4:30am??!!

A bit of a shock to the system and far too early to be getting up on our 8th anniversary, but we knew it would be worth it! Our hotel had provided breakfast for us to take with us so we grabbed it out f the fridge and headed for the tuk-tuk. We drove through the streets of Siem Reap in the darkness, past the checkpoint where our tickets had a second hole punched in and onto the entrance to Angkor Wat, with the hordes of tourists who'd all turned up to see the sunrise. We walked up to the main entrance and through into the inner courtyard, where we got our first proper view of Angkor Wat silhoutted against the dawn sky...a breathtaking sight and one to remember. We followed the crowd to the northern pool facing the main temple for the fantastic refflected view of Angkor Wat as the colours of the sky began to change. The atmosphere was quite peaceful despite the large numbers of people and the odd hawker offerring us a free mat to sit down on (!) if we bought a coffee for $2 - no thanks, just let us watch the sunrise! This we did, and took lots of photos - a view that you'd never get bored of!

Eventually, the crowds began to move - most of them dashing off back to Siem Reap for breakfast - and we walked the rest of the walkway leading into the central temple area. It was still only about 6am and our plan was to explore the famous temple while it was still quiet and still cool! Angkor Wat was built between 1113 and 1115 by Suryavarman II at the height of the Angkor era and is the world's largest religious monument. The design is a pyramid of three levels, each one enclosed by a well-developed gallery with four corner towers. The temple is supposed to represent a microcosm of the Hindu universe - the moat represents the mythical oceans surrounding the earth and the galleries represent the mountain ranges that surround Mount Meru, the home of the gods. The towers represent the mountain's peaks and the experience of the final ascent to the central shrine is meant to imitate climbing a real mountain. First, we looked around the bas-reliefs around the outer wall, just above ground level. They tell stories from the Ramayana and Mahubharata epics and they were amazingly well preserved. They included lots of battle scenes and we spent a good hour wandering around, trying to work out what each one was about from the information in our guide book! Then it was time for our climb to the top... On the second level, we found the Hall of a Thousand Buddhas, which now only contains a handful of them - many were removed for safekeeping in the early 1970s and many more were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge era. The final level was the hardest to reach; we had to queue to climb a very steep set of wooden stairs and it felt like it was supposed to - the final ascent of a huge mountain! The view back to the entrance was worth it and we took a few photos before heading back down the steep stairs again! An amazing, unique place and we're glad we finally got to see it and made it all the way to the top!

It was a long walk back to the entrance in the sun, and we stopped for a cold can of pop on the way out! Then it was off to our second stop of the day - the walled city of Angkor Thom, which was the Cambodian capital until probably the seventeenth century. The drive into the city was impressive enough - we had to drive over a moat and the bridge was lined with mostley headless statues of gods, carrying the body of a giant serpent. Once inside, we headed for the Bayon, famous for its face-towers. As we wandered aroudn the lower galleries, these towers and their faces seemed to be following us everywhere we went - the intended effect on the people who visited the temple during the Angkor era. The faces represent the king Jayavarman VII and we got a closer look at them when we reached the open terrace of the third level. Some appeared to be smiling whereas others looked more menacing - suppose it depends what each sculptor felt about the king at the time! The Bayon also had another series of bas-reliefs and we spent ages trying to find one depicting a Khmer circus. We eventually found it on our way out on the outer wall just as we were about to give up and managed to get a few pics!

Our driver had told us to walk around the site to see a few other sights, including the Baphoun temple, but by this point we were struggling in the heat. We saw the temple from the outside but gave the steep climb up the stairs to get inside a miss - maybe next time! On the way back to the tuk-tuk, we wandered past the impressive Terrace of the Elephants - a 300m long terrace named after the carvings of elephants along its walls. This led to the Terrace of the Leper King, named after the 15th century sculpture that was dicovered on top. The three outer faces of the terrace all have mythological scenes carved onto them and they were all pretty well preserved considering they're right next to the road. By this point we'd definitely had enough and got back into the tuk-tuk thinking he'd take us back to the hotel, but it seems he'd planned a couple of other stops first!

On our way out of Angkor Thom, we stopped at Thommanon, a temple in the style of Angkor Wat that was restored in the 1960s, and Chao Say Tevoda, a more ruined temple again from the Angkor Wat period. We eventually made it back to the hotel just after lunchtime after an amazing but tiring morning! We spent the afternoon relaxing in the pool and in the room before heading out to eat back on Pub Street.

Tonight we chose the terrace of the Temple Club as we'd heard that they put on a free Apsara dance show during dinner, and we got to see five traditional Cambodian dances for free! We called in at another bar with a great name ('Angkor What?') for a few more drinks and were on our way out again when we spotted a sign for 'European Karaoke'... We followed the arrow and ended up in a tiny bar run by an Italian Silvio Berlusconi look-a-like. We had a good laugh for the next few hours, singing with the Cambodians in there until about 1am. All in all, a memorable anniversary and one of our best days in Cambodia!