What a Wat, wot?

3 September - Last night was a bit of a thunderstorm and I was a bit worried that it would continue through to today but the monsoon season being as it is meant that it was actually pretty blue skyes. Not when I woke up at 4:45am however, in order to make it up for sunrise. Hotel wouldn't do a wakeup before 5 but I managed on my own somehow, was up waiting for my moto driver at 4:55. There were a few people around at this stage and one of the clerks asked me if I wanted anything. A coffee would be nice. You have to wait until 5:30 for that ... Of course (let's not forget the reason i'm up at this time). My driver was about 15m late but he sped me to our destination in the darkness. The town was a bit flooded from the deluge before and got a little bit wet; also the road was packed with other groups (motos and buses, even a few bicycles) chasing the sun, trying to get there before daybreak. Arrived at the site and had to go through the bureaucracy of getting my ticket with photo sorted out but eventually made it to Angkor Wat and had to run up the giant causeway in order to get a good view (the sky was already lightening a little). It was very majestic and very beautiful but I had to concentrate to try and tune out the massive swathes of people who filled up my peripheral vision. After light I wandered around for a while - the site was enormous, i'd certainly had wat fatigue and was completely templed out after Thailand. I saw a few in Vietnam, some very beautiful, but they all pale to Angkor Wat, if nothing else because of its sheer size. Another advantage of the size of the Angkor region is that despite the fact that there are thousands of tourists criss-crossing the area all day because its so big you often find yourself completely alone in the ruined temples and it's not a big step pretending to be Indiana Jones (or Lara croft if you're female or just drawn that way) stepping through ancient ruins (which they ar obviously) - there ar not so many booby traps, at least none that I found. Although that wasn't always the case as the khmer rouge extensively mined the region before they left as well as just blowing up some of the buildings for kicks. The Bayon with the many giant heads was one of the highlights as well as Ta phrom, one of the most crowded (almost certainly because it was the one that was used for filimg for Tomb Raider).
An unfortunate aspect of the region was that there was a new level of begging and selling that i'd not seen before (admittedly not as bad as the virtual mugging i'd received at the bus stop) - the children selling stuff (flutes, postcards, bracelets, charms and a weird bamboo drum thing) would sit themselves by you and pester you non stop until you left. It was a little bit endearing at first (they are some of the cutest kids i've ever seen - perhaps it's the good looking ones who ar sent out to sell??) but by the end of the day I was a bit worn out - one of the techniques (apparently it also happens in Peru, according to a very bitter but very nice Irishman I met today) is asking you what the capital of Madagasgar is, if you know, they leave you alone, if you don't, you buy (i've got no idea what it is, must google it later on) and other capital related trivia comes up. The one that I really didn't like was young men coming up to you inside the temple and started talking, they act like a local guide and follow you around telling you about the temple (sometimes quite informed, sometimes not) and then demand payment for services rendered. There's no point where you can tell thm to go away because they're just being friendly and they really imply that you're cheating them by not paying up. There was also a policeman (at least a man dressed as a policeman) in one of the temples just begging outright, which was a bit distressing. He tried to sell me his badge and told me how little a government job pays (apparntly it's $25 a month hence their reputation for corruption). However, when I was not sitting down (children swarming you) and I was not running away from my apparent debtors I was very much enjoying myself. I''ve got two more days here (i was told by lonely planet and alex, an englishman I met in Sihanoukville, that 3 is the absolute minimum - i'm not so sure about that tho) so i'll sleep in tomorrow and then bicycle out to one of the more distant sites if possible and revisit the highlights the next day (a sunset seems more appropriat for me than sunrise I think).
Also went for another run - pretty long compared to what i've been doing - would have been longer but I had to turn back cause it as getting dark. As it was, I was coming back in complete darkness - the only light being the motos bearing down on me as they tried to do me in.