by Nick | Jul 1, 2013 | Blog
Route 66 was the ancient highway connecting the cities of the Angkorian Empire and is still marked on modern day road maps though in reality is little more than an overgrown sandy track for much of the way. From Banteay Chma in Odar Meancheay Province near the Thai border in the West to the temples of Angkor itself and East to Preah Kahn then North to Wat Phou, the largest archeological site in Laos on the Mekong. This was the main route East to West in South East Asia and so it was no accident that Angkor was founded as a taxation point between the natural constraints of the Tonle Sap Lake to the South and Phnom Kulen then the Dangkrek Mountains to the North.
Skip, James, Richard and adventure guide Manus on Route 66 at Andong Pei Village
A friend of mine who’s a pilot had taken guests from Siem Reap’s most exclusive hotel for picnic’s by helicopter to Banteay Ampil, a small temple that must have been situated on a section of Route 66 that today is a rough oxcart track. We were determined to find a route by dirt-bike and after a bit of scrambling past Andong Pei Village, there it was hidden in a patch of recent forest.
Central Tower of Banteay Ampil
Wind on a couple of weeks and the start of the rainy season, it was a different matter when we went back by tuk tuk. The sandy track was now a river and the temple surrounded by a moat that we hadn’t noticed before. Over which sure-footed locals had felled a narrow tree trunk that Alistair and I nervously shuffled across. There had to be a better way and eventually we found it through some thick forest to where the moat or stream fed from a dam with a path across the wall.
We followed our noses and emerged out of the forest into a clearing with the temple in front of us. There’s little to find out on the web except a brief description noting the large laterite wall with sandstone gopura or entrance surmounted by a tower engraved with intricate carvings. There is a substantial central tower with a porch that looked like it was about to collapse and entrances to the East and West. What the web listings didn’t describe was the feeling we’d stumbled into the ruins of a lost kingdom, which I suppose was just what we had done.
Nick in front of window and lathe carved balustrade surrounded by the roots of a silk cotton tree
We headed back along the mud walls of the paddy fields in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid getting our feet wet and through the back yards of simple Khmer houses built from a few poles of wood and covered in mats of dried fronds. The countryside was pretty, small fields interspersed with sugar palm and native trees, stretching to the Kulen Hills in the North.
Carved lintel on the temple gopura
Back on Route 66 the houses were altogether more substantial, built on tall stilts the living floor is 3 or 4 meters above the ground, with wooden walls and as a sign of growing prosperity often with glass windows. The earthen yards were swept clean and shaded by fruit trees and coconut palms. Most plots included a rice house with daubed walls and a thatched roof raised off the ground to protect against would be thieves, rodents and the snakes feeding on them.
The next temple on the ancient highway is easier to find, that is if you go in by the West Entrance, we wanted to find the way in from the east off the old road. Most of the forest that covered Siem Reap has gone replaced by cultivated paddy fields or where it is left impenetrable vegetation. This was what we had to get through to find the moat then again to enter the temple. An hour later and we’d walked the circumference of the site only to find that the path lead through a thick patch of bush just a few meters away from where we had started looking.
Khmer countryside of paddy fields dotted with trees. The Kulen Hills can just be seen in the background to the North
Sanctuary near the Eastern Entrance of Chau Srei Vibol
Library on the hill
Closer to the temple the trees were taller including 2 towering and twisted strangler figs that had long since seen off their host. The Eastern section of outer wall has gone but ahead of us was Chau Srei Vibol a small 11th Century hill top temple with a sanctuary and 2 libraries identifiable as well as Wat Trach, a modern day and still used pagoda beside them. Surrounding the hill were Angorian structures in various stages of disrepair but just as interesting. We walked round the hill to the South Western corner. A small deep and well preserved pool or reservoir, was shaded by giant wild mango trees. It was at this moment Sokun, our tuk tuk driver made his heroic entrance with cold beer and lunch.
