My alarm sounded at 04.30am. Twenty five minutes later I was downstairs in my hotel lobby, face to face with my private tour guide Mr Sophat, who would be guiding me around Angkor Archaeological Park for the next two days. “Happy Birthday” he said to me. 

It was still dark when we entered the archaeological park. Mr Sophat knew the best place to view sunrise, away from the crowds. As I stood on the bank of the moat,  I watched hundreds of people make their way along Angkor Wat’s causeway, disappearing somewhere inside. 

Under the light of a nearly full moon, Angkor Wat teased me from across the water, shrouded in shadows of which I could only make out its size. With the sun still sleeping, the intricate details of Angkor Wat were yet to be revealed to me. 

There’s something very special about arriving early for sunrise. As I waited, I observed the Eastern sky above Anglor Wat change in lightness and colour as Venus shone brightly above. As time passed, Angkor Wat slowly began to reveal her beauty, as the sun started to rise. Casting the sky in a blue, then orange, the sun finally cast the sky above Angkor Wat alight in a fiery red. 

Angkor Wat finally appeared, revealed for another day, in its full beauty and splendour.  

“The temple stands solitary and alone in the jungle, in too perfect order to be called a ruin, a relic of a race far ahead of the present in all of the arts and sciences” (D.O.King 1860)