Southeast Asia graduation trip: Siam Reap Ankor Wat and Thom (4)

Tuesday we got up at 4am to see the sunrise over Ankor Wat 6:00-6:45am, then visited Bayan in Ankor Thom, ancient city. There were few other tourists at this temple so early in the morning as most of the 1000 early birds visit Ankor Wat directly after seeing the sunrise. The early morning lighting was gorgeous. After 9am breakfast at the hotel and a short rest we went back to Ankor Wat. The region was originally all jungle. The kings who built the temples must have been big visionaries. Ankor Wat is one of approximately 50 large temples, it's gigantic 200x200 meters I think, that's just the temple itself, the walkway leading up to it with a huge moat, libraries, former gardens is another 600 meters on each side. Very impressive. There's a total of 150 or so temples. In the area. We also saw monkeys including a baby monkey being carried by it's mother.
We returned to the hotel for lunch and a poolside massage. At 3:30pm we headed back out to Ta Phrom Temple otherwise known as the 'Tomb Raider', jungle or tree temple, easy to see why on the photo. Beautiful sunset lighting. Our final temple of the day was Pre Rup from where we enjoyed the sunset. We had dinner in town with the group and watched some traditional Cambodian dancers, what a full day from dawn to dusk and more. I'm glad we took lots of breaks and drank tons of water, one has to when the temperatures are in the high 90s and super humid.

Awaiting the sunrise over Ankor Wat 6:00-6:45am

Ankor Thom South gate

Breakfast and rest at hotel

back to Ankor Wat

Monkeys

Pre massage chilling at the poolside

lunch, drink and massage for $14

 Ta Phrom ('Tomb Raider') Temple

Pre Rup at sunset

Dinner and dancing in town "Temple"