Luckily we had decided to stay 1 extra day in Siem Reap. Our AirAsia flight from KL was about 3.5h delayed, so by the time we got to our guest house it was 7.30pm. Too late to start assembling the bicycles, and highest time for dinner! We walked into Siem Reap town, a good 2km walk along a quiet road besides the river. Siem Reap itself was a nuthouse, a circus; we didn't know in advance, but we arrived in the middle of the Cambodian water festival. It was extra busy and extra loud. Dinner was extra nice however: banana flower salad and smoked eggplant. Yummy!
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| Arrival at Siem Reap airport, and the best possible way of transfer you can imagine: by tuk tuk! No problem to fit the bicycles and the panniers! |
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| Having fun reassembling the bikes |
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| One of the main events of the water festival, are the boat races. Here they're transporting the boat, a true spectacle to observe... |
Our day in Siem Reap was quite relax. Of course, first of all, I had to reassemble the bikes. Not too much work, assembling is usually faster than disassembly. We enjoyed the beautiful swimming pool in our guest house (
Villa Nissa, very nice!), cycled to town, bought 2 Cambodian sim cards (that went easy!), had lunch and coffee, and then went to check out the tourist information to find out more about cycling in the Cardamom mountains. The tourist information was surprisingly small and unremarkable for a touristy place like Siem Reap, and the guy - although very friendly - didn't know a thing. In the evening, after our dinner, we met up and had some tasty local micro brewed beer with Ellen's cousin Gunhild and husband Guy. They live in Phnom Penh but happened to be in Siem Reap for a long weekend.
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| A good evening with family |
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| In front of Villa Nissa, ready to go! |
Today we started cycling then. Yes, it was surprising. We had not been on our bikes for about 3 months, and you feel that... We were also reminded that a day out there in the plain tropical sun at 33-34C is hot. We tried to find some small roads/trails to avoid the busy and boring national road N6, but after the trail became almost invisible, and the mud became more prevalent, we had to abandon this plan and return to the busy road. The road we were trying to follow, had a surprising name however: the Angkorian Highway westward; I guess that is a historical thing... It had been a nice diversion, with interesting scenery and local life however! It made us realize that Cambodia is still a very simple and poor country, seeing how people live in the villages and how poor the infrastructure is. They're very friendly however!
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| Off the beaten track... |
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| Beautiful views |
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| The "highway" in its best shape |
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| Shade, temple, fruit and comfortable chairs; what more do you want! |
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| This is where we gave up: no more clear path, and very wet and muddy |
Once back on the N6 we had to cycle another 30km or so to Kralanh. Even though the surroundings were quite nice, it was boring riding on a busy, hot and dusty road. Luckily, there is a decent shoulder to ride on, and traffic is leaving enough space for cyclists. All in all, a nice first day, but not high up in our list of favorites... We arrived in Kralanh mid afternoon and checked in to a friendly guest house, immediately enjoying the aircon in our room... There is not much to do in Kralanh - and honestly, we didn't explore at all. While having dinner in a local restaurant, we bumped into 2 other Belgians Iris and Dave, cycling as well, that was a nice and unexpected coincidence.
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| A wonderful example of today's scenery riding through the small villages on the unsealed roads (paths rather) |
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| This is the N6, by contrast, here with much less traffic than most of the time |
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| Arrival at the guest house in Kralanh, where the rice is being dried in the sun |