Temple guardian
Atlas moth
Southern wall of the temple
Picnic spot
by Nick | Jun 20, 2013 | Blog
Cambodia doesn’t have many asphalted roads and Siem Reap is no exception however the countryside is criss crossed with sandy paths in the dry season and muddy tracks during the rains, which means the best way to explore is by mountain bike.
A couple of kilometers in any direction and the bus loads of tourists and mayhem of the Siem Reap traffic becomes a distant memory as you reach the outskirts of the town and start to see life as most Cambodians live it.
A path through the Siem Reap countryside
Once the heart of the Angkorian Empire Siem Reap or the city that stood there was the largest in the world about the same size as Sydney is today. And it’s structures; the temples, trapaeng (pools), baray (reservoirs) and roads still shape the Siem Reap Province countryside.
You can let your mood decide where you want to go though your IndochineEX guide will make some suggestions. A favorite route of ours is to head off from the hotel or get dropped off at the start of an irrigation channel that leads to the Angkor Thom moat. The path follows a straight line through rice paddy with the pillars of Angkor Wat and the hilltop Bakheng Temple to the right.
Angkor Thom was a 10 km square city so the moat is a serious bit of pool work and a long way round. We cycled only the small section that zigzags through thick undergrowth and offers a taster of technical cycling emerging near the West Gate and a new Korean Road that heads nowhere useful.
It was the country on the other side of the road where we were heading. Small paths leading through rural Cambodia, where Khmers grow their living much as they always have. A landscape dominated by rice paddy and sugar palm trees.
IndochineEX Guide, Manus near Angkor Krau Village
A few patches of open forest remain and the many watercourses and trapaeng (pools) had a little water left from the rains a few months back.
Children shrieked barang as they rushed to catch a glimpse of the strange phenomenon that we must have presented to them, while their peers and better informed randomly shouted hello or goodbye. The countryside is diverse at one time we had an open view of fields stretching to the distant Phnom Kulen Hills at another we were cycling along a narrow track past the bare earthen yards of stilted wooden Khmer houses surrounded by fruit trees.
We could have carried onto Pouk, a small dusty town on the way to Thailand, famed for its concentration of NGO’s all vying with each other to find a deprived family to support but it was an easy decision to give that a miss and go to Prasat Kok Po instead. Time has not treated the structure kindly. It’s a stretch to call it a temple, a pile of stones would be more accurate but never mind we’d been cycling hard for 2 hours and there it was hiding in a clump of trees surrounded by paddy fields like it had never been discovered before.
Siem Reap Countryside North of the Baray
If you feel Kok Pov is a bit of a shaggy dog story the West Baray more than makes up for it, built on the same mega scale as Angkor it is, even now, the largest completely manmade reservoir in the world, 8 km long and 2 km wide. We scaled the North side and came out half way round the perimeter track, opposite the sluice that irrigates the lands to the South.
The Baray is as close Siem Reap gets to the sea so local Khmers treat it as a Sunday city get away and come to play in the muddy water or lounge and drink beer on the shaded platforms built into the banks of the reservoir. The platform seller will organize lunch and drinks for you but its much cheaper and you get what you want if you buy from the stalls at the end of the beach.
Looking out over the West Baray
Roasted road kill chicken, so named because the bird’s been split open and flattened to cook it quicker. It’s tough but delicious and washed down with cold Angkor beer, eaten on the sand, watching the Khmers splashing in the shallows is a different kind of culinary experience.
The home run heads back to Siem Reap along the banks of the baray with the weird juxtaposition of jets taking off from the Siem Reap Airport on one side and the ancient structure on the other, through a pagoda and round the end of the runway.
West Baray full at the end of the rainy season
Indochine Exploration organizes day trip bike rides along the route described, with a packed lunch or the barbecued chicken mentioned at the West Baray, returning to the hotel after about 6 hours. Alternatively we can pick you up from the hotel and drive to where the path leaves the new Korean road and cycle for a couple of hours to the Baray for lunch or drinks then take the waiting transport back to Siem Reap.
by Nick | May 6, 2013 | Blog
We pulled bits of bike from Mr Kim’s taxi and assembled them in front of the MoE station at Preah Ang Thom. The same ranger from the last trip slung the AK47 round his shoulder and piled his moto with our bags, Alistair carried the supplies while we cycled free in the forest with Mr Leang the policeman who was to be our guide along the logging trail to Kbal Spean.
