After having a chill night on day eight, day nine was pretty much the exact opposite. We woke up early with our suitemates and took a Tuk Tuk to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat temple. It was definitely an early wake up call, even for me, but we read online to get there early and our research came in handy. It was 100% worth it to get there early because the ticket lines were long and the crowds made getting a ticket slightly hectic for our pre-sunrise sleepy crew. Despite the crazy ticket crowds, the rest of the morning was relaxing and watching the sunrise over the Reflection Ponds of Angkor Wat was stunning.
Go Early to beat the crowds
Travel Tip #39
Angkor is the largest religious structure in the world and is considered to be one of the great cultural wonders of the world. The Angkor Wat complex is comprised of over a thousand different buildings and covers 400 acres. We started our journey through the complex at the Reflection Pond and then slowly made our way through the temple and over to Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is the last ancient capital of Angkor and is famous for it’s giant face gates.
Don’t trust the monkeys
Travel Tip #40
There are a ton of animals in the Angkor Wat complex, but the worst are monkeys. They’re cute and fun to see, but I don’t trust them. Why do I have a vengeance towards cute temple monkeys…? Well, because they steal everything. We were all skeptical of the monkeys from the start, but I can’t say the same for other tourists who were too trusting and lost their hats and bags.
After exploring Angkor Wat for hours we went back to the hostel and cleaned up. The fresh clothes were amazing and because we had such an early start to the day, there was plenty of time to continue to explore Siem Reap in the daylight. We started off just walking around random street shops, but then we found a rooftop bar that was also a skate park. We went up there and we were the only people in sight until Darcy, our new favorite Australian appeared. Darcy joined our group and we all got pizza for dinner. Then we spent the rest of the night jumping from cute cafes with 25 cent beers to rooftop bars with karaoke and f1 racing.
