Across the border, into Cambodia!

With a sad farewell to Shannon, we picked up our bikes and got ready to cycle! The next three months we will travelling primarily by bike, enjoying bus rides, boat rides, tuk-tuks and trains only if we need a break or if the bikes just can't go where we want to be!

We chickened out and took the train from Bangkok to the Thai border town of Aranya Prathet in order to avoid the chaos of exiting the city. The train was interesting as we travelled third class and we mushed in with all the locals....having our bikes on board didn't seem to bother anyone as they were used for back rests, hanging groceries off of, and general entertainment as some peole just liked to sit on them for fun. It was a hilarious ride all in all, and we spent our last night in Thailand with a good day behind us.

The border crossing was hectic but having armed ourselves with knowledge from the Lonely Planet, we were able to avoid all the VISA scams that people throw at you and paid only the required $20 US and not a penny more, for our Cambodian VISAs. Our bike journey started that day and we did 50 km into the first big town.

This isn't the highway...it's a road going out to some of the temples at Angkor

The highway we are travelling on is magnificent for biking...wide, smooth shoulders; some traffic, but not too much; and most importantly FLAT FLAT FLAT!!! There were little villages along the way and at every house the children would come running with huge smiles, shouting "Hello, hello!" The Cambodian people are so friendly, and we had non-stop smiles on our faces from them. We spent our first night in Cambodia in Sisophan, arriving just as we were both starting to get heat stroke (we've since cured that problem and have snacks, water, and fun straw hats with us at all times!).

We did a 100km ride the following day into Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, our camera died at this point and we have almost no pictures of Cambodia's biggest tourist draw. Siem Reap was crazy with tourists, and had way more money than the villages we cycled past (which were much, much poorer than the parts of Thailand we saw). We spent three full days touring the temples at Angkor, all from the 9-13th century. The ruins are stunning...some restored, some left alone...all beautiful. The first two days we toured the site on our bikes (temples are scattered over a 50 km radius...and there are a lot of temples!!)

For our last day we hired a moto driver so that we could see some of the outlying sights. Somehow we managed to have the only unfriendly Cambodian and he didn't say a word to us all day. Oh well. Our 5am attempt to watch sunrise was abysmal as the cloud cover prevented anything exciting from happening. Literally, it was the worst sunrise ever seen, basically it went from dark to light with no variations in color. Anyway, we explored the highlight temple, Ankgor Wat, and then drove an hour out to see carvings in a riverbed. A stopover at the Land Mine Museum was sobering, and we finished the day with a look around one or two more temples.

We enjoyed our time at Angkor, but were glad to leave Siem Reap and its monstrous hotels, big bus tour groups, and plethora of restaurants serving western food behind.