DAy 18 - Siem Reap

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Up very early this morning to get to Angkor Wat for Sunrise. We left the hotel at 4.45am!! It was a 10 minute drive to Angkor Wat and once we were there we paid a dollar for a drink and got a seat free with the drink! We sat down in near darkness at around 5.30am and sat and watched the sunrise over Angkor Wat until 6.15am. This was an amazing experience, it was beautiful and well worth the early start.

Once the sun was up we had some breakfast and met our tour guide Mourin. We then went to a few temples near to Angkor Wat. The carving on these were amazing. Many of the temples had trees growing over them which looked pretty cool.

We then drove to Angkor Thom, this is the last and most enduring city of the Khmer empire. This was interesting, with steep steps to climb to get to the top of some of the buildings.

After lunch we went to Angkor Wat itself, this was incredible. The size was immense, the stones are huge, it is had to comprehend how something like this was built so many years ago with no modern technology.

We got back to Siem Reap around 1.30pm and went out again for a massage. Rowena, Atusa, Nic and I had a thai massage - it was interesting but didn't feel very nice and I didn't feel much different afterwards (it did only cost $5).

We then had drinks in the hotel, followed by dinner and more drinks. We went to a bar called Temple. Here if you ordered a pitcher of a cocktail you got a free t shirt, so naturally we all ordered pitchers. We then spent the night writing on each others T shirts. We were up on the seats dancing and turned a quiet bar into a lively night spot! Lots of other travelers then came over to join us. A very fun night.

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