Prah Khan - one of the many temples at Angkor Wat

The alarm is set for 4.45am and we are on our bikes by 5.15am.  We pick up our tickets and arrive on site at around 6am.  We decide to take a look at the famous Angkor Wat temple first.  Although us brits call the whole complex Angkor Wat, Angkor Wat is in fact just one of the hundreds of temples ... the largest and most famous.

There are of course many other people here but we explore and find a quiet spot to eat our breakfast which we brought with us.  We then watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat which is pretty amazing.  We explore a little more then head off to the next stop which is Prah Kravan, onwards to Eastern Mebon (stopping for a few pics at Prah Prerup first) and then to Ta Som and Prah Khan where this pic is taken.

All the temples are impressive for different reasons but some of them are more interesting than others.  This is one of them which has trees growing through the derelict building.  The roots of the trees almost match the stone of the temple and its quite impressive.  There are many families who still live on the site and they are heavily restricted by the Government as to what they can grow and where and how they can build their houses.  They make money by selling food and souvenirs to tourists.  By the time we reach this temple it is about 2pm and we stop for lunch.  Its really hot by this time and we are flagging although we've done well and covered the big loop that we wanted to.   

After lunch and a rest we continue into the Angkor Thom complex which is a walled complex containing many temples.  We stop at Elephants Terrace and Bayon then head outside the wall to Phnom Bekheng which our map says has good sunset views.  We climb up and see the sun is going behind some trees so climb down again and cycle back to our starting point, Angkor Wat, to watch sunset.

We then get back on the bikes for the cycle home ... slightly saddle sore and absolutely knackered.  We drop the bikes off and walk back to our guest house ... arriving at about 6.30pm so we've been gone over 13 hours.  As we walk down the street we realise there is a power cut ... the lady at our guest house says its been down for about an hour which is unusual here.  This means no fan, air con or hot shower ... just what we need after a day like today!  Anyway, we take a cold shower by torch light and head out for dinner.  We are told that the whole of Siem Reap has no power.  They get their power from Thailand and one cable (or whatever it is) supplies the whole City.  Apparently a drunk driver has damaged it and the power may be off all night ... great!

We find a place with a generator for dinner then head back.  In Nepal and Myanmar there were power cuts daily so all the guest houses were well prepared and had generators at least for lights but not here.  We take a torch and head up to our sweltering room ... at least we have two windows we can open.  Luckily we're so tired we eventually fall asleep.

What a day!