Sunrise at Angkor Wat

I've always been a sucker for a sunrise, but would be silly of anyone to come all the way to Cambodia and miss this sight.

Recommendations on logistics:

1. Get the pass the day before. You can buy a one-day pas for $20 or a three-day pass for $40. We did the three day which allowed us to do temple touring and sunrise on separate days. 

2. No need for a tour if this is your second day visiting the temples. We did the tour the day before we did sunrise so we asked where to find the best spot. 

3. The spot we were recommended is outside the main gates before you cross the moat. You're not tight up on the iconic five towers, but the moat makes a nice reflecting pool for the picture. When you're looking across the causeway facing the temple, turn right and walk until you're satisfied with your view of the temples. 

4. Leave early if you want to go inside the gates. We left our hotel at 5a because we wanted a good spot. Since we were outside the gates we could have easily left at 530 and still had a great seat, but from 5 on there were literally hundreds of people pouring inside the gates. No gracias. 

5. Tell your tuk tuk driver to wait and pay him afterward. Sweet Kevin made the mistake (on a different outing) of paying the driver after he dropped us off for a show and he didn't come back for the pick up. If you don't know how long you'll be, the driver will either wait or you can just send him on and grab another later. You'll never be for want of a tuk tuk in Siem Reap. 

Now for pictures. It was a cloudy morning so my photos aren't Nat Geo worthy, but it was a lovely experience all the same. 

❤️

Angkor National Museum and Phare Circus

After a very pastry-heavy breakfast (French influences, you know? We did it for culture.) and some successful scarf bargaining, Kev and I took in another round of Siem Reap classics.

First up: the Angkor National Museum. 

Pro tip: do the museum BEFORE the temples. It does a nice job explaining the history and significance so you can take in the temples effectively. 

It's especially valuable because there are a bazillion people at the temples and approx no one at the museum, so you can spend time learning, exploring and appreciating without being jostled around. 

Much of the collection is straight from the temples but has been better preserved. The intricacy of the stone work is incredibly impressive, which is harder to see at the temples. 

The first exhibit it a hall of a thousand Buddhas. The collection is gorgeous and allows you to see the progression of the representation through many centuries. 

Pictures are strictly prohibited, so here is someone else's I stole from the Internet. 

Since I grew up as a regular at the world's largest children's museum (shout out to Indy!) I had a lot of ideas on how they could make the exhibits more interactive, more exciting, easier to digest, etc. 

For example, they had a cool wall of pictures of traditional garb through the ages. But it would have been even cooler if they also had a life-sized apsara dancer with different outfit pictures you could hang on her, plus a face cut-out so you could take pictures. Kevin approximated as best he could. 

All in all it was an interesting and informative experience that was worth the $12. If I had it to do over again, I'd do it the day before the temples. 

That evening, we went to Phare Circus which was inspirational on many levels. http://pharecircus.org/

Phare is a school for Cambodian street children to come (for free) to learn dance, acting, acrobatics, music, visual arts, cooking and hospitality to help break the cycle of poverty. 

They perform every night in Siem Reap and some even travel internationally - right now there's a group touring in France. 

You guys, they knocked my socks off. 

It wasn't just crazy physical acts (though there was plenty of that) - they told a beautiful story which translated without language. 

The kids even provided the soundtrack real-time, including sound effects timed with the performers. You can see them in the background below. 

Everything from the dinner we at beforehand to the performance to gift shop was run by these kids. It was professional, personal and passionate. A impactful experience not to be missed. 

Angkor Temples

Cambodia day 1! Kev and I did a one-day bike tour with Grasshopper today that took us around all three major temples.

Our guide Sambo is Cambodian and super knowledgeable about the temples. Here he is hand-drawing us a map of our route for the day. We did Bayon > Ta Phrom > Angkor Wat. 

We rode along the Siem Reap river and saw a family of water buffalo as they were climbing on shore. We were more impressed with them than they with us. 

The early morning light was delicious at Bayon. We got a couple rare shots without anyone else since we were heading opposite the normal flow. 

There are hundreds of temples in the area, though many of them are piles of sandstone rubble, begging to be climbed. This sign and I were staunch adversaries. I was yelled at more than once by the temple guards to stop acting like one of the monkeys. 

Ta Phrom was for sure my favorite of the big three. It was abandoned several hundred years ago and the trees manifested that destiny in a serious way. 

You might recognize this tree/temple from tomb raider. I did not see the movie so I only recognize it as awesome. The trees are mostly strangler figs and a species I've never heard of called Spunt. I couldn't get over how big the roots are. See human for scale. 

After I took this picture, six other people lined up behind me to take one too. #trendsetter

The last stop in the blazing afternoon sun was Angkor. It is a staggering structure - I can only imagine how the original re-discoverers felt when they happened upon it in the middle of the jungle. 

The temples are hundreds of years old and Cambodia has a habit of changing both kings and dominating deities. As the temples changed hands, they would also change the hands of the carvings from the Buddhist prayer position (often hands in lap in meditation) to the Hindu prayer position (palms together at chest). There's all kinds of evidence of hand-changing on the statutes and carvings throughout the temples. Sometimes they just cut them off entirely. 

I'd also recommend doing some reading on the history before touring. Makes the impact more meaningful, especially if you go without a guide. 

A note on the crowds: the path to Angkor is VERY well-beaten. Here is a two-photo study to illustrate. The first is the picture I took to remember how the temple made me feel. 

The second is what was actually going on around me. 

There were 5M visitors to the temples last year and they're expecting that number to grow to 8M by 2020. If you're considering a visit, come sooner rather than later as it can take some mental focus to not allow the drone of the crowd to drown out the gorgeousness around you. It's absolutely worth the trip.