Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Biking South East Asia

Biking from Hanoi to Singapore through Cambodia, Thailand & Malayasia

Seeing the sights around Sien Reap

Reflections at Angkor Wat

7 snakesToday was a day of luxury for me, no push bike but a hotel car with driver & an English speaking guide all to myself  for the day.  First we joined the thronging masses, more like Disneyland than an historic site, around the inner set of temples at  Angkor Thon, climbing to the heady heights of Baphuon (whilst the guide rested at it’s base)  then on to to the temple apparently made famous in the film Tomb Raider, Ta Prohm. We stopped for lunch at the very expensive and not very impressive Triple K restaurant ($4 for a coconut!). then after lunch it was a walk around the legendary Anghor Wat. Since it was still early I cajoled the pair into taking me down to Lake Sap to see the Vietnamese floating village with its tank of crocodiles & other emporia. On the way the guide wanted to show me his favourite silk shop, but silk at $45 a metre I quickly walked out.

On our return we got talking about massages & that everywhere so far the word massage equalled sex 🙁  He explained that wasn’t the case with a traditional Khmer massage so I ended up having a two hour prodding, pounding twisting, stretching session for $25 at Siem Reap Khmer Massage, more like a Daphne Pilate’s workout than one of Sally’s relaxing ones. Will be interesting to see if my heel is any different tomorrow, she certainly found the pain point in it!

A pretty full on day, a lot more expensive than my regular days. I’m not sure if the extra cost gains a lot more value & in fact I enjoyed my solo trip to Koh Ker just as much.  What would be good is a trip with someone with a lot more knowledge especially why did they move from Hinduism to Buddhism. Speaking to the managers tonight & reading Wikipedia I managed to learn a bit  more.

a couple of hundred photos are here 🙂 as an experiment I’ve added them to Flickr here using the F-Stop uploader. Terribly slow as I guess it’s uploading the full file size images 🙁

 

Koh Ker to Siem Reap on Geoff’s bike tour of SE Asia

1-IMG_0427Once again it was going to be an early start & once again thwarted by the guest house owner! I ended up leaving at 6.19 sans breakfast except for two black bananas & water. It’s a real pleasure out at that time the air temperature is in the 20’s with a steady drum beat from some distant tannoy. All the kit was fully charged as the genny stayed on all night.

I eventually found some breakfast, although it entailed me going to the kitchen area & going through the motion with his wife, it turned out OK coupled with a few drink stops made it a good morning (although the Strava  reveals it was mainly downhill). There were more plantations today and lots of people on their little pull along tractors, which look excruciatingly uncomfortable.

I took the back road shortcut to miss a chunk of Higway 6 and was rewarded with delightful villages surrounded by coconut trees. I stumbled upon a local Buddhist party whilst taking my pics a young girl came out and insisted I sat down then proceeded to bring enough food over to feed an army 🙁   I didn’t stay long as it was very hot & noisy in the marquee affair .

The ice man comethAfter a few more stops and drinks, I love rummaging around in their orange cold boxes, no electric around so they buy ice from a guy on his truck who cuts lumps of with a circular saw run from the vehicle genny.

I arrived in Siem Reap determined to find a good place to stay.  I found the really grand Angkor Era five star hotel & went in to see what sort of deal I could wrangle 🙂  The girlies & their line manager couldn’t help with a deal so I went back outside & looked it up on booking.com who came back with a price that equalled 3 nights for the price of two 🙂 much to the previously mentioned folks surprise! So for less than most of the b&b’s on the SW Coast Path I’m in the lap of luxury for 3 nights. Plus internet  up & down speed of greater than 10Mbps.

Tomorrow I splurged on a car/driver & English guide to show me around Angkor Wat etcc so the bike & its rider are  having a 2 day rest before moving on to Thailand.

The Strava for todays  is here:

Kok_Ker_to_Sien_Reao___Strava_Rideand pics here

 

Krong Preah Vihear to Koh Ker on my SE Asia bike tour

Todays wake up call at 5.30am were the neighbouring Buddhists chanting over their tannoy (how did religions get on before the invention of the outside loudspeaker – come to that are Tannoy still in business?).

I tried to get out but unfortunately the gate was locked and topped with razor wire. These folks take security seriously, all the windows are barred with 1” square section steel bars! Not made for easy escape from fires. Eventually after yelling HELLO up & down the corridors a man appeared & I was released into another very hot day.

The heat is really getting to me plus the long straight boring roads is not good 🙁 necessitating frequent stops for drinks also I notice, now, from the gps data it’s been quite a long shallow drag up hill.

At one of the stops a guy told me about the Koh Ker temple complex down the road, my eye was more trained on the pickup truck, wondering if I could hitch another lift, alas he started to fill it up with bags of charcoal they have made from the local felled trees.

I found the road to the complex and tried negotiating down the $10 entrance fee, to no avail. They said it was 1km down the road. Liars! it’s 8km which is a big difference in the heat. I sat, drinking my coconut, next to a guy who was acting as driver/translator/guide to a Canadian couple who were escaping the -30 temperatures in Toronto! He said there was a guest house near the ticket place which did food. So after a look round quite an amazing site, especially the racket from all the insects. I had some lunch and made by way back, taking in the other two sites. The tall buildings at Pram ? (Pram is Cambodian for 5) are clearly (to me) chimneys obviously for cremation, where I also had a chat to a Cambodian emigrant to the States who blamed Vietnam/China for all the countries woes.

I checked in at Mom Morokod Guesthouse totally whacked after only 49miles, only to find it has no electricity until the generator is started at sundown. Bit much for a place charging $12 a night. However, the food is good & I’ve booked breakfast for 6am so hopefully I can make Sien Reap before midday.

Rest day in Stung Treng & some trip statistics


I’ve now been away for 23 days in SE Asia. Cycling for 15 of them and covering, according to Strava,  1.016 miles with an ascent of 33,843 feet  and 841.5 hours in the saddle. I’ve covered about 1/3 of the total distance to Singapore! So I’ve awarded myself a total rest day here in Stung Treng before taking the ferry across the mighty Mekong  River to Angkor Wat,  Bangkok and down the peninsula to Singapore. Although quite how I’m going to manage in this heat is anyones guess. A bike mehanic in cream trousers!Today’s puzzles are: how can a bike mechanic stay so immaculately dressed in cream trousers and pale shirt whilst fixing my puncture, I was covered in grease just by watching him at work 🙁  Another puzzle is how the guys running The Riverside restaurant & guesthouse (where I moved to this morning) manage it  seemingly with no effort, whereas others guest house owners make it all seem so much work! So with the puncture fixed, pedals sorted, handlebar tape fixed & more tape on the saddle plus a visit hairdressers today  for a cut & shave for £1. I’m ready to start again. But must buy more water 🙂