Even the most off-road backpacker ends up at a tourist destination sometimes. For 24 hours in Siem Reap, we were full-on tourists: sensible shoes, cameras in hand, and herded from one site to the next. I didn’t mind this too much, because it was the Angkor temples and there’s a reason people crowd to see them. They are truly magnificent.

Five of us rent a tuk-tuk for a day. $15 for the driver to take us around the main circuit of temples, from sunrise to sunset. It was a good deal. Angkor has hundreds of temples that can take days and days to explore. For non-temple-aficionados, you can purchase a single-day pass and just focus on the big three: Angkor Wat, Bayon, and Ta Prohm. And so there we are, squeezed into a tuk-tuk at 5 am to beat the sunrise, about to embark on an exhaustingly long day of temple-hopping.

I do not look happy about having my photo taken at 5 am for this.

Angkor Wat is the most iconic of the Angkor temples, and all tuk-tuk drivers will take you there first to see the sunrise. Wiser travelers will tell you to save Angkor Wat for later because as nice as the sunrise may be, it’s not worth dealing with this:

The crowd waiting for the sunrise over Angkor Wat. This photo probably only captures half the people actually there.

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