Visiting the 7th Wonder of the World - and is there a thing called over-templed?

In order to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, one must leave at 5am. This gets you to the massive outskirts of Angkor Wat within 15 min (the site is 12km away) and purchase the admission ticket. Surprisingly, there is technology in place at the ticket booth to even put your photo on the pass!

Once admission is over and done with, another short 2 minute tuktuk trip to the outer wall of Angkor Wat. This is where I hopped off and made the trek to the 'middle', where the wats was standing. There were many flashlights out and about as there is jack-all light at 5:20am. I did have a moment of torch superiority as I blinded quite a few people by inadvertently shining the beam in their eyes. Below are some photos at Angkor Wats at sunrise.

 

Already at 5:30am, there was a massive crowd of people waiting for the sun to rise. The crowd numbers only swelled as the day wore on. I'd hate to imagine what the high season would be like!

Below are photos of the different temples visited. Since I did not have a guide, I pretty much just traipsed about the  temples on the Angkor Wat grounds. Most temples have many elaborate carvings of Hindu/Buddhist stories on the walls. Some are falling down, others are beautifully reconstructed, a few had extremely steep (vertical almost!) steps. Try doing those in a long skirt, plus holding onto a massive coconut!

Favourite temple was Ta Prohm, otherwise known as the Tomb Raider temple. The sheer number of sightseers pronouncing Tomb Raider as Tomb Rider was astonishing. Not too mention Lara Croft repeatedly uttered with reverence.

Temples and sites seen:

• Angkor Wat
• Bayon - one of the most widely recognised temples in Siem Reap because of the giant stone faces that adorn the towers of Bayon. There are 54 towers of four faces each, totalling 216 faces
• Baphoun - Located to the northwest of the Bayon, the Baphuon is supposed to represent Mount Meru (sacred to Hinduism), and was one of the largest and grandest structures in Angkor. Built into the western face of the Baphuon is a giant reclining Buddha, added in the 16th century after the region converted from Hinduism to Buddhism
• Elephant Terrace
• Temple of the neper King - unfortunate name
• Ta Keo
• Ta Phrohm
• Bandai Kdei
• Saras Sarang
• Preah Khan

I'm sure there were more but I couldn't keep up with the names...
Might just spend a few posts on just photos for the temples so it doesn't become too cluttered :)
 
I called it a day at 2:30pm as I was all templed out.  On the upside, I had group of 3 Malaysians and a European couple take photos of me around the sites. We kept bumping into each other so then agreed to take each other's group (or single in my case) photos.

If you're planning on a temple day, bring decent walking shoes. I had my low rise Cons, which while light, made me feel like I had ballerina feet by the end :) Minus the bloody toes of course.