We woke up at 4am to go to Anghor Wat to see the sunrise. We left our hostel at 4.45am and went to buy our ticket which entitled us to visit all the temples in Anghor in one day. We arrived at Anghor Wat at 5.15am in the pitch black dark. We found a tour group who had a torch and followed them so we knew where we were going! So many people had got up early to watch the sunrise. We found a good viewing spot by the lake in front of Anghor Wat and luckily there was only a couple of people in front of us. People were so serious about getting their photo of the sunrise; there were arguments as some people were getting in the way of other peoples cameras. It was ridiculous! One lady was even standing in the water to get her picture, shouting 'I'll go in the water if I have to to get my photo!'. One other lady had brought her iPad to take photos and was blocking everyones view, and the lady in front of us was getting so annoyed telling her to put it down cause it was ruining her photo.
After watching the sunrise, we needed a drink and some food to wake us up so we walked over to one of the cafe stalls. As we approached them, all these little girls and boys (aged 4-6) started coming up to us saying 'hello lady.. Coffee, breakfast - come to my stall'. They wouldn't leave us alone! In the end, we went to the cutest little girl's stall. I had the best breakfast everrrr.. Pancake with banana and honey! It was HUGE and worth every penny I paid. After a shot of coffee, I was ready to face the world again.. So we went inside Anghor Wat for some Dora exploring.
If you don't know, Anghor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. It took us a couple of hours to walk around. It was pretty empty inside, unlike the other temples we had seen. When we were walking around a man gave us some incense sticks which we prayed with. We put them inside our hands, bowed a few times and then touched the Buddha which was apparently good luck. I certainly needed some of that!! We waited until the main temple building was open and we climbed the stairs to the top which had an amazing view of the rest of Anghor Wat.
After a couple of hours, we headed back to our tuktuk driver and headed to the next temple. We temple hopped all day until 4pm. We were knackered! We even saw the temple ruins that tomb raider was filmed at, and we got a photo taken with the famous tree from the film! When we were visiting the temples, there were Cambodian children trying to sell jewellery and postcards. They were so young, only about 3-7 years old, but had the mannerisms of a 30 year old! They were so good at selling like they'd literally been born to do it. It was actually really sad that their families obviously depended on them selling these goods. And you could tell from how persistent they were; they wouldn't leave me alone!
There were also a lot of Cambodian artists around the temples selling beautiful paintings and art. I decided I wanted something for my bedroom at home, so I found a rice paper rubbing of a Buddha carving from Anghor Wat which caught my eye. Dads gonna love me putting that on my wall when I get home, haha!
We decided we were all templed out so we headed back to the hostel to have a well-needed nap and shower before dinner. We had another boomtastic meal and got chatting to some nice American girls from our dorm room.