Ankor Wat

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The speedboat the next day took us through Tonle Sap - which is a large inland lake formed when the sea pushed back on the river. It is quite amazing and at times you can't see either shore from the boat. I slept a lot on the boat and when we got to Siem Reap about 6 hours later I headed to Smileys guesthouse that was recommended by Kristen. I got a nice room, ate some food and then slept for about 16 hours - Phnom Penh was a great city, one of the favorites on my travels, but it had unbeknownst to me exhausted me.
Most people visit Siem Reap so they can explore Angkor Wat - the world famous temples built between 7 and 11 centuries ago and rediscovered only in the last one or so. This is also why I was there. I decided to get a 3-day pass for the temples that evening - and get the evening free by buying a ticket at 5pm. I hadn't decided whether I was going to sightsee the temples with a guide, alone, on a motorbike, rickshaw, taxi or a bicycle. I met two girls from Belgium at the guesthouse and they were looking to rent a motorbike and travel around the temples the next day also. I had seen some prices for bikes in town that morning that seemed better than what they had seen so far, so we went and sorted out the rental. I offered to drive them around and share the cost of the bike and that seemed like a good arrangement for all of us, so we planned to set off that evening to Angkor Wat to see the sun set there. In the meantime we had a few hours so we went to a butterfly cafe and had a drink. The butterflies were pretty cool. Then on the way to the postoffice we got stopped by the police who pointed out that we were going the wrong way down a one way street and we should give them $10. Since there were many other locals doing the same thing as us we complained and I asked if the locals were also being given the same fine. After a few anxious moments (not that anxious for $10) they policeman let us off and we went around the right way around the one way system by the river.
The temples of Angkor are really amazing. We spent a short time that evening - before the sun set and it closed - at the largest temple; Angkor Wat itself and then the three of us spent the next day biking around the site and saw a lot of the other temples. Starting off at the Bayon - with all the faces carved in stone, going around through other huge temples including one of the most popular - ta prohm - the jungle temple which has not been cleared, but left in the state it was found (unlike the others) to give the visitor an idea of what it was like to find these temples so recently in the middle of the jungle. It had huge trees growing on and through the structures and was truly amazing.
The two girls only got a one-day pass, and so it was great for me to share in their desire to see so much in one day. In the afternoon we headed out by bike to a remote site of 3 temples about 10km from Siem Reap. When we set off the roads were pretty clear, and after a while we thought we might have missed the turning. We stopped and asked some locals where the temples were and they pointed us on. After a while we thought we were lost again and 3 guys on a motorbike told us to follow them. We went along a dirt road for a while, and were really not too sure of where we were going so we asked them again. They seemed to be taking us to a small village that goes by a similar name to the temples. When we realized this and asked for the temples they pointed us down an even smaller, rutted dirt path. We parted from them and spent some time travelling down this path which was quite tricky and bumpy for the three of us before finally reaching the temples. We watched sun set there and I said hello to a Frenchman who I chatted to in Phnom Penh after he nearly fell into the Lake at number 10 guesthouse. We followed the pointed directions of the sellers at the temples to get back to Siem Reap and that meant another bumpy dirt road in the dusky light. Quite tricky to maneuver on the bike, especially since my dark glasses made it hard to see, but taking them off meant I would get much dust in my eyes. We finally got back to the main road (we hoped) and headed back to Siem Reap. It was really getting quite dark and my glasses weren't helping one bit. The traffic had got really busy and Cambodian traffic is very crazy - everyone seemingly doing whatever they like on the roads with the larger vehicles having most deciding power. Eventually we got back into town and I could take my sunglasses off which helped a little since we weren't going too fast for me to take them off anymore. It was still quite tricky to navigate in the chaos but we got back to the guesthouse safely and then relaxed.
