I want to do a separate post just about Angkor Wat, seeing how this was hands down the coolest thing I did in Siem Reap. I made a list of places I wanted to go and things I wanted to do when I was sixteen, Angkor Wat was on that little list. It felt surreal to be walking through the old city at five in the morning and seeing the sun bathing the temples in soft morning light.

Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious monuments in the world clocking in at 402 acres, it’s way bigger than I originally thought. Also Angkor Wat is the name of the entire sprawling 402 acre complex, but is also the name of the most famous and well preserved temple. It’s a sprawling complex that was built during the 12th century and was the capital of the Khmer Empire. Angkor Wat even appears on the Cambodian national flag. Angkor Wat is designed to represent Mout Meru, which I also did not know. I know what Mount Meru is from an adventure/ climbing documentary called Meru on Netflix, it’s wild.

Once we all got our sunrise pictures and got tired of the throngs of Chinese tourists, we made our way inside of the Angkor Wat temple and got lost for hours. It was such a wild feeling being inside this temple that is still intact from the 12th century, you can feel the history on the walls and everything just smells old.

After seeing Angkor Wat, we quickly migrated to the shade, grabbed some breakfast, and talked about American food chains. After having full bellies and cooled bodies we ventured off into the rest of the temples.