Heading back to the Thai Border

20/5/2011

So I got myself briefly lost leaving Siem Reap, you have to keep to your eyes peeled for road signs around here or maybe I should just pay more attention!  100km to Sisophon well I made it 115km.  A head wind the whole way and I went  23kph….20…19….18….16…14kph it was slow progress and straight, super straight.  And refreshing warm turning hot water to hydrate.

Straight, flat, hot, head wind

Sisophon!!!!! Yay!

Well It has taken 7 weeks and two trips to a post shop but my bike has gone on a massive diet and lost it’s ‘front bum’.  After repeatedly seeing other cycle tourist carrying half of what I have, multiple comments of “you have a lot of gear”, continually wonder what I can loose and finally a skype session with the comments passed:

“Have you got a tent?”

“No.”

“Do you cook your own food? Have you got a cooker?”

“No.”

“Oh.? Man I’m just trying work out what you are carrying around?”

“hmmm, I don’t know.  One bag I don’t even really use.”

downsizing - the pile centre back slowly grew

And that was it.  Time to get ruthless. The front panniers go, my pack that I have only used three times (once being on the flight over) is gone, and a stack of random stuff that I just haven’t used.  It feels good and really looking forward to the first day riding without it all.  My legs will hopefully be well rewarded!

It is interesting to find out just how little you need when cycle touring.  I had back-ups of everything it felt.  Why?  You’ll find a solution if something runs out or breaks.  I could still cut back if I wanted but have kept a few luxuries for myself.

22/5/2011

My last day in Cambodia.  Just like any other and funny enough very similar to a couple of days ago with a head wind again.  It was not until I was about 15km out of Poipet (border crossing) that it struck me that it was my last day in Cambodia, well for the mean time anyway it will be nice to come back.  A few thoughts on my time through Cambodia:

• poor country but very giving for what they have
• Cambodia grew on me over my time there. Ups and downs and breaking wheels but things just seemed to work out at the end of the day.
• An easy enough country to travel around (even for a beginner). I have experienced and enjoyed local and rural lifestyle and some of those nice treats of tourist areas.
• I only found hills in the south and the rest of the time it was remarkably flat. I’m looking forward to some hills to enjoy the descents again!
• Cambodia has an incredible history – The Temples, the Khmer Rogue, the wars, the landmines
• The Poipet border crossing is a confusing shambles but fun to go through.

The border crossing:

Khmer, Khmer, Khmer, Casino

Departure easy – filled out the departure card and stamped out.  Now where do I go, follow the 64 signs in different directions and multiple options to get to other side.  Being on a bike I mixed things up between following vehicles and foot traffic.  Didn’t quite get it right… I almost made it through the border without getting a visa.  Stood in one queue labelled ‘Visa on Arrival’ I’m pretty sure that’s what I need?  Apparently not.  I’m told to stand in the ‘Foreign Passport’ and I’ll just get stamped another two weeks.  Sorted.  Go back outside and get my bike and ride down the vehicle lane and come up to the vehicle border pass office.  Nah stuff that I’ll just jump back on the footpath and walk through to freedom thanks.  For being a major border crossing it’s confusing, I don’t know if was just me but there were a couple of other foreigners that were all over the show too.

The border crossing

The Casino in the middle of the crossing - right

I actually feel sad saying farewell to Cambodia.  There were days I was happy to leave and be somewhere else but looking back I can only really think how everything I did and what happened to me was a really great adventure.  There will be lots that I’ll miss.

Aranya Prathet was my destination of the Thai side, about 6km from the border.  Being back into Thailand was a weird feeling.  All the things I remembered started to appear again: the yellow roadside shelters, 7-11 stores, being on the left hand side of the road, smooth roads with your own moto/cycle lane and spicy food!  I had forgotten about the last and dived into my dinner then shortly after began a fire in my mouth!!! Stay calm and drink water, look like you're fine... eyes watering, nose starting to run I don't think I look very normal!

Found the post shop in Aranya Prathet and that was the end of the front panniers... a bit on the expensive side for postage but it's for the better! 

Before

After

Siem Reap

Arrived 17/5/2011

Which way would you go to get to Phnom Penh? Head east?

  

Or head West?

Day one from Battambang to Siem Reap was a biggy.  Arrived at my initial destination quicker than expected so thought I’d continue on and find somewhere 10km or so down the road.  50km later and some reasonably smashed legs I found a guesthouse, the only one before Siem Reap I reckon.  Most of that afternoon I kept thinking about the ferry ride I should have taken!!! Slow but relaxing.  Oh well I ended up coming across a couple of cycle tourists so there was a payoff for the long slog.  One of these guys was Mike Schademan who was heading for Siem Reap that day.  I was wasted enough and wasn’t going to be able to make it that far so we parted with intentions to meet up in Siem Reap.

