Multi Temple Bike Ride and Bone Cracking Acrobatic Comedy Ghosts

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I refuse to leave this country without a photo of five people on one moped - I've seen it often enough, but not caught it on camera. I've captured a few fours, lots of threes, various irregular and oversize items, but no fives yet. Helen has seen a six: Mum, Dad, teenage daughter, two babies. Get in!

Our guide for the rest of the Cambodia trip is Nin. He is awesome. He's a travel guide by day, teacher of disadvantaged children at night. He's been a farmer and is also a professional photographer. This means he knows all the best places to get better shots without lots of numpty tourists in the way. He's extremely passionate about his job and gets very animated as you tells you the history.

Like all Cambodians of his generation he has a terrible past. He was one of eight children, all of his siblings, plus his parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge. He managed to escape with others to Vietnam and only returned when the Vietnamese invaded. He was in an orphanage for 13 years and then became a monk. He liked being a monk in that they do a lot of studying and he started to learn how to translate some of the ancient scripts carved into temples. But Monks only get breakfast and lunch, no evening meal, so after three years he'd had enough. He's now married with three small girls and is incredibly happy.

Getting into tuk tuks (Glyn says they're just motorbikes with trailers, not proper ones like they have in India) we raced up to Angkor Wat to get our three day pass, which meant being photographed. Nin loves the place but is peeved that in the late 90's the Government sold it to a private company that is corrupt and no one knows where all the profits go.

The tuk tuks then took us to a random point in the road where some guys with a trailer turned up with bicycles for us. The bikes actually had gears this time and we were required to wear helmets. Although it was hot, cloud covered the sun, so though we were sweating a lot, we were not burning. A brief crack of thunder that sounded like cannons came close, but it was one shot only. A 16km journey took us along a main road which was fairly busy, but cycles, tuk tuks and mopeds get their own area, so it was easy going. After turning into an orange, stoney dirt road, we passed a few houses (farms?) a school and stalls selling fruit and scarves.

Angkor was once the capitol of Cambodia (back when it was 54 provinces as opposed to just 24 now) from AD 802 to 1432 and had a population of over 1 million which is loads more than other cities of the world at that time. It was abandoned in the 1500s, left to the jungle and wildlife and by the 1900s was totally overgrown and almost forgotten. The locals knew of it but preferred to stay away, worried that it was the home of the gods and not a safe place to be. When the French invaded, they rallied everyone up there, hacking away at the jungle and so it became a tourist spot, one of the seven wonders of the world. There are around 70 known temples and tombs within the area, but the sanskrit in the walls tell of many more that are yet to be found.

Out first stop on the bikes was Bakong, the first of three temples of the Rolous Group. Lots of gherkin shaped stuff, lotus and elephant carvings. Nin told us about the history and how it as built. Next stop Preah Ko which was quick to build - only 20 years! Which when you compare it to how long it took to build cathedrals in the UK, that's impressive. All the temples used to be surrounded by moats and appeared as though they floating. The reason for the moats is pretty boring: it's just where they dug up dirt to use for building with, not to keep crocodiles as my hubby had hoped.

The final temple was Lolei this one had a few monks hanging out and a pagoda next door. During the civil war, both were used as prisons and there are plenty of bullet holes to let us know a lot of fighting went on there. Still intact are lots of sanskripts that are so clear, it's amazing considering they are 1000 years old.

Nin also explained to us about the Cambodian way of greeting people, we'd seen a lot of people placing their hands together in a praying motion, nodding and smiling at us. I got that it was a friendly gesture, but didn't realise that there are four ways of doing this. The first is to have your hands beneath your chin and this is how you greet friends, siblings etc. The second is to have the tips of your fingers level with the bottom of your nose, this one is for parents and elders, etc. The next one up is tips of fingers up to the forehead, this one is for royalty so I may not get to practice that one. The final is hands even higher, this one is for gods, and this is what everyone was doing to me.... not really!

We cycled back the 16km, I think the full journey was around 35km in total. The last kilometres got harder as it was after 2pm and the sun decided to take his hat off and give us a full blast of his death rays. So we arrived back at the hotel very sweaty, over-cooked and arses in pain.

After shower two of the day, we had an air-conditioned van (hooray!) driven by Nin's friend, Nan. Yes, we all had a chortle about Nin and Nan and were waiting for Non.

Driving past swathes of tourists at Angkor Wat, we stopped at one of the main entrances to Angkor Thom as Nin knew a good spot for award winning photos (or so we would like to think.) We then drove a bit further, past monkeys that apparently are very intelligent and have been known to steal make up out of tourist's bags and put it on.

Nin had taken us to Angkor Thom later in the day as there's less people to stand in your way. This was one impressive structure with loads of bas reliefs that Nin is well into, they're numerous, very clear and depict everyday life thahe claims is still relevant today. They show a woman giving birth with a midwife beside her, people hunting and cooking, people smoking opium and a man being eaten by a crocodile - I don't think I want to visit where Nin lives!

After taking so many photos that I've now filled my first 32mb memory card (on just one camera), we headed back to the hotel to get showered and changed for the third time in the day. It's not overdoing it! We were covered in dirt and sweat and suncream after cycling, then more of the same this time. I'm almost out of clean cloths despite having to buy and borrow some at the start of the holiday when my luggage was two days late. The hotel does do laundry but it soon adds up, so I've washed a lot in the bathroom sink and hung it all out around the balcony, noting that it was the only one with washing out. Although, Andy and Helen who are two floors below have said they have washing out to, so people beside the pool can look up and spot where the plebs are residing.

A crappy fayre was our evening meal, then Ni took us to the Phare Cambodian Circus, which he was super excited about. This circus is made up from a school for children of extremely poor and deprived families. It gives them the chance to become educated and also learn about Cambodian Arts and Performance, giving the children skills to earn a decent living. This is where Nin teaches at night for free and he must have seen the shows millions of times before but still was excited. It was held in a small circus tent with lots and lots and lots of electric fans, so worth going for that alone.

Tonight's show was an acrobatic comedy ghost story, (a genre I've not come across a lot before) called 'Chills'. There weren't many lines, but it was all subtitled on screens hanging off the ceiling. It was pretty funny and the acrobatics were out of this world... Six lads and two ghosts performed the show with a small part for a girl. They were balancing on multiple chairs stacked high, leaping and throwing each other about and bending their limbs in such a way the audience cringed a little, especially when the band made bone cracking noises as they did it. The band being some kids playing traditional music and totally rocking out to it. Afterwards they briefly told us in English about the Circus/School and asked that we spread the word, especially on TripAdvisor, to tell other tourists to come to their shows and for us to go to their shows when we tour their country.

On the way back Steve asked Nin if his student with the broken shoulder was in the show tonight. "No," Nin told him, "he's in the hospital."

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Photos

Angkor Thom
Cambodia

School
Cambodia

Angkor multipass
Cambodia