As the saying goes ''Early bird catches the worm'', we were up & arose at 5am (S.R time), to make our way to Angkor Wat to view the sunrise. We were greeted by Mr. Tee, the person whom i had liaise with to arrange our tour & he was supposedly our driver. However, he intro us to another driver & told us that he needed to go to Phnom Penh with his wife instead. We asked where is our tour guide? To our surprise, he said the tour price didn't include a guide! After showing him our printed email, Mr.Tee had to find a tour guide for us, while we proceeded to watch the sunrise.
It's about 6am and the whole area was flooded with tourists from all over, much like the United Nations wo! Ruby & I got split up as we hunted for spots to take photos. I wonder how early did these ppl arrive? Cos' all the front good views were occupied liao.... finally, i manage to find a corner which offer a good perspective & i waited patiently to squeeze in. At this corner spot, can take a cross-section view of the waterlilies and the surroundings of Angkor Wat, cool!
Gradually, I could feel the warm glow of the sun & taking photos under the intense sunlight was getting challenging. Near to 7pm, the sunrise watchers had dispersed as it's getting really hot! We still tried hard to take photos, when i spotted this chinese couple who were using a Canon SLR too. The lady seems pro in taking pic. Hence, I approached them to take a pic for us. The lady even gave us instructions where to stand & took a frontal & side profiles of us. Impressed.
Strolled back to meet our driver and he led us to a nearby breakfast place. After breakfast, when we returned to the vehicle, we finally have a Guide ~ Rany. Phew! I was worried as we were unprepared to do without a guide. As you know, there r so many temples in the park, we'll need to buy a guide book & spend time checking stuff. We would rather pay slightly more, yet can relax our minds & admire the wonderful architecture. Rany intro himself to us and did some commentary in the car. 
We alighted outside the South Gate of Angkor Thom, which is one of the 5 gates to the city. Each gate is crowned with 4 giant faces. Angkor Thom was the last capital of the Angkorian empire built by King Jayavarman VII. In this area, we visited Terraces of the Elephants, Terraces of the Leper King; Preah Palily, Phimeanakas & Bapuon. I looked forward to visiting Bayon most!
Bayon was Jayavarman VII's state-temple and featured prominently in every website i read about Siem Reap. The photos i saw were simply fabulous! However, taking pics here prove to be challenging under the intense sunlight, which made the 'faces' looked dark. There are 37 standing towers here, mostly sporting 4 carved faces. If you are considering just 1 day visit to the temples, Bayon is a MUST DO! Rany even suggested that i do a whacky pose wif one of the 'faces', as if i'm 'kissing' the buddha, keke! I couldn't move an inch up there & almost got myself BBQ, while he took my pics, haha!
After admiring the giant faces, Rany brought us to view the bas-reliefs on the exterior walls. Bas-reliefs refer to the extensive carvings on the walls. As we strolled down the long wall, Rany pointed out to us the various bas-reliefs, mainly depicting battle scenes and their daily life then. After Bayon, we were sent back to the city centre for lunch. We settled for lunch at Soup Dragon & sat on the 2nd level to watch the world goes by, while eating our pasta. After lunch, we popped over to TBP to sample their ice-cream! I chose this unique flavour of Honey Clover.... Sitting on the 2nd level lounge of TBP was indeed relaxing as you could stretch your legs out on the long white sofa and savour ice-cream, wahaha!
By 3pm, we were back at hotel to freshen up and waited for our car to pick us up. The afternoon's itinerary was to head for a boat ride down Tonle Sap. Rany bought our USD10 tix and we had to 'jump' from a boat to our boat....it's quite scary! wow! there's a gap among the wooden planks of our boat wo... Finally, we were sitted on the rattan chairs on our blue coloured boat. It's a pleasant surprise that we dun need to share the boat with other tourists! We've a boatman & a boatboy to paddle & start the engines.
Tonle Sap Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia. In the dry season it is merely 2500km2, but during the rainy season, it swells up to 12,000km2! Once the boat started, it's really relaxing as I casually snapped pics of the blue skies, waters & how the people lived at Chong Khneas, which is the most accessible floating village from Siem Reap. The boat went at moderate speed, juz nice. Suddenly, there's this small boat which embarked next to us. Then, this little boy who looked abt 3yrs old literally jumped onto our boat to peddle his canned drinks & mineral water! Ruby & I were taken aback. Duno wat to do, ruby agreed to buy a bottle of mineral water fr the boy thou he priced it at USD1. Juz as i was abt to take out the dollar, the little boy peered into my purse & demanded 2 bucks from us! This costly bottle of water is equivalent to 4 normal 500ml bottles outside!
Along Tonle Sap, we saw interesting stuff, such as a floating school & floating church. There's also an area where the vietnamese ppl lives. Then, our boat stopped in the middle of the water, while Rany took out a map of Tonle Sap & started explaining abt it, as the boat was spinning quite a fair bit, we felt giddy. Finally, the boat disembarked at a floating village, which reared some live crocs! Ya, not the crocs u wear ah, is real crocodiles! We explored abit on this small area & saw a boy playing wif his pet python. When i wanted to take a snapshot, he demanded USD1 and i held back!
Near sunset time, we climbed up to the 3rd level platform to view sunset on Tonle Sap. Some ang mo were really R&R, they spread out a huge scarf and laid down on the platform! I approached a guy to snap a pic for both of us and started chit-chatting wif him & his gf. It's really interesting to chat wif strangers & found out that he's a german student doing a fair bit of travelling in S.E Asia. Our beautiful evening came to an end, as our boatboy came up to signal us it's time to go home...
As we sailed on the water back to the port, i spotted a tiny cresent in the skies, the moon was up! When our boat reached the shores, we tipped our boatboy & boatman....both broke out in happy smiles.
My 1st Taste of Angkor Beer
We reached city pretty late and requested to be dropped off at Pub Street. For our dinner tonite, we randomly selected Traditional Khmer Restaurant. At nite, usually the foreigners love to flood the alfresco dining area, while we prefer a quiet corner on their balcony. Ya, to watch the world goes by & quietly admire how Siem Reap city comes alive at nite! Our orders were really slow, thou we only ordered a Traditional Khmer Soup for Two. The soup doesn't look appealing on photo but the sweet & sour soup tasted great! Follow on, ruby suggested to try a khmer dessert, so we ordered this Pumpkin Sago to share, as i dun fancy pumpkin, juz did a taste-test & find it really really sweet ah! 
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