When traveling on a mission to photograph things you’ll probably never see again, you tend to get very few, if not one, opportunities to capture that moment. And when you’re up at 3:30 am to photograph a sunrise of one of the most iconic sunrise spots in the world, you cross your fingers that it’s beautiful.

This time, lady luck was definitely on my side.

I woke up at an ungodly hour, met up with my guide at 4:00 am, drove out to Angkor Wat, and showed me the best location alongside the pond to set up my camera. And wow, was he spot on! In about an hour, the pond was flooded with hundreds of others trying to sneak in and get a few snapshots of the same scene (why people think their camera flash will reach the temple, God only knows). Thankfully I had the guide protecting my gear, which was right behind me on a mat, preventing tourists from pushing in too close (I didn’t want to end up in the water). It didn’t stop a woman from pushing her camera in so close that when I turned my head, it bumped into it.

But it was all worth it. This, I believe, was the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen … and to compare it to all of the sunsets I’ve witnessed (which outweighs sunrises), it’s still the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.