Sunrise and sunset is always beautiful but few are meant to be very special. So special that I, along with hundreds of other travelers in Siem Reap are willing to sacrifice our sleep and get up at 4 am for sunrise at Angkor Wat.
I have slept late after spending half the night at Siem Reap’s night market. It’s 4 am, and the alarm is blazing. The bed is just too comfortable. ‘Oh, damn this sleep. Get up and get going’, I grumble under my breath and get up.
I am bicycling at 4:30 am on the streets of Siem Reap. There are some locals going around, but surprisingly, I feel absolutely safe. The beauty of Angkor Wat’s sunrise lies in its changing colours as the sun shows up. It is 5:15 am, and the dawn is about to break. It is as beautiful as a bud before it bursts into a flower.
Barely 5 minutes have passed and the sky has changed its colours once again. This time to dark brinjal. I have never seen so many changing colours ever before in my life (If I have seen, probably it wasn’t beautiful enough to stay attached to my brain cells).
Before I could completely fathom the beauty of the purple skies, whole aura has changed yet again. The sky and surroundings are now golden yellow.
The bas-reliefs of eastern and southern galleries (Procession of King Suryavarman; Churning of the sea of milk) of the outer periphery are worth seeing as the sun rises. They are said to glow with their utmost beauty at this time.
What beautiful sunsets have you seen around the world? Share with us in comments below.
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Gaurav BhatnagarSoftware Engineer turned Travel Writer, Photographer, and Public Speaker on Responsible Travel. Entrepreneur in Responsible Rural Travel @ www.thefolktales.com
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