Day two was made much smaller from the long day previous which was good because my legs didn’t want to pedal.  Siem Reap emerged and is a full on city, bustling with tourists which is both nice to meet people but also very in your face and I starting missing the peacefulness of small towns.

So I caught up with Mike and we partyed to the wee hours at the Angkor What? Bar (see what they did there) with its great range of pop music and I think cheap beers.  Mike got some local rocket fuel so mixing that in you didn’t need many beers anyway!  Yarned away for ages and exchanged stories but he has a lot more than me!  He has been going for something around 2 years and the stories he had were incredible.  He started in New York and is making a slow track around the world.  He has a budget of next nothing and has progressed from home stays to sleeping in a tent to now sleeping in a hammock wherever he may end up – middle of a jungle, side of the road or invited into a local’s house.  He has a great belief in himself and peace about what he is doing, nothing fazes him anymore.  He has waded out a case of malaria in the middle of nowhere in Borneo, I would not be a fan of that!

The Temples:

Angkor Wat Sunrise

There are so many around the Siem Reap province it’s not funny.  This place back in its hay day use to be a big city of something around 1 million people with a large number of

I had sorted myself a tuk tuk for the day starting with the sunrise at Angkor Wat – after too many rocket fuelled beers the night before.  An early start and when I got up it was pouring down.  I went out to meet my driver and I couldn’t see him so I just headed back to bed and had a nice big sleep in thinking he would have thought it was too wet to go anyway.  Well I saw him later that day and he said he had waited for me until midday… whoops.  I had already paid him so don’t think he would too mad and we arranged it again for the next day. 

  

Where there's a sunrise people will flock to it!

The staircases - you have walk sideways
down them

Clear day, 5:15am we arrive at the ticket office… and I have forgotten my wallet.  We putt-putted back to the guest house with every minute passing it getting lighter and lighter.  I think I missed the initial part of the sunrise but I still managed to see some of it.  The next 10 hours it was temples galore.  A long day wondering around all the temples (well the ones I saw anyway) but having a tuk tuk to take me around was a saviour as I could have some sneaky naps between sites.  There were moments of it’s just another temple but each temple has its own character and uniqueness and then there is age 1000+ years!  A difference in carvings, size, layout, design, how many stupidly steep staircases you could put in, it was all just incredible really.  Being able to walk through and touch these pieces of history was an amazing feeling.  Seeing them up close and personal gave me a huge appreciation of the unfathomable work force, time and precision put into constructing them.

One that I visited looks completed but apparently it got close then it was found the sun didn’t pass through one of the towers so it was abandoned.  You’d be gutted after sooooo much work.  They should have spent some gold on a surveyor!

Angkor Thom - Bayon Temple

The Budda face carvings all over Bayon

The row of Khleangs - 7 all up I think

Although Angkor Wat is the most famous temple my two favourites were Ta Prohm and Banteay Srei. 

Ta Prohm is known for a whole lot of trees growing through it (and where Tombraider was filmed) largely causing it to collapse but making it look cool in the process.  Succumbing to nature even though it is destroying history.

Banteay Srei was a very small temple but had incredibly intricate carving details all over it and the whole area was a rich orange colour – different to all the other temples.  Also being so much smaller you felt you could take longer looking around and it made you appreciate it more.

On my way back from all the temple viewings I stopped in at the Cambodian Landmine Museum.  Previously it was a couple of shacks then it got some recognition and they built a proper museum - well close to anyway.  The walls were filled with stories of young kids and those who fought in the war against the Khmer Rogue and their encounters with landmines.  It changed so many people's lives and they continue to take lives today.  the number of unaccounted for landmines in Cambodia is scary! You don't want to be ploughing a farm in the back lands.

The entranceway - old bombs lining the path

Petanque with hand grenades

The centre piece -all types of bombs and landmines

Find the landmines...

Battambang

13/5/2011 - 15/5/2011

Well I was going to stop and spend a night at Moung Roessei (halfway to Batambang) but it was just a wee village and nowhere to stay so I pushed on to Batambang.  The last 10km into the city became a race against time with some very black rain clouds coming over, lightning starting and winds picking up fast! The closer I got to town the stronger the wind and it was a head wind, down to 15kph battling the wind but I had to make it to town to find a somewhere for shelter.  Made it to town not getting too wet and oddly enough the rains didn’t even come to anything anyway – what was all the fuss about, so hard to predict the weather here!