It didn’t take long to reach Porpel and not much longer to arrive at the stream where we’d camped 2 weeks ago.
We reached the ridge where we had lunch then plunged down the other side into thick green forest, exhilarating to ride through before emerging into the valley where we camped. A technical cycle ride navigating ruts and plowing through sand, minding fallen and felled trees and sharp stumps of hacked saplings. An easy day until we tried the sunset stroll to see the view from mount Ganja.
Porpel village
Walking through forest near campsite
The campsite nestled in a vale of deciduous dipteropcarp from where we walked along a riparian corridor of mixed evergreen along side the stream. The path lead up the hill into a glade of silvery Sra laos trees rising above a bronzed crisp of burnt leaves. Next a mosquito infested ravine, broad green leaves hid its swampy bottom where we’d left a camera trap on the last trip. Then the escarpment and onto the plateau of tall trees and seemingly open undergrowth, that is until an innocuous looking green sapling with thorns like fish hooks ripped the t shirt of my back while it’s trip wires of trailing roots and vines grabbed my legs.
We seemed to be going round the whole mountain to find our previous lunch stop and the last view of unbroken forest left in Kulen. 50 minutes later, pouring sweat with wobbily legs we stood on the rock and gazed to the distant ridge on the other side of the valley. The tree below us appeared to have a large clump of bees around a branch. We looked again and it had gone, probably a giant squirrel.
Glade of Sra Laos trees where we saw the bear scratch marks
Bear scratch marks
We hastened our return as the light was going and I didn’t want to walk through the thorns in the dark. Safely off the mountain and into the Sra Laos glade Mr Leang spotted deep scratch marks through the bark running up the trunk of a tree that could only be a bear. No one knew they were here any more.
When we got back the cool stream was now tepid but it was still a welcome relief to wash away the days sweaty grime.
The next morning was marginally and briefly cooler until the sun appeared over the horizon dissipating any remaining freshness, replacing it with sweat laced with whisky from the night before.
Our route appeared as a gentle path meandering through open forest until we tried to ride it and realized the patches of sand and tree stumps were an over the handle bar experience. The tree roots contrived to catch the pedals and well placed rocks did their best to castrate as you violently reconnected with the saddle on landing.
The forest taken as a whole is still beautiful but the logging sad and depressing. Its epicenter was a clearing above Kbal Spean where Leang counted 20 ox carts used to collect the timber. At the base of the mountain were crude planks and rough cut poles naively hidden under leafy branches.
We were exhausted by the time we reached the summit of Phnom Sroch (lit sharp mountain). I felt too shaky to get back on the bike. My shirt was wringing and I’d no water left. We’d stopped to recover when we heard the sound of men coming up the hill behind us. I walked back to get a view, they saw me and ran as I shouted impotently at them.
The logging trail we cycled reached a graded road not far from ACCB, the Angkor Center for Conservation and Biodiversity. The good guys, they confiscate and rescue illegally hunted animals with the aim of rehabilitating them to the wild. As the second beer sunk in the weariness was replaced with well-being and a sense of ahcievement. It had felt like a real adventure.
by Nick | May 6, 2013 | Blog
Proposed Cycle Ride
Actually it wasn’t a cycle trip but it’s going to make a great one! We’ll start at Preah Ang Thom by the reclining Buddha, then cycle to Porpel Village, the local community we’d like to coopt with to look after our guests. The villagers will receive a conservation linked income from the services they provide. From Porpel a 10km cycle through mixed evergreen forest and cleared chamkar to the campsite beside the stream in open dry deciduous forest.
A hike up the escarpment to the plateau behind the camp with views to the West to catch the late afternoon sun over the wooded valley below then a blissful bathe in the stream followed by dinner brought by ox cart and cooked on a camp fire. Tents and cots will make this a comfortable adventure in the meantime its hammocks under the stars or a tarpaulin if it rains. On day 2 back on the bikes along the logging trail that comes out beside the MoE station at Kbal Spean for a pick up and transport back to Siem Reap. Tony and I have got to trial that section when we come back in 3 weeks.
