We stayed in Bangkok for our last week in SE Asia and it's gone by very quickly. We first arrived in this gigantic city and headed straight for the backpacker district, also known as Khao san road. I guess we've been working our way up to larger cities, by spending time in Siam Reap and Phnom Penh but nothing prepared us for the craziness, traffic, people and just general congestion of Bangkok. Khao San road, which is not representative of all of Bangkok, is full of tourists and people trying to sell you stuff. It was pretty cool to just walk around and take it all. However, sensory overload would soon kick in and we would usually need to retreat back into our hotel room to get away from it all.
Khao San Road
I had been nagging Pete to check his Marriott reward points to see if we had enough for a free stay. After John left, he got around to doing it and we were shocked to find out that he had enough points for our last three nights. We left our hotel on crazy Khao San road and made our way to the serenity of the Marriott. I have to say the last three days have been a blur of sleeping in, shopping, watching movies and eating. It's been very relaxing and exactly what we needed! Pete was better than I as he actually went for a run in the morning and a swim in the pool. I exercised by dodging traffic on the way to an air conditioned mall.
Typical traffic on the roads of Bangkok
The police in Bangkok are better than superman!
I have a hard time believing that we are done travelling through SE Asia and that the cycling part of our trip, for the most part, is over. The thought is so overwhelming that Pete is already talking about cycling Angola and we are also discussing the options of a two week cycling trip somewhere in Zambia or Zimbabwe. I think we might be addicts.
A huge thanks to Krist, B and John - cycling SE Asia was tons of fun thanks to you!! Also, thanks for putting up with crazy us along the way :)
We enjoyed our last day in Phnom Penh and were very lucky to spend the night with Dirk and Chantal, who are family friends of Petes.
Dirk, the dogs and us
Royal Palace
Artsy shot of the palace
We were very undecided about the route we would take to Siem Reap. Our options were:
1. Cycle for 4 days on the main highway
2. Take a bus
3. Cycle one day on a secondary highway and then take a back route on a 'road' that doesn't exist on any map but does in a motorcycle book, then take a bus the last 150km
Can you guess which option we took? The appeal of getting off the beaten track was too great for Pete and John and for better or worse we went with option 3. The first day involved making our way by highway from Phnom Penh to Kampong Chhang and was easily covered with minimal difficulty. As part of our recon that night we asked a few people about the road on the other side of the river that goes to Kampong Tom. We basically heard everything from "It doesn't exist" to "It's not possible" to "The road is crap but you could do it". Based on the lack of information we decided to take our chances and just give it a go. We woke up early and caught a boat to the town that our route would start from.
Boat ride across the river
The first 30km of our trip was wonderful! It was easily some of the best cycling we had done in SE Asia. Quiet dirt roads with local people and lots of shade. The roads were in such good condition that we were able to cruise along very quickly without much effort.
Lovely road and people
The dream ended when we saw a truck loaded with people coming out of a rice paddy field. Sure enough the route they had just traveled was the one that we were looking for. We traversed through the dried rice paddy fields and our nice road turned into horrible bumpy dirt tracks left by trucks. On a bike with suspension, this ride wouldn't have hurt so much but on my bike it was pretty terrible. I should say that John and Pete (in retrospect) loved this route. I can't even say that I liked this bit of cycling, for me it was up there as being one of the worst bits ever!
Do you see a road?
Bumpy, crappy dirt road
After what seemed like hours (it actually might have been) we finally emerged back onto a nice dirt track road. We were running a bit low on water and I was very happy to hear that we only had about 10km left. On a road like this, we would be there in no time!
One happy lady
My happiness was short lived as the nice dirt road turned into what else, but soft sand. The last 7km of the trip took forever with minimal to no shade to take cover. There were a few falls and lots of swearing...mostly by me :)
You have to be kidding me
The video that John took, pretty much says it all:
We finally made it back to civilization and quickly found ourselves under shade and drinking copious amounts of sugarcane juice. It was a pretty epic ride, especially since it was our last. I didn't think it would be possible to have the best and worst day of riding all in one day, but there we have it :)
We made our way by bus to Siem Reap and have really enjoyed our time here. We finished three days of temple site seeing and were able to look at almost all of them. It's beautiful, daunting, breathtaking and overwhelming all at the same time.
My favorites are the ones that the forest have tried to take back. I love the mix of big old trees and old crumbling buildings.
We cycled on our first day of site seeing and then the heat got to us, have I mentioned that it's 35+ degrees here? We took a tuk tuk the last two days and it was a great way to get around.
Our tuk tuk driver Bun
Our time in Siem Reap couldn't be complete without the obligatory fish massage. There are tons of these places around the city. You stick your feet into the tank and the little guys start to nibble the dead skin on your feet. It sounds a bit gross and I was only able to put my heels in for a few seconds before I decided it wasn't my thing. The boys however loved it and enjoyed their fish massage immensely,
Hungry?
We leave Cambodia tomorrow and make our way by land to Bangkok. Wish us luck that the taxi's, buses all go smooth tomorrow. Cycling is an awesome way to travel, except when you decide not to cycle :)
B left from HCMC, and we were sad to see her go. We spent the last several days biking through the Mekong Delta. I had envisioned a quiet pedal through the countryside along the banks of the Mekong, however our experience was quite different.
The Mekong is quite highly populated, and particularly along the roads. There are very few stretches where there aren't houses, but this turned out to be a blessing. The number of people serving up sugar cane drinks was a welcome break from the heat.
The cycling was very easy - completely flat, and we were cruising along at about 25 km/h without even trying. It was kind of like sitting on the couch watching TV (although the show was much more interesting). We got to try a couple of the local dishes from the region, and also to experience how different the Delta is from the rest of Vietnam. It was a bitter sweet experience - try to sum up what the experience of Vietnam all means whilst pedaling along, but also looking forward to what Cambodia would have to offer.
We took a ferry from the border into Phnom Penh. Our first real experience in Cambodia was as we stepped off the boat and cycled out to find a place to stay. It was culture shock for sure. We couldn't believe how different it was. No blaring horns every few seconds, no traffic - just a nice serene relaxed feeling that we are really enjoying.
We have been exploring the city. Lots of temples and a visit to the notorious school turned genocide prison Tuol Sleng from the Khmer Rouge reign was a pretty sombre experience. We are off to look at more tomorrow, and to meet up with an old friend from Zambia who happens to live here now.
