The sun rose over Angkor, the sun sets on Cambodia

I tell you what - if we had not arranged to meet up with that driver at 5am, there is absolutely no chance in hell we would have risen at 4.30am. Feeling sick with fatigue we thankfully found a coffee place crazy enough to be open. The caffeine slowly and gently roused our feelings of consciousness and by the time we arrived at Angkor Wat we were feeling rather pleased with ourselves for experiencing dawn. Sober and freshly woken.

Angkor is a collection of 72 major temples built between
900-1200 AD in what was then a thriving civilisation. To give you an idea of the scale, 1 million people prospered in this area at a time when there were only 50 000 living in London. Sobering. Americans take note.

We spent an exhausting but thrilling day adventuring around the various sites and we have a million pictures to prove it - check them out HERE . Sorry too hard to choose! Our favourite was Ta Prohm (of Tomb Raider fame) which was overgrown with jungle, massive trees having planted themselves on the temple walls. Think you kinda had to be there so I'll shut up with the descriptions. I'll sum it up by saying that they must have REALLY wanted those things built because I just can't imagine the effort that must have gone into creating them so long ago.

We spent the afternoon relaxing in the Butterfly Garden where someone had built a huge net over their restaurant and gardens and let 1500 butterflies loose. Stunning, but I hope the poor things didn't mind captivity. Couldn't work out if this was in my taboo 'zoo' category. Not sure how deep a butterfly's mind goes.

Now there is something to ponder before you get back to that report.