Actual Hike
We were going to be lost in the forest for 4 days 50km from the nearest coffee machine so Manus and I had breakfast at Sister Srey Cafe near the Psa Cha in Siem Reap. Double latte and fruit pancake, my last meal before nearly a week of energy replacement with rice as opposed to eating for pleasure.
Pradark felt like the frontier town to the wild Northern lands. A cross roads for the bus loads of tourists on route to Banteay Srei and wild adventuring types like Alistair – the bat man, Tony – the facilitator and me. 3 dirt bikes in convoy, Tony and Alistair’s laden with useful things that they’d just bought from Pradark, like food. Mine with essentials like beer, whisky and coffee.
We stopped to meet the head ranger at the Kulen National Park check point then up the escarpment with views of the once forested valley between Kbal Spean and Phnom Kulen where a Chinese company has permission for a botanical garden.
The straight track into Kulen is shaded by forest all the way though you can sense in places only by a thin corridor of trees. At Preah Ang Thom where Cambodia’s largest Buddha reclines we picked up lunch and 1 of our guides, who changed his shirt, slung an ancient AK47 over his shoulder (which Alistair told me worked) and transformed himself into a Ministry of Environment (MoE) ranger.
Tony my future coworker at Indochine Exploration loading the ox cart at Porpel Village
Now we needed the dirt bikes along the sandy rutted path 5km through some thick forest to Porpel, a small village of about 30 families and some rough planked houses with litter strewn yards and smiling villagers. When the national park was created .75 hectares of chamkar or forest allocation was awarded to each family but with no one to check there are many more and bigger chamkars than there are families. What with high population growth and inward migration logging is the nail in the forest’s coffin.
Our group consisted of taciturn Tony, who’s going to work for me, cheeky Chomran, accommodating Alistair, our MoE ranger with the AK47, who was always a little too close behind and the local guide with a fluffy hairstyle.
An amiable teenager who was always hitching up his trousers and the village urchin, likeable but out of control, together they were responsible for the powerful pair of cattle that pulled the oxcart.
Chomran, the ranger from Porpel preparing lunch in the forest
The route followed a logging trail half way to Kbal Spean. 10km from Porpel we emerged out of the dense evergreen bush into a valley of open dry diteropcarp woodland now shorn of leaves as these deciduous trees are dormant during the dry season.
The ox cart arrived and we set up camp, slinging our hammocks between the trees and boiling water to drink. Multi tasking Chomran was also the cook and served up a mean pot of rice with dried strips of fish, yum but by far the best feature of our camp was the stream with recent rain feeding running into the rocky pools. Cold after the humidity but leaving you with a wonderful feeling of being clean albeit briefly until you do something and sweat again.
We walked 18km (according to Alistair’s GPS) the next day but it felt like 30, the same again tomorrow if my boots don’t fall apart.
Oxcart arriving at the campsite
Tonight’s night walk spotted a marble cat snake hung like a bootlace around a bush and small fish and a tiny crayfish visible in the torch light in our bathing pool. Alistair, Tony and Chomran walked on to check the trees where we’d seen the civets the night before and spotted a flying squirrel in their beam. It made an escape by launching into the space between the trees where it was spotted but didn’t make it so quick as a flash Chomran had it pinned for Tony to catch with his camera. The photos were clear and it looked like a Red-cheeked Flying squirrel, which hasn’t been recorded in Cambodia so a significant first for the Kulen project survey.
Our bathing stream beside the campsite
Towering silk cotton trees with buttress roots folded like flaps of skin, corrugated Sra Laos trees, a Bengal Monitor Lizard, Rosy-cheeked Parakeets and a variable squirrel missing it’s arms so we set up a camera trap to check if anything came back to finish the job (they did, the next day it was all gone). A Common Palm Civet, Alistair said – we’d seen them in the trees next to the kill the night before.
