Angkor Wat (and the other temples in the vast complex) take two.

It seems strange updating my blog about our visit to Angkor so long after we visited - looking at my journal it’s now almost a month ago. So many experiences since then, in Cambodia and Vietnam. But here goes…

I think I may already have alluded to the ‘rules of the road’ in Cambodia - it’s all about size. The bigger you are, ie. Juggernaut, the louder the horn that screams: “I’m coming through, GET OUT OF MY WAY!” Next, pick-up trucks, bussess, cars, motorbikes / scooters and way down the list, cyclists, with ‘Farangs’ - white strangers right at the bottom of the pile. It’s Darwin’s survival of the fittest on wheels at breakneck speed, where the only rule is, keep moving, don’t stop unless you want to get squished! After that, pretty much anything goes: Ride on the pavement? Sure, no problem. Pull out without looking and let everyone else move around you? Of course! Ride head on into the opposing traffic - you bet! So long as you lean on the horn to tell everyone else that you’re executing a crazy manoeuvre then it’s all fair. I’m sure I heard Nerky’s war cry behind me on many occasions when we needed to cross the road: “Yeeeeaaaarrrrhhhhh!” Or it may have been been me - difficult to tell - I usually found the best tactic was to shut my eyes, turn in and pedal faster… You get the picture - chaos that strangely seemed to work, although we did see a few prangs, fortunately none of which were nasty. But I bet it happens, a lot.

Anyway, having taken inspiration from friends Mel and Matt who spent a year cycling around the world, we figured the temple complex roads would be quieter so we decided to rent bicycles for all three days to explore Angkor. If I tell you that the first day we pedaled a round trip of about 20 miles, that should give some idea of the scale of the other temples scattered around Angkor Wat. Here’s a few pics before I sum up our experiences there.