I see the sunrise, all you see is it fall, fall, fall...

So I still have my feet, after letting the Dr. Fish piranhas eat them! HOORAY for me. They came in handy for all of the walking we have done over the past 2 days. Considering the Khmer people are so small (I am actually quite tall here, a regular Kate Moss, except not British, shorter and fatter and without the drug habit and million dollar contracts, so not like her at all really), they seem to build ridiculously high steps to their temples. These steps are about 15cm wide (small feet a pre requisite for climbing) and each step reaches my knee. As well as not being Kate Moss, I am also not a Mountain Goat. This makes it very difficult to climb the temples at a speed faster than a snail. Once at the top though, the Mountian Goat impersonation is forgotten completely, these temples truly are amazing!

Then it's time to climb down...

Many of you may not know this, (contrary to popular belief that I am so fabulously amazing that nothing scares me, unfortunately I do have just one Kryptonite) Shannon doesn't like heights. I think this comes for two reasons 1. Once again, I am not a Mountain Goat and 2. I am short, so genetically, I'm not supposed to up high.

Luckily for me a Mountain Goat lives on top of the particular temple I'm talking about and whilst giving us some brief commentary on the temple he showed us the easiest way down. For a small fee. I more than happily paid him for his services though. It only took me 10 minutes to get down instead of 5 hours!

We encountered a few little scams at the temples that day, a woman had shaved her head to look like a monk and when we got to the top of a temple she shoved incense into our hands. Standard practice when praying to Buddha is to light incense, bow your head and place your hands in the prayer position, you then move your hands 3 times in the direction of the statue. If you wish, you can give a small donation (whatever you can afford) in the donation tray. Unfortunately, all we had on us was Riel, but the woman with the incense insisted we could only place US dollars in the donation tray. Feeling a little perplexed and not sure if I had culturally offended her by not having the correct money (she wouldn't take the riel so I put it back i my pocket), I asked Pit if this was usual. He was pretty upset, he said the woman was just taking it for herself and that it shouldn't matter how much you give. I was very glad she refused the riel, I'll give to Pax on our way back to Phnom Penh.

We've come across some awesome people so far on our trip, and one of these awesome people is Pit, our new friend and tuk tuk driver. He calls himself Angkor Wat Pete, for his website angkorwattaxi.com. Pete is really very smart and funny! He wants to be a tour guide as well as a tuk tuk driver but the tour guiding licence costs US$3000! The same amount as a car here! He also doesn't think his English is very good, but he understands my sense of humour (not many people at home understand!), so it's pretty damn good. We're heading to his place tomorrow night for dinner. I'm so excited, I can't wait to see inside a Khmer home. I asked if we should bring anything with us, he said, "Just bring Coca Cola, my wife and I really like Coca Cola". Coke - it even dominates South East Asia!

Today, I saw the sunrise over Angkor Wat, and you know what, it was well worth every minute of our 5am departure. We woke up with the crow of the roosters - literally. It may be because I don't get to see the sunrise very often, but there is something brilliant about seeing a new day being born, even more so when you're sitting on a 1000 year old temple made from hand carved sandstone.

Pete, picked us up in pitch blackness to make sure we got to the temple just before sunrise. I think dawn is now my favourite time of the day, it's where the world is slightly confused about whether it is night time or day time. The sky is getting lighter, but the stars are still trying to shine. The crickets and cicadas have a moment when neither wants to give way to the other, but as the sky begins to turn from black to navy to pink, the crickets fade away and finally give in to the daylight.

This was our second day at Angkor Wat, we started exploring at 8.00am yesterday and are only going for two days. You can buy one day, three day or weekly passes, however I think you would need to spend a year there everyday to fully find all of the temples and secrets hidden in the massive grounds. Pit had a great couple of days planned for us, he has sussed out all of the "better" temples, what time of day to visit them and what order to see them in to avoid the crowds. The temples are like stepping into another world. These places are massive, each stone carefully carved with Hindi or Buddhist deities and placed to create intricate hallways, and giant towers. The detail is breathtaking.

You can tell the difference between the rebuilt temples (destroyed by the Khmer Rouge or just by time and nature) and the original temples as soon as you take a step inside. It's like the original temples, dedicated to kings and religion, with carefully carved blocks, each hoisted into place by hand have a 'life' to them. These temples are so old, massive trees (that look like Moreton Bay Figs) have taken hold and grown in and around the doorways. I find the walk ways fascinating. I wonder how many people had walked through here before me?

I'd say about 100,000,000 (half of those would be Korean tourists travelling in groups of 100 or more, clogging the walk ways and stair wells).

Outside the temples the stall areas have a bit of a "Dreamworld" feel to them, like most places heavily frequented by tourists. There are LOTS of souvenir stores, and the food is a bit more expensive inside the gate then out. We ordered noodle soup this morning for breakfast - and we seriously got 2 Minute Noodles! The best version of 2 Minute Noodles I've ever had!

Speaking of food, we ate dinner at a place called Deadfish last night. It is like a warehouse with heaps of different levels. One of the levels has a complete drop off the edge and about a story below sits about 10 or so crocodiles! Not the best area to get drunk! I got a photo of me next to the drop pit, you think I don't like heights normally, wait until there's 10 crocodiles below!

Tomorrow we're going to visit the floating village and also the landmine museum.

Hopefully there's no crocodiles at the floating village.

Love, Hugs & Rainbows,

Shanngelina.

P.S. I'm not coming home.