Biking in the Cambodian countryside!

Yesterday started early- we woke before the sun and biked madly along the roads of Siem Reap to try to catch the Angor Wat sunrise. I'm so happy we were able to rent bikes the night before (at 11pm or so!)- they were trusty little blue and white beach cruisers. I caught it in time, even after being chased a bit by the Siem Reap police for not stopping to show my pass (I thought they were overzealous street vendors or tuk tuk drivers). It was not the most colorful sunrise, but still spectacular to see the silhoutted stuppas of Angor Wat rising into the sky, and reflecting in the water that surrounds the complex. I couldn't believe how many Wats (temples- Angor Wat means "city temple") there are in the 40k radius of Siem Reap, which is a small Cambodian town that is built next to the region where the Angor Dynasty built an architectural paradise in the 9th-14th centuries. Needless to say, I was in photography heaven and will have many photos to show when I have the time!

Now that I'm back in Bangkok, it scarcely seems real that we got see the temples of Angor. Wandering through them feels so dreamlike for me, because of how powerful it is to be surrounded by the aesthetic remains of an ancient culture. Time has certainly taken a toll on the temples, many of which lay in heaps or have been laid out block by block by architectural restoration groups who have the arduous task of putting together a crumbling, ancient, moss-covered puzzle. Sounds pretty fun actually! My favorite site (the names have blurred together of the 8 or 10 temples we saw) was built very high, and overlooked the surrounding jungle. It was built from a pink limestone, and had massive stone elephants guarding the corners of its lower walls. As you walk up the stairs to the temple there was this amazing series of doorways which stood like picture frames against the sky. It was a very sunny day, with a bright blue sky so it was visually quite stunning. At the top of one set of stairs there was even a bright yellow canna lily that was in bloom! We also found a rather curious little brightly colored bug which looked either like some sort of tacky blue aluminium jewelry or an alien, and it was fighting a cambodian cockroach. We're not sure if the bug was poisonous, but it sure looked it and we spent about 5 minutes just watching the bugs. We tried to ask some local kids that were hanging around what the bug was but they didn't speak much English.

We spent the rest of the day biking around the backroads of Siem Reap, which was such an incredible way to move about since it meant we were free to go where we pleased and were able to escape the crowds of tourists for the most part. We think we went around 50 miles total yesterday, since the furthest temple was 38k from town and we went further down a road than we needed to. But it was a lovely mistake because we got to see what small town Cambodia is like. So many beautiful farms- watery fields of grasses and rice that are a shade of brilliant green that I only see for a week or so during the first moments of spring. The red dirt roads were lined with lush coconut palms, and motorbikes and bicycles are definitely the way to get around in Cambodia. Even tiny children who look barely old enough to walk manage to scoot around in adult sized bikes, and tiny motorbike engines are pushed to their limits as they pull carts filled to the brim with such things as lotus blossoms, sticks, dried thatch, coconuts or other foods and supplies.

Speaking of food, I must say Cambodians are genius for creating amouk- a dish in which they cook richly spiced chicken or fish inside a coconut (cost $2.80 or 9000 riel). And yes, it is as delicious as it sounds! I also had mango smoothies, fried banana pancakes, coconut curry eel and tried a palm wine that we think was made from this amazing gigantic palm nut that dropped out of a palm by Leslie at the entrance to Angor Wat. It was very sweet and honeylike- quite delicious. I must say though, I was disappointed that we didn't have time to try any fried spider or grasshopper from the street carts. Also they sold some kind of snake whiskey that Leslie saw, which had a pickled cobra inside it. Only in Cambodia.