Angkor Sunrise

by Rachel Harris-Huffman (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Cambodia

We had to leave at 5 a.m., which was fine with me, because a few days into our tour, I still hadn’t adjusted to the fourteen-hour time difference between Albuquerque and Siem Reap. I had been up for two hours when the rest of our sleepy-eyed group staggered onto the bus for Angkor Wat. Going to see the sunrise over the ruins was advertised as a highlight of the trip, though you wouldn’t think my travel companions knew that as their heads nodded heavily on the bumpy Cambodian roads. An hour or so later we stumbled off the bus and through the marketplace outside the temple, which was quiet at this early hour. No vendors rushed us with books, postcards, or t-shirts like they had the previous day. We passed through the ancient city gates in relative peace. We found our place at the top of the steps leading to the lake in front of the temple. I laid back on the cool stone, my spine cracking as I lowered myself. It felt good to stretch out and enjoy the cool air before the sun rose and the Cambodian heat came crushing down again. In the darkness of pre-dawn, we watched the torches of incoming crowds as they crossed the floating bridge: a temporary structure erected to allow visitors access to the temple while the original stone bridge to the wat was under repair. It was an anachronism, a span of interlocking white plastic floats set upon the water’s surface that made a little squishing sound with every step. Once the sky had lightened significantly, our group disbanded and spread out in search of the perfect spot to watch the sunrise and capture an Instagrammable photo. I went down the steps to the water’s surface. Before long, Bob, one of the other Americans on our international tour, appeared next to me. “Is this the spot?” he asked. “I think so,” I said, and he sat down next to me. “I want to get the lotuses in my picture.” They opened in the moments before dawn, hot pink blossoms mimicking the rays of the sun. “I’ve been watching that one.” He pointed to the lotus closest to us. It was already open, splayed out flat as a dinner plate. He framed a shot through his camera and sighed. “Oh, that floating bridge.” I had overheard him complain about it earlier. “It really bothers you, doesn’t it?” “I don’t want it in my pictures.” “I think of it as a snapshot in time. The plastic bridge was put there so that the ancient one can be repaired. It’s about modern people honoring the past, protecting and conserving the ruins, so that future generations can appreciate them.” Bob nodded. “Still, I’ll have to come back when the floating bridge is gone.” We sat quietly for a moment, awaiting the sun. It was nearly 6:30, and the sky was still gray with smog. The day before, I heard Bob mention he had a night sky app on his phone, so I asked if he knew where the sun would rise. He pointed to the tallest tree on the horizon. That was when we both noticed a faint pink glow among its branches. Before long a circle of luminescent coral appeared above the smog line. The sun had arrived. As it climbed the branches of the tree like a ladder, it became a hazy orange fireball. The tallest towers of Angkor Wat—the towers representing the world of heaven, where ancient Cambodian kings communed with the gods—came sharply into focus, blue gray against the warming sky. Now a column of fiery light streamed down through the tree, across the lake, and onto the pads of the lotuses, their blossoms burning ever brighter in the dawn light. I couldn’t help but wonder what the sunrise looked like when Angkor Wat was new, when the sky was clear, and when people lived inside the complex walls. How much earlier did the day start when the sun could simply rise at the horizon, and didn’t have to burn its way through a mountain of industrial particulates? Without the haze of air pollution, were the sunrises so pretty?