Hello from Cambodia: from Siem Reap to Stung Treng

After two month break back home we are on ther road again.

Well not really on the road but in Angkor Wat Cambodia for the first three days because it is so huge you cannot do it just in one day.

After we arrived at the aiport we faced the same procedure as we went trough several times before on our journey.

Unpacking the bikes and putting it together.

Siem Reap meanwhile is a big tourist town with heaps of guest houses so it was pretty easy to find an accomandation even though we arrived late.

Next day we bought a three day ticket for the Angkor and started our sightseeing trip.

There are thousands of other people comming to that location but the different temples are so spread out you find lots of places being for yourselves and dig in to the submerged empire of the Khmer apart from the main temple Angkor Wat itself. There are people everywhere .

It is amazing what the Khmer built a thousand year ago and how they managed to feed a population of almost 1.000.000 people. What a logistic management challenge!

But it is even more impressive how nature gains it back how jungle overgrows buildings made forever within a few decades, how roots just blast walls by sneaking into small cracs of the bricks.

We took lots of pictures here a few amazings photos.

Cycling around Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat ranger

Siem Reap seems to be akind of wealthy enviroment but still you find a lot of poor people fighting to survive by using what nature gives. More of that we could see every day while cycling in Cambodia.

We left Siem Reap after three very intense days of sightseeing and were looking forward to cycling again! First we had a noodle soup as usual

Already after 20 kilometers out of town everything seemed to slow down. Also we did, since there was a part of 30km of dirt road that we had to cycle. Even though it was a very dusty road with plenty of holes, the villages around were stunning.

We also had to figure out very quickly that the heat in Cambodia (about 40 degrees C) is not our friend and had a break. 

Along the way to our first goal there was another Khmer temple that we visited.

Before we reached the temple we had one of those amazing meetings with people in Cambodia: suddenly there was this young boy (maybe 10?) cycling back home from school. He started talking with us, telling us a bit about him and his family and invited us home. His mum was waiting for him in this little wooden hut. This boy explained to us his father is dead and they live together (he and his mum) in this house. He wants to become a teacher once, help his mum and drive a big car once. Amazingly keen on learning, happy boy. We left him and his mum just flabbergasted by what we have heard and seen. 

In the lunch break we got invited by a Cambodian family that owned a small shop with beverages: they just asked if we already had lunch and proposed to cook for us! Wonderful catfish (caught by the younger of 6! brothers) with mango salad and rice cooked on a fire by Cambodian mum was served to us just a few stories later. Wow, what a day in Cambodia! Our first day of cycling here was great!

The next day we visited Koh Ker temple which was a detour of 20 kilometers but definitely worth cycling! Very calm place with beautiful temples.

We started very early every morning because of the heat and enjoyed nice breaks along the way. Here some snapshots from the daily life in the very dry Cambodian "outback" (indeed the plants and a lot of bush fires even the birds singing reminded us very much of an Australian outback and we felt "at home")

Collecting harvest

We met several times

Guess how old I am?

Haze makes it difficult to breathe here

 We spend a wonderful week in Cambodia and think we will come back again to meet those wonderful people and eat great spicy food

Vietnam Nam Phao-Dry Ha Long Bay- Halong Bay-Ha Noi

To get to Vietnam we had to get up 700 meters elevation which was a 200 meters climb. Amazing how the weather, road, people changed after crossing the border! Suddenly it was rainy and quite cold (remember we are used to temperatures of more than 30 degrees C and it was 20-25 degrees), people were suddenly drinking tee, not only beerlao and of course there were much more people to see.

First meters in Vietnam...

First break in Vietnam... and first invitation for a tee

Our first part of the trip was the Ho Chi Min highway. It is a perfect road for cyclists: not many cars, nice  rural landscape, green and very friendly people along the road. You can also get your water and coke in reasonable distances from each other, so no need to carry much of that. You can see scooters full with the craziest load or bicycles too big or too small...

Rice noodels getting dry beside the road...

 The coffee in Vietnam is soooooooo good

Invitation for a traditional soup ended for us with a bottle of self made rice spirit... This day was funny cycling afterwards...

 Piglet transportation...

Our first main goal in Vietnam  was to get to the Dry Ha Long Bay. The last bit ofncycling we had to use the highway A1 and that was a nightmare, no fun at all to cycle there. Thousands of trucks, cars, scooters and all give you the loudest horn possible. And it is dirty, and everyone coming from all directions... Yeah, we were quite tired after these 80km...
Still it was worth it. Dry Ha Long Bay is nice. This region located about 150km from Hanoi is a beautiful calm place. We enjoyed it a lot staying in Ninh Binh and paddling a bit around.

Once again we went through a tunnel-cave on a boat trip with a Vietnamese lady. She was very strong, paddling all the way and in the cave we had only maybe 10cm above us, already lying in the boat, so it was a bit scary and not to be recommended for anybody with claustrophobia.

 From  Ninh Binh we took a bus directly to Ha Long Bay to omit the A1. Then we got on a boat cruise for 2 days to watch the rocks. The natire was very nice, but you should be very careful with the trips like that, it might be very low quality service and at the end a rip off.

 Visiting a very big cave was also a part of the trip

 

After Ha Long Bay and spending one day on a Cat Ba island we started cycling towards Ha Noi. These were nice 2 days cycling with beautiful meetings with the local people.

As we got to Ha Noi a very bad news from Germany reached us. We had to unexpectedly get back home, not knowing what really awaits us there.