Vietnam/Cambodia Day 11: Angkor Wat

Sunday, February 15, 2026

Today’s itinerary began with a very early visit to Angkor Wat, the main Angkor temple, to watch the sun rise over the temple. This involved getting up around 4:30 am and leaving for the temple at 5:30 to see the sunrise around 6:30. As usual, our tour leaders had thought of everything and had pastries and beverages available to grab, so nobody was hungry.

When we arrived at Angkor Wat, we were far from alone. The spot that the guide had planned for us to sit and watch the sunrise was already taken, but he had other locations in mind as well. We ended up mostly standing for the sunrise, which wasn’t a problem and allowed us to move around a bit as the sun rose and crowds moved. Following sunrise, he directed us to a reflecting pool for more pictures of the temple.

We then entered the temple itself and explored, noting particularly long, intricately carved walls depicting battles and royal life. Climbing to the second floor, we were then given an opportunity to climb a steep stairway to enter the central tower. The tower was crowded, with a short line to enter and a longer line to exit due to the steepness of the stairs.

On the other side of the temple was another long wall with images of historical events. One of the others on the tour noted an analogy with the Bayeux Tapestry, which had been my thought as well.

Although it felt like a long morning, when we returned to the hotel, it was only about 10 am. Breakfast was waiting for us, but several of us characterized it as “brunch” instead.

We had some time on our own following breakfast/brunch, so Kenna and I walked over to a nearby supermarket to explore and pick up a few items. The supermarket was very large and comprised 2 floors and seemed to cater to tourists like us as well as expats and other visitors. We picked up some sodas ($0.50 each, compared with $6.00 in the hotel) and a small box of palm sugar. There was also a huge selection of flavored potato chips, so we picked up a bag of the honey-mustard flavor, which turned out to be quite good.

In the afternoon, we had an excursion to the Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom and some associated structures nearby.

The evening was an elaborate outdoor dinner at another temple in the complex, Prasat Kravan. Our tour operator, Lindblad, and the Raffles, who catered it, put on an amazing event for us. We took small buses and on arrival were greeted by a short performance by Khmer dancers. We then walked through hundreds (thousands?) of luminarias to an area where we were served wine, beer, and hors d’oeuvres, and later to a third area on the other side of the temple where tables had been set and we were served a tasting-style dinner. Between dinner courses, the dancers performed different traditional dances, each telling a different story. This was an amazing production, even more so because of its remoteness.

This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.