Temple Cycling

Today’s excursion was a cycling trip around some of the temples.  Hire bikes were delivered to the hotel at 8:30, and after some initial trials to make sure the bikes were the correct size, we headed off down our street, which is the worst quality seal in Siem Reap, then into town to head towards the first of our temples.  Da is our local guide, and Cuong the Vietnamese guide who will be with us for the whole journey to Hanoi.  We also have Diep, who is the trip co-ordinator who makes everything happen, but is not a cyclist.  As we are only doing 1 days cycling in Siem Reap, our support vehicle took the form of a 150cc motor scooter towing a large trailer, on which was carried, 2 spare bikes, a large water tank, a chilly bin chocked full of beer and water and any spare gear that we wanted to leave in the trailer.

The group assembling

One nervous cyclist - but she put in a sterling performance 

We were confused by the water tank, as we aren’t able to drink the local water, and must drink out of the purified water that comes in bottles, but it use was soon to be revealed. 

Our first stop of the day was the second set of traffic lights we’d hit.  Being typical cyclists, everybody had charged off, and Anne and I, one other rider, Coung, our Vietnamese guide and the man on the bike had slipped off the back of the group.  The traffic was quite heavy, but easy to ride in – cars, bikes, scooters, buses all mingling well together.  As we got to the lights, the enthusiastic bunch was nowhere to be seen.  Cuong came to the front, and looked in every direction, but like us could see no one.  We had expected him to know which way to go, but obviously he didn’t.  He then went and asked our motorcycle support man, who also looked blank, as did the official looking man on the corner, as did the security guard who was summoned from 50 metres up the street.  The policeman who rode past on his bike probably would have known which way to go, but as we weren’t looking in distress, he didn’t bother to stop.

10 minutes later Da appeared, waving to us from what had appeared to us to be the least likely direction.  It was only the least likely I suspect because it meant we would have to do a left hand turn from the right hand side of a 6 lane road.  We managed to successfully negotiate that task without drama, as all the traffic just merges around you, and we were soon on the correct side of the road heading in the right direction with all our group intact.

The first few Ks were on roads, firstly through the town, and then on more rural roads.  The quality of the road surface was good, although covered in a red dust.  We then headed off road and spent most of the day riding on very smooth 4 wheel drive tracks. 

Cambodia is a very flat country, so cycling there is very easy.  Cambodia is in fact so flat that the size of Ton Le Sap, the lake that takes up a fair chuck of Cambodia, quadruples in size between the dry and the rainy seasons.

The next stop revealed the need for the water tank.  As the scooter is only 150cc’s and towing rather a lot of weight, its engine was prone to overheating.  Every time we stopped, our support driver would use the hose from the water tank to pour water over the very over heated engine.  It's a solution, but I'm not sure that it will be a long term one.

That's our support vehicle - the scooter only just visible.

The cycling was fantastic, and we all stuck together well as a group.  Because there was no traffic on the tracks we road, we were able to look around and enjoy the scenery as we cycled our way through the country side.  At one stage we had to stop for a group of water buffalo that were being walked down the track.  They were very docile, but their horns were not to be messed with.

Our first temple for the day was Bat Chum, a very small temple, but one of the oldest one in Cambodia being built in the 10^th century.  The temples are built of a combination of bricks, sandstone and another very hard stone.  There was no mortar in Cambodia in the 10^th century, so the temples are built by bricks or stones being placed one of top of the other.  This worked well, if done right, but 11 centuries on, time has taken its toll and many of the temples have collapsed, or are in a very precarious state, so various means have been adopted to stop them falling over completely.

Having ridden for most of the morning – starting at about 9am, we took a break for lunch at a restaurant in the temple complex, before heading to Banteay Kidea – one of the larger temples in the area.  Banteay Kidea is famous for the Banyon trees which have over the centuries taken over the complex and are completely integrated into the buildings of the temple.  These massive trees will over time destroy the temples because they are so large and are just weighing down on the temple roofs.  By this stage, the time had rolled on to 2:30, so we got the usual torrential down pour, which started while we were in the temple, and finished off as we sheltered in the police men's hut beside where we had parked our bikes.  

We then spent the next 15 minutes dashing from one temple ruin to another trying to avoid taking a drenching.  One of our group, Mike, decided to buy a poncho from one of the local hawkers.  At $1USD it sounded like a good deal, but sadly it was torn to shreds before Mike could get it completely on, so the rest of us have been saved from buying into the dodgy poncho scam.  After the rain, the tracks turned to a heavy mud, and the many tree roots on the tracks only added to the fun of trying to negotiate our way back to the hotel.  We all duly arrived back at the hotel considerably dirtier for the experience, but  a quick wash down of our gear in the shower by the hotel pool, a swim and a beer and we were all suitably restored from our days riding.

Dinner was in the aptly named “Pub Street” in the centre of Siem Reap.  A $USD3 tuk tuk ride for 4 adults took us about 20 minutes to get from the hotel to the restaurant and back. 

We were all collapsed in bed by 10:30 that night - the first 40ks of cycling tucked under our belts.  The heat and humidity takes it out of you, so hopefully we'll get acclimatised pretty quickly, as the real cycling starts in about 3 days time in Da Lat - the hilly part of Vietnam.