getting lost in the bush

well im back in the city with a very painful knee, after nearly 70k's worth of mountain biking and the fact that i slammed it on the floor during kids club.

my second day in siem reap was just as good as the first. i started by getting some breaky and finding a cheap old bike to rent then headed off through the flooded streets up to angkor. my first thoughts as i cycled up past angkor wat was how much it reminded me of ash burnham, with its massive moat which was wide enough to be considered a river and dense bush. i couldnt stop imagining the place 800 years ago in its prime. its seems like such a long time ago when you look at all the crumbling temples completely overgrown with trees and wildlife. it is really a very beautiful place, more than anything i was just enjoying the quite, its great being out in the country. this week was the kings birthday, which basically means there were hardly any tourists or locals, on more than one occasion i had an entire temple to myself, which was pretty cool. it did rain non stop all morning, so i was completely drenched and most of the road were flooded which meant cycling through a foot of water for a large section of the circuit. i think i must have cycled about 30k and the day before chris reconed it was more like 40k, so all in all we got the most out of our bike rentals! after cycling through rice paddies and dense jungle for about 4 1/2 hours i decided to make my way back to angkor wat park my bike and wonder round, chris came up to angkor with the expressed intention of 'getting lost in the bush' fair enough, i think he had fun and came back completely coated in mud. to use his own words...'what could go wrong?' i had good fun and was, by this point, well up for a few rounds down the pub and a large hearty meal, so we headed back exchanging stories about heards of elephants blocking the road and crazy old women giving odd directions in the bush. at one point i gave up cycling because my knees were startiong to ache so i grabbed on to a passing tuk tuk and got him to carry me along for a couple of k, the group of khmer school kids though this was the best thing they had ever seen and were taking pictures of me with their phones before i nearly got forced off the road and quickly let go much to their displeasure, we exchanged grins and i carried on my way. my favorite part of the all the temple complexes, and there are alot, was the elephant terrace at bayon in angkor thom. the sign said this long platform was used by the angkorian kings to welcome foreign guests and inspect military parades, the bast thing was that it look out onto a large open field so you could just imagine elephants with armour and archers on them followed by gold plated shields and chariots, the carvings inside angkor wat show all these things in great detail. i have some photos and will post up here soon. one of the most bizarre things i saw carved on the tamples was a guy who had carved his name and dated his graffiti at 1905. for over a century people have been scribling their names onto these beautiful buildings. i also spent a while wondering around ta prom where they filmed the tomb raider film, made famous by the huge trees growing on top and on the side of the walls having spent decades pushing their way up through the stones. it felt like it had been discovered yesterday because the jungle still held a strong grip on it, most of the temples are being restored or just proped up by scaffolding and a couple, it seemed, were almost being rebuilt. it truely was an amazing place i could have easily spent another day there. shame i didnt have the time and had to get back to the city for kids club on wednesday afternoon, which i was a bit bummed about becaue i was having so much fun but chirs wanted to get back to see the old trouble and strife.

our bus journey back seemed to take less time than on the way up and we pay half the price for it! i got back barely ten minutes before the kids arrived for the afternoon club which wasnt ideal considering i had just spent five hours on a bus and hadnt changed my clothes for a while. so i was a bit smelly and very crusty.

i leave phnom penh in one month and am going to go book some flights to new zealand today. i will be back in england on june 30th. i cant believe its may where has the year gone already?

Ben.