Rising 50 meters above the rest of Kulen was the plateau of Phnom Ganja, which we reached by way of a spooky escarpment. Magical, mysterious, the oldest Angkorian civilization lost to legend in the forest, not sure if we’d stumble across a temple in this un-surveyed corner of Kulen, or maybe a mine. We climbed up rocky escarpments fighting our way through thickets of bamboo to riverines, cleft canyons of tangled vines and swarms of mosquitos in the heavy humid air. Greater Hornbill, Variable Squirrels – this time with a white band at the base of their tail proving just how variable they can be.
Forest flower
Joints aching, heavy feet and disintegrating shoes held together by black masking tape. Mr Chomran showed how he got his shoulder muscles hacking through the undergrowth with a machete.
Hunters had been to the places that looked right for camera traps. We found snares that would lift an animal off the ground with a coil of rope tied to a bent sapling and arrows made from slim straight pieces of wood with plastic feathers.
Fronds of vegetation caught the light filtering through the canopy, reflecting in the mosquito pool at the base of the cliff.
Alistair setting a camera trap
Snare like vines tugged at our ankles and broad green leaves deposited bighting red ants on my neck and down my back, sweat drenched from the trapped humidity. Emerging from the trees a blissful cool enveloped us at the edge of the escarpment, looking over a wonderful forested valley, the logging erased by the hazy distance.
We tallied Indian Giant Flying Squirrel, Particoloured Flying Squirrel or Red-cheeked (both new to Cambodia), Common Palm Civet, Lesser Mouse Deer, Asian Barred Owlet and Marble Cat Snake on our night walks. In day light we saw many birds; spectacular Greater Hornbills, Rosy-cheeked Parakeets were always with us, Crested Hill Mynahs, the ones you see in Siem Reap cages, Crested-serpent Eagles to name a few of the more obvious. And mammals; Black Giant Squirrel about the size of a fox but up a tree and variable squirrels.
A posed hiking shot
We also saw a Bengal Monitor Lizard stuck to a tree trunk. The wildlife, the forest, the views from the escarpment, camping and biking between them, it should be a hit if we can tell the right people.
View of Northern Kulen Valley from Phnom Ganja
by Nick | Mar 31, 2013 | Blog
I can remember the sense of excitement I felt the first time we left the dusty plains of Siem Reap behind and snaked up the now concreted path onto the Phnom Kulen Plateau. And awe as the forest closed in bringing relief from the relentless Cambodian sun.
“Why aren’t we cycling this bit?’ Carla, the GM from La Residence asked? ‘Don’t worry we’ve got plenty more to ride where we’re going,’ I replied.
The Kulen ‘Resort’ lies 15km along the main forest dirt road running West to East. This is where Khmer families come at the weekend to play in the waterfall and have their picnics. A few kilometers beyond is Preah Ang Thom where Cambodia’s largest Buddha reclines and the same Khmers come to pay homage, stuffing 100 Riel notes and lighted incense sticks into every hole they can find in the hope of winning their life’s lottery.
Indochine Exploration’s partnership with Ben & Alistair’s biodiversity survey (see Blogs Phnom Kulen; Porpel Village to Kbal Spean Parts 1 & 2), has given us a legitimacy with the MoE (Ministry of Environment), who are in charge of the park.
Khmer kids in the Kulen Waterfall
And provided us with a ranger to be our guide for the day. Mr Huon, the ranger, strapped our cool box complete with fruit juices, beers and cold water, to the back of his bike and held onto our lunch boxes between his legs, while we assembled the bikes and set off through the trees to find the stone elephant.
After a gentle couple of kilometers beyond the reclining Buddha, past Phum Thmei Village down the main forest track, we turned off along a path over rocky outcrops through open dry deciduous forest. I’m not what a technical bike ride is but maybe this section qualified. You have to think how your going to get across the rocks and fissures and the patches of sand in between before you ride over them. A hard but rewarding half hour later we were back in the cool of thick vegetation where we left the bikes with Mr Huon and climbed up through the forest to find the stone elephant.
