An early start for this very long day. Up at 04;15 and out at 04:40 in a tuk tuk to go and see the sunrise at Angkor Wat The driver was friendly and spoke good English, which helps if you’re the only person on the trip!!!
On the way to the attraction you have to stop and pay for your pass, whether that’s for one day or three days. It had started to get light by now so I joined the shortest queue, only 4 in front of me, only to be told when I got to the front that the queues for one day passes are at the other end of the hall. Shortest queue was now eight, they seem to do batches of fours in the queue as your pass must have your photo on it.
Back to the tuk tuk and what I thought was a mad charge towards Angkor Wat, Not so mad as these tuk tuks are basically carriages towed by 125 c.c. motorcycles, top end about 40 kph, but they are all vying for the smoothest part of the road. Arrive at Angkor Wat and walk across the causeway into the temple area itself. stand for an hour as the sun comes up over the main temple area and then have the tuk tuk back to the hotel in time for breakfast.
For anyone thinking of doing this sunrise I found out later that the only 2 days of the year where you can stand right in front of the temple and have the sun rise directly behind are 21 March and 23 September. I the summer go to the right and in winter to the left. The sun on mid summers day will be at it’s most Northerly point (54 degrees) , if I remember that correctly, and the sun the rises above the corners of the temple.
Video of the sunrise is now on YouTube via this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va2eufk1VR0
The pick up for the tour itself was at 09:00, but being the first pick up I was on the minibus at 08:00, obviously I was also the last to be dropped off at the end of the day. A good mix of Nationalities were on the tour even though there were only nine of us. Brazil, Australia, Chinese from the States, Filipinos from Britain, a Canadian and myself, all spoke very good English as did the tour guide. I’m not going to spoil this tour for anyone, needless to say, if you’re in Siem Reap do the tour. It was brilliant, probably one of the best tours I have been on.
There was a helpful Cambodian security official who took my phone and lined me up for the last three photos. He must have been bored standing in the same position for so many hours every day. I have to say I was very happy with the resulting photos.
We all agreed we didn’t want to watch the sunset as we were at the temple early, 300 people allowed at the top at any one time, so we made our way back down to get the minibus back to our hotels.
So back in the hotel for a quick forty winks before going out in the rain to see the England and Wales match in an Irish bar!! A good atmosphere in the bar. Lucky could be the one word for England’s victory.
And so at just before midnight it was back to the hotel before another early start the following morning.