Friday 20th July

I'm very glad I brought an alarm clock with me. I'd organised a hotel wake up call for 4am but thankfully wasn't relying on that, as it didn't materialise. Had a quick shower and pulled on some clothes and went down to find the night porter fast asleep. It was nice though to see that they also have a security guard outside the hotel at night, and he was wide awake. My tuk tuk arrived on time and we set off for Angkor Wat. It was still pitch black when we got there. Thankfully my tuk tuk driver had a torch with him which he very kindly lent to me so I could find my way up the steps and across the causeway that you bring you in to Angkor Wat. I turned off the torch and gradually my eyes adjusted to the darkness and was accompanied by some eerie sounds from all manner of insects and other creatures. When I arrived at one of the pools of water that sit in front of the temple I discovered that I was the only tourist there, at that stage. This however was short lived. Before 1st light I was joined by 3 other Irish people, a girl from Roundwood in Wicklow and her 2 friends from Bray. It was just the four of us while the first glimmer of sun light started to appear and within another 10 mins or so, gradually more and more tourists started to arrive until about 5:45, at which point the place was packed with tourists.

I suppose it makes sense to go that early because you can avoid the worst of the heat, but I actually enjoyed wandering around the temples on Wednesday morning with relatively few people around. I took lots of photos as the sun was coming up and am hoping they all came out well, although the speed of the internet connections here in Siem Reap isn't great, so it'll be a while before I get the photos uploaded.

The range of tv channels on offer at the hotel, gives some indication of the range of visitors they get here in Siem Reap. There's everything from CNN & BBC World to local channels sitting alongside Japanese, Malaysian Chinese, Korean and Indian channels. I've been able to watch a bit of the Golf at Carnoustie, it's good to see Paul McGinley played well in the first round, hopefully he'll be able to keep it up.