These pre-Angkorian two thirds life size statues don’t get any mention in the guide books and I cant find anything on the internet so consequently they are seldom visited.
Animist elephant with Manus
On reaching the site a slight tingling to the back of my neck on first sight was evidence of it’s magical feel of. A comic element was added by what Manus says is a frog, many times life size and a legless cow that looked like a lump of rock. A Crested-serpent Eagle soared above and Bulbuls flitted from branch to branch adding to the wildness of the clearing.
It was a steep ride over the rock face up to a gaudy pagoda, Wat Preah Leur. There had been no sparing the gold and silver paint, which liberally coated stupas framed between rock formations overlooking the forest below and the plains beyond. A little further along an even narrower and steeper path, we’d reached the summit after which the route felt easier with more down than uphill.
The encroachment of ‘chamcars’ or traditional slash and burn agriculture on the forest was all too evident with trees still smoldering where a chunk had been cut and burnt to make way for a cashew nut plantation. The fruit lay fermenting below the trees. When you bit into them a slightly sour fruity juice filled your mouth though the unrefined nut is poisonous.
Prasat O’Pong
Descending down the rutted path at speed I lost concentration and hit a patch of sand broadside on, sending me over the handle bars, leaving patches of skin on the path below and me well grazed. The relevance of a bike helmet started to dawn on me.
Alone in the forest is Prasat (temple) O’pong, excavated by the French in the early 20th Century, it predates Angkor Wat to when Kulen lay at the heart and the launch of the Angkorian Empire under Jayavarman II. For us it was a cool shady site to have lunch and a medicinal beer to recover from my war wounds while Carla checked out the ancient brick structure.
Kulen’s been dry for a couple of weeks so the streams we crossed had lost their sparkle but Manus found flowers in the bushes for Carla and a bootlace tree snake slung around a branch a few inches from his nose.
Anlong Thom is the largest village on the mountain and seldom visited by tourists but there was a steady stream of local villagers driving motos – or so it seemed after the route we’d cycled, along the forest way to Preah Ang Thom where Sophat was waiting with the van back to take us back to Siem Reap. Carla wanted to stop at the Buddha to catch a little kitch before a holiday to it’s epicenter in Myanmar next week, so we took off our shoes and squeezed between the Khmers trying to stock up on their luck.
Anlong Thom Village
by Nick | Oct 18, 2012 | Blog
We set off at 8 by way of The Boulangery for caffeine then past the somewhat inappropriately named Charming City and on to the outer perimeters of the Apsara zoned Angkor Park.
The Siem Reap most tourists see is the swimming pool in the center of their hotel, maybe the Royal Gardens next to Raffles and Psa Char – the Old Market then the road to the temples. The real Siem Reap is a few hundred meters away from these tourist routes. In the rainy season it’s bisected by a network of dirt tracks with small frogs jumping in and out of the muddy pools . Pre 21st century dwellings, usually little more than shacks are allowed by Apsara, the super ministry responsible for the Angkor Park.
This is where my guide and partner Manus’s family live, so with a pass I bought the evening before, we sped through this temple hinterland and emerged by the Angkor Observation Balloon that rises and falls on its fixed rope according to the number of tourists who want to go up and down. An irrigation channel runs between brilliant green rice paddy fields soaked by the monsoon straight to the Angkor Thom moat. Every where there’s a picture to be taken; small boys fishing with a bamboo cane, an ambling buffalo blocking our way, young men up to their waist in water casting nets or a view of the sugar palm framed countryside.
Children Fishing on route to Angkor Thom
Cycling through Angkor is an amazing experience, amazing because you’re riding over one of the most intriguing wonders of the world by yourself or in this case with Manus and no one is stopping you. It seems too good to last. The first view of Angkor Thom evokes this feeling as you look along the moat to the mythical stone creatures adorning the South Entrance of the ancient city. The entrance itself is a scrum as cars and buses impatiently wait for the other to pass so they can get through the single lane gate. Tuk tuks and motodops weave in between and the occasional bong thom in his Lexus or Range Rover will jam on his horn to signal for everyone else to get out of his way.
