Temples Before Breakfast

• Angkor Wat, north reflecting pond
• 05:40
• 26°C, warm dark, then orange

You stand in the dark with a thousand strangers and nobody talks, because the sky over the towers is busy. The pond does the thing the postcards promised. Then everyone claps, which is silly, and I clapped too, because it earned it.

• Angkor Wat causeway
• 11:25
• 34°C, white sky

Two monks crossed the causeway with umbrellas against the sun, robes doing the only colour the stone allows near it. I got one frame before they were past. My grandmother would light incense for less.

• Psar Chas, Siem Reap
• 07:10
• 28°C, already warm

The old market does an hour of pure logistics before the tourists wake up — motorbikes stacked with herbs, ice blocks travelling by tong, ladies claiming their corners with tarpaulin diplomacy. I bought num banh chok from a shoulder-pole kitchen and ate it standing in the traffic like a local with bad instincts.