March 9 - Sunrise at Angkor Wat and a final bicycle trip around.

So the question is how to get myself and a bicycle to Angkor Wat in time for sunrise without having to bike the roads in the dark by myself, and then have the bike to go independently for the rest of the day? Answer - talk to the people at Grasshopper Bike Trips. I was picked up by their minibus along with all the people on the sunrise and morning tour. We watched the sunrise, toured through Angkor Wat in first light, had a scrumptious breakfast, and then I and my bicycle were turned loose. Perfect! I even met some interesting Australians with whom I made a plan for the next day for a road trip.

The five towers, behind the entry wall

Reflections in the moat that surrounds the entire Angkor Wat complex

The main or western causeway

All dressed up

One of the inner librararies

Note the hairstyles

Out the east gate

 After breakfast I went on a slow circuit round the north side of the Ankgor Wat moat, frightening egrets from the edge of the water and attempting to get close to a kingfisher that just kept skipping along ahead of me.

Dragonfly

Common kingfisher

 I headed straight for the main Angkor Wat central temple to climb up to the third level - me and a lot of other people! But the line was shorter than earlier and it was just me, so I went for it.

The lineup

The holy grail at the end of the line

And up - the wooden stair wasn't at the 40% grade of the original stone steps, but it was still pretty steep!

The view, however, was worth it!

All you can see is still within the outer walls and moat

In come the tourists, and up goes the balloon

I think going down was more challenging than going up

Parasols for Buddhas

I finished in Angkor Wat and headed towards Angkor Thom - just as the elephants were coming through the gate and to work for the morning. It is a pretty impressive sight as they march down the middle of the road, oblivious to traffic. Its obvious who has the right of way here.

Hot and thirsty, I searched out a water vendor and sat down for a rest - just where a whole troupe of monkeys was also hanging out in their various age groups. The babies were trying to figure out how to climb trees, and the juveniles how to get into mischief.

Hmmm - what do I want?

Maybe I'll just help myself.

NO way, that's mine!

If I'm really quiet under here maybe she won't notice me.

Grooming time

Nursing time

 My first stop was the Baphuon, a temple in the Angkor Thom complex. It seems as if everyone goes to the Bayon, but almost no one to the smaller temples. Even though it was the middle of the day, there were very few other visitors, and almost no tour groups. Not hard to get a bit off the beaten path. The Baphuon, like most of the early Khmer structures, was built to honour Shiva but then was repurposed as a Buddhist structure. The stones from the top of the tower were taken down later and used to make a huge bas relief of Buddha lying on his side.

Main entry promenade to the Baphuon

Side view - a big solid structure - literally like the mountain it was supposed to represent

From the west - all these odd spindles or short columns whose purpose is not known. They haven't been found elsewhere.

Closer up of the mystery structures

Views from the top

Views from the top

A bit of a tricky way down

 From here I just wandered out the back and into the woods, across the remains of old moats and old walls, past the Phimeakis, a collapse of stone where the royal palace would have been - a wooden structure long gone, Preah Palilay, a small isolated Buddhist temple near where I shared a rest stop with a group of Canadian exchange students from Queen's University, and then back along a more modern terrace and a small cluster of houses to the main road running north-south through Angkor Thom.

The remains of a wall near the Phimeakis

I think the trees are winning back here - its shaded, quiet, and without other tourists.

A cluster of trees growing on Preah Palilay

A huge more modern Buddha

The elephants of the Elephant Terrace

It doesn't look good for this cattle-beast

 From Angkor Thom I cycled north to Preah Khan, another huge complex with the battle of the stones and the trees still ongoing. There is an entry with demons and gods holding nagas, a temple of the dancers, and endless partially collapsed galleries and passageways.

The causeway across the moat

Statues along the entry way.

There was a lot of lopping of heads off statues - both when the official government religions changed and also from antiquity theft.

He;s a bit of a creepy looking monster!

A stone stupa in the inner sanctuary. Apparently the walls were once covered in bronze plaques, hence the holes in the stones.

Krishna I guess

Many of the trees have been left here to ooze over and through the walls

This root is definitely become a permanent part of the wall

I like looking at the different animals. This one looks like a parrot sitting on the back of a ? tapir? is what it looks most like to me.

 And I'm done - my ambition to wait for sunset has dissipated, as has the sun underneath a haze of dust. Its time to bicycle back to town after a very long but enjoyable day. But of course, who can resist a stop to feed bananas to the elephants.

Not sure if these classify as "elfies"

So - one elephant eats the bananas whole, the other one squeezes them in her trunk until the peel comes off and then eats the banana and throws away the peel.

And that's it for Angkor Wat