Yali and Me - I'm actually tall in this country 

Batdambang, I think, has been one of my favourite cities in Cambodia.  A city that has all the nice benefits of small towns (easy going, not too many people, you have your own space and don’t get constantly harassed), there are lots of places and sites to see, a great market with food galore and the people here all seem to be happy and willing to help you.  A good place to be.  To speak of the nice people here I randomly walked past one fella (Yali) who just said “Hello, where are you from?” I replied and from that he has since invited me over for dinner and lunch both days I have been here and shown me sites around the place – including a night at ‘The Disco’, classic, it was a full on club; strobe lights, lasers, smoke machines and a first time encounter with lady boys – hilarious!  Nothing dodgy but Yali pointed them out to me, some of them you really cannot tell.

With Yali being my tour guide I got to see the tourist sites as well as a bit of the local community around his place.  Yali is a poor man and it’s pretty amazing how generous he was and being able to see how his family get by.

Their wee kid Missey (named after a famous Argentinian footballer).  Yali has another boy called Wayne Rooney who lives with his parents. Can you guess where he got the name from...

Dinner. A whole chicken, rice and soup - really tasty

Zalina and Yali - in the kitchen

All of us at dinner

Sites:

• Wat Phnom Ek – a really old temple built by the first king, older than Angkor Wat 

Rather precariously balanced centre

The Monks drum - and it's still used

• Bamboo Train – a crazy simple train contraption made of a wooden frame and bamboo slates to sit on.  It ticks along at what feels like 100kph (probably more like 30 or 40kph) bumping and swaying everywhere on the rather basic track lines to say the least.  Oh and there is only one track so encountering another train it is a matter of chicken… nah one group jumps off and literally takes their train off the tracks for you to pass, then on you continue.

 

the dismount required when you encounter another train

• The Killing Caves – A series of deep caves used by the Khmer Rogue to throw people into whether they were already dead or not didn’t matter.  Another one of those sickening historical sites.

Again I looked into getting a ferry to get to my next destination - Siamreap.  It looked like a cool way to travel and see the things from a different perspective.  Talked to the hotel staff (who sold tickets) and they said you can do it but it is quite slow.  Thinking slow, like 4 hours slow?  No slow here means the ferry that left at 8am from Siamreap had not yet arrived, and it was about 5pm.  They say it takes 7 – 10 hours to go by ferry and it’s only around 150km!  I had second thoughts about sitting on a ferry for that long with one stop on the way for lunch and a toilet off the back… so decided to bike over a couple of days instead. I keep seeming to choose the hard option of getting places.  One day I will relax, not worry and get on a slow boat.

Long Straight Roads to Battambang

Udong

Arrived 10/5/2011

A little worse for wear and sick of re-stitching

Back on the bike this morning, in a new cycling top (el greeno) as my old merino one has now retired.  It felt good getting some distance from the city and continuing the journey.  The road so far has been ¾ sealed and the rest gravelled getting ready for re-sealing.  I’m sure it will be nice to ride along here once all the roadworks are complete but for now constantly breathing in and getting covered in dust which is a less than top 10 experience.

Mushroom haystacks on the way to Udong

Wanting to get off the road asap I choose the first guesthouse that I came across.  Set back from the road a bit and a place to eat opposite it, sweet seems good.  Two power cuts later, an aerobics session in the neigbouring backyard with the music blasting (I have learnt to count pretty well in Khmer now) and discovering my food place was not…what a blowout.  I remembered there was something at the other end of town but in the dark, dust everywhere, most of the shops shut due to the dust and it being about a 15min walk I decided to flag and just had museli instead.  Not the greatest of days really.

A wee sneak view inside the hotel

Kampong Chhnang

Arrived 11/5/2011

A happy day!  After being told my $100 was not legal tender in Cambodia I took it into a bank and they happily changed it for me into 20’s so will be easier to use now too!! Awesome.  And I have landed myself a pretty pimpin room 3 floors up with views across the town.  I unfortunately forgot to take a photo of the place.  A cheap stay and treated like a king! All the other guests have flash cars (Lexus and mercs) parked outside then there is and one steel framed bike…

The view from the hotel

A pottery stall along the highway outside Kampong Chhnang

Me at the central Buddhist temple in Kampong Chhnang

Mini bananas

Some of the local kids

Pursat

Arrived 12/5/2011

Another stifling hot day – I got the 3 spot burn on my forehead again from my helmet makes me look pretty cool!  The roads are straight, endlessly straight!

Discovered these great bread treats.  A roll with sweet filling in it kind of like an uncooked Danish. Mmmm bread and sweet stuff.

I have come to learn that Cambodians know how to deal with power cuts pretty well.  They tend to occur every second night if not once a night.  You can be reasonably reassured that when the power goes that within maybe 3 minutes things will be back running again.  Some places I have stayed have backup generators at hand so the luxuries of fans can continue to go and save you from melting.

The spots

Danish thing