as the stone cracking, meant that they would have to replace the block and start again. Which made them not the most popular members of the carving team.

The carvings are still sharp enough to see every detail which is amazing, considering that it was all swallowed up by the jungle centuries ago, after the capital city was moved to Phnom Penh, following years of drought, meaning that the population faced the choice of starvation or moving to a new capital city. All along the first level of the temple, there runs a stone frieze showing the story of an old legend that pitched the gods against the demons, somewhat enigmatically entitled The Churning of the Sea of Milk. Get it? Me neither!

The temple was surrounded by a moat which provided water for the population and also protection against their enemies.

As we we walked through, it became more and more crowded and I was so glad that we had started from the opposite side. When we left you could see hoards of visitors streaming along the walkway to the temple. I can foresee a time, soon maybe, when they will stop so many people visiting, or limit the access. This number of visitors a day must affect the ruins after a time.

As for those damn tourists and their selfie sticks, can they not see how stupid they look, grinning at a piece of metal on the end of a pole? The Japanese are the worst as far as posing for photos. They drape themselves over window ledges, carvings and statues, like they're posing for a fashion magazine.

All around the moat area there were many little Macaque monkeys skittering about, stealing tourists packed lunches and posing for photos.

Back on the bus, we made our way to the South Gate entrance to Angkor Thom (meaning Capital City in Khmer) where there is another set of temples very close by. Here the bridge goes over the moat and is lined with the heads of Gods on one side and Demons on the other, this theme is evident in all the temples we visited.

Entering through the gate on foot, we reboarded the bus to visit the next temple, Bayon. This temple is renown for its many faces carved into the tower walls, 49 in all. With 5 more at each of the five gates to the site. They represent the king, King Jayavarman VII, for whom it was built but also slightly Buddha-ised to make the best of both worlds. At a later date this temple was changed to a Hindu temple and all the Buddha effigies except two were recarved and altered to look like Vishnu and Shiva, two major Hindu gods.

On the way we stopped off at the Terrace of Elephants which is over 300 meters long and covered in stunning bas-relief sculptures of elephants, horses, lions, dancers, and warriors.
 
By this time it was 12ish and tummies were a-rumbling, so we made a pit stop for lunch at a local cafe. I chose chicken with cashews and steamed rice. Pretty safe once I'd extracted the demon chillis.

Next temple, the penultimate, was the Ta Prohn, also known as the Tomb Raider temple, as it featured in the Lara Croft film. This is the one with all the trees growing out of the stonework. It was a lot smaller than Angkor Wat but felt more authentic as the jungle was a lot closer and it just looked as though you had just hacked your way through and come across it. Very Indiana Jones! It hadn't been restored very much either which made it feel more authentic. Some of the trees growing over the temple walls were huge. They have damaged the temple walls as they grew but at the same time, somewhat ironically, they are holding it all together. If removed, the walls would collapse, so they are left alone.

Finally with aching feet we climbed back in the bus to visit the most distant temple, Bankeay Srei, the so-called Ladies Temple. This one was built in pink stone and the carvings were much deeper and looked as though they had just been done. It was built in 967 and was rediscovered in 1914..

The carvings at this temple were clearer than those at the other three we had visited. It is quite amusing to note that all the dancing maidens are topless and they all look like they have had Harley Street boob jobs, each one perfectly round and symmetrical!!

I also could not equate these carvings of topless, nubile, dancing maidens with the insistence that all female visitors should keep their shoulders covered and also wear long skirts or trousers when entering the temples.

That's it, we were all templed out and returned to the hotel. On the way back we saw a couple of live pigs being transported on the back of two mopeds. They had fixed a platform across the back of the moped and tied the pigs on upside down!!

We also went past a night market being set up and saw a stall selling, deep fried crickets, nice fresh spiders, ideal for a large family of eight, so everyone gets a leg!! Also more cooked duck foetus (they crack the shell and pull out the head so you can see what you're buying) and silk worms, all for human consumption, yuk. This stall was drawing a huge amount of customers.

The only other subject that cropped up on the drive back, was that of the land mines that are still being stepped upon by the unwary. A lot of areas have been cleared, for example, around the temples and other tourist sites. However deeper into the old Pol Pot / Khmer Rouge areas, there are still many many land mines lying in wait. Quite often it is the animals that step on them but children and adults still fall foul of them.

Our guide Mirion told us how, when he was young and living in the country, he was playing football with some friends and the ball flew over the net. One of the boys went to fetch it and had his legs blown off. Mirian ran to the boys parents and the villagers carried him 9kms on a hammock strung between two poles, to the nearest hospital, as nobody had any transport, being too poor. He also said thatq when the mines were laid, sometimes they would stack them, one on top of the other. So if one was made safe and lifted up, it triggered the others to explode.

There is a museum of land mines in Siem Reap, but to be honest the money would be better spent in clearing up the remnants of that awful conflict.