Manus near the South Gate of Angkor Thom
Inside Angkor Thom we carried the bikes to the top of the wall that squares the perimeter of the city inside the moat and the leafy path that runs its distance. It seems incredible that it’s not blocked by tourists but apart from a couple of courting young Khmers we had the way to ourselves with just birdsong as an accompaniment. Oh and mosquitoes whenever we slowed sufficient for them to strike, the little ones that are harder to splat but itch just as much. We had to carry the bikes down the wall to cross the West and North entrances. Along the North side the wall had crumbled into a pile of stones numbered in a conservation effort to put them back together again. Lapping at the stones the moat had flooded and inundated the forest so we clambered back up only to find the front tire of my bicycle was flat. The advantage of working for a Siem Reap tour company is that they know their way round the temples so a call to the Khmer Mr Fix-it in the office had Vantha the tuk tuk driver coming to our rescue at the Western Victory Gate entrance.
View across countryside from Angkor Thom
In the shadow of The Terrace of Elephants under a lone shade tree was a harassed tire repair man surrounded by a cluster of motorbikes, tuk tuks and restaurant touts, lady’s calling out to passing tourists to eat in the place that paid them. We followed one past the tourist tat of t shirts and unnecessary souvenirs to an unappealing canteen of tables for an expensive and unpleasant lunch. My bicycle inner tube was smoking gently squeezed by a clamp heated by a flickering oil flame when we returned to the lone shade tree after lunch (Indochine Exploration Angkor Park Cycle ride includes a packed picnic on the banks of the King’s Pool).
The plan was to circle the Angkor Park avoiding roads and sticking to paths and tracks not marked on the map so we headed back towards the Victory Gate. I remembered from my early explorations of Angkor by bike when I first came to Siem Reap, finding a path that ran to the Siem Reap River from a small temple called Ta Nei reached through the forest. We crossed the river carrying our bikes over the gates of a weir where Khmers were fishing in the current and came to the temple shaded by towering trees protected by Apsara. Ta Nei is a charming tumble of ruins and vegetation made all the more special by its seclusion in the forest.
Ta Nei Temple photo Nick Butler
The ride turned from a tour into an exploration when we left the track and headed down a small path, which I hoped would lead via the East Baray to Sra Srang or the Kings Pool. Ominously the path was blocked by a ‘do not enter’ barrier, we carried on anyway and came to a pile of stones that must have once been a temple. The reason for the barrier became apparent as although the East as opposed to West Baray is dry throughout most of the year with the recent rain the forest was now flooded past the pile of stones. This was where our little jaunt, which by now had taken 5 hours got interesting, as we cycled through half a meter of water trying to keep a momentum that would carry us through. The countryside felt like a corner of Eden, protected woodland surrounding paddy fields between the mythical temples that populate the hundred or so square kilometers that comprise the Angkor Park.
The ground became firmer as our path rose out of the water to flank a stonewall, which in turn lead to a dirt road and the North entrance to Ta Prohm Temple. We’d hit the park inner ring road a little sooner than I’d hoped but it only meant a few hundred meters along tarmac until we came to Sra Srang or the King’s bathing pool. The Baray, which is about half a kilometer long by two hundred meters wide and full of water the year round sets a photogenic backdrop to Sra Srang Village. Men fished, kids screeched and buffalo wallowed, there was something for everyone.
Sra Srang or the King’s Pool
Manus and I knew of an Angkorian highway that runs from Prasat (or temple) Batchum to Chau Srei Vibol, another temple about 15 kilometers to the North, it’s a walk we promote for our guests. Prasat Batchum isn’t far from Sra Srang so we left the village and headed across the amazingly green and flooded paddy fields to try and find it. Success it was where we expected! The rest of the route is a fast cycle on graded dirt roads through the Khmer countryside back to Siem Reap, Spean Neak Bridge and my house.
A seven hour cycle ride through one of the wonders of the world and with the exception of the detour to repair the tire we saw pleasingly few of the two million visitors who are supposed to visit Angkor each year.