The next day I had arranged to take over the bike rental on my own since this seemed the best way to see the temples and not have to worry about having a guide bugging you all the time. I hadn't met any other people to sightsee with, which would have been my first choice. I set off for the Bayon again since I wanted to see the sunrise there, and we had been a little too late for that the day before. It was great to be at the temple with all the faces smiling at you and the sun rising. It was a shame for me to be alone though, since I don't really like that sometimes. After the sun was up I headed to a few temples we hadn't seen the day before. I got really hungry and decided to head back to the hotel to eat. I didn't really fancy what they were offering me in the park and I though I might meet someone back at the hotel that would like to accompany me around Angkor that day. I had been zipping around the park on the bike that morning as it was much lighter with only one person on it, and when I got out of Angkor I was looking forward to breakfast a lot. I was just passing a large corporate hotel near Angkor when I noticed a large hosepipe had been pulled across the road to water the grass on the other side - a typically corporate thing to do. Who needs to have green grass on the other side of the road that needs special watering... who even needs green grass on the same side of the road that needs special watering? What a waste of water... anyhow I slowed down because the hosepipe looked pretty large and I didn't want to take it too fast. I hadn't slowed down much, or at least I didn't think I had, when I hit a patch of water on the road and the bike just went down. I'm not too sure how it happened, I didn't even think I had gone off the straight line of my direction. In hindsight I may have used the rear brake a little more but hindsight wasn't going to help me too much right then! I slid down the road for a way on my side, slightly damaging my copy of Anna Karenin which was in my pocket (may have helped me out a lot - I'm glad I was carrying such a thick book) and got some road rash on my shoulder, knee and elbow. I got up and looked myself over a little pissed off. I saw the man with the hose guiltily scurrying back across the road. Not much I could do now I thought.... But amazingly I was only scratched. While I was going down I was quite concerned about the necessity of a hospital, but it didn't seem that I would need one thankfully and quite amazingly. I picked up the bike that wasn't very damaged and drove back to Smileys. My friends from the day before had some special spray to spray onto my roadrash, after we had cleaned them, to form a protective film over the wounds. I convalesced for some time and communicated with Kristen over email and also a web phone. I was most surprised to find out that you could call the US for 25cents a minute from Siem Reap. Thy - the manager of the email place has been sending his best wishes to me ever since - a very nice man. I found out that the night before there were riots in Phnom Penh after a newspaper had reported some allegedly inappropriate comments made by a Thai actress on television. It turned out later that these comments were made years ago and may have been misinterpreted by the Cambodians, but millions of dollars of damage was done to Thai businesses and the embassy in Phnom Penh and most Thais had fled the country. I mulled over the superstitious nature of connecting such events to my accident. I also heard that the borders to Thailand had been closed and wondered how long they would be closed since I was planning to go back to Thailand very soon.
The next day I headed back to Angkor Wat to see the Jungle Temple and Angkor Wat again as well as some other temples I hadn't seen before. On the way I stopped at a garage to get one of the foot rests of the bike reset, apart from that it was fine. The temples were amazing and interesting and I met three English girls who had just finished studying and were travelling around the world. Sunset was on top of a hill that was very crowded with many nationalities and Japanese people taking pictures with their cellphones. I finished up and felt like I had done justice to Angkor for this visit. On the way I saw quiet a few Tigers in the backs of some trucks driving through Angkor Wat. I took the bike back to the shop without incident. I had decided to leave Siem Reap and go back into Thailand via the border at Poipet then next day if possible, and if the border was open again. In the morning the guesthouse had told me that they could only take me to the border rather than the usual practice of buying a ticket right through to Bangkok. This was quite concerning since I didn't really want to get stuck in Poipet which I had heard wasn't very nice at all. However by the evening the guesthouse had come round and sold me a ticket right through to Bangkok. It was a very dusty journey to the border in the minibus, but once again I was thankful that the roads had been flattened and not disappointed that they hadn't got around to tarmacing them yet. Considering that all the road building vehicles I had seen on the way from Ko Kong to Phnom Penh had Thai Flags on the side of them, I wasn't sure whether they would be using them right now, and when they would start to again...

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