8. Angkors away
After a great week at Siem Reap, and having stocked up for the next few weeks with western essentials (cheddar!) at the local western supermarket that stocked virtually anything you could get in England, we moved on! We’ve been a bit apprehensive about the next leg of the journey. Originally we had planned to head to the capital Phnom Penh and then south to the coast, then we saw the hills and the main road we’d have to do with long moutainous rides and thought again! So we’re now heading north temple hopping with a bag full of comfort food supplies. Despite me...
Read More7. Angkor Wat
The cycle to Ankor Wat from the border town of Poipet is all on the main road. I’m sure some cyclists can do it all in one day, but for us it’s a short hop to Sisophon of 45km and then a monster 100km to Siem Reap. It’s all flat, always into the wind, just like we’ve been since we left Bangkok and is relatively ok until the heat builds up, then it becomes seriously uncomfortable and, for us, difficult. So the plan for the 100km was to leave at 4am, 2 and half hours before sun rise! We had decided we needed to get up early in Poipet so we would be tired when we arrived...
Read More6. Papers Please!
The cycle to the border from Bangkok took a few days taking us though small villages and quiet roads and of course past many Temples.. It’s lovely cycling here when it’s not the middle of the day. Life starts about 4.30am. It’s the cool time of day and people take advantage of that to socialise with friends in groups walking, running and even cycling. Drive through breakfast… It’s also the best time to get up and get going for us so we slowly moved through the Thai countryside towards the border starting at dawn and watching the countryside change as the sun...
Read More4. Farewell Bangkok
And we’re off..leaving Bangkok We thoroughly enjoyed Bangkok, it’s a very western city and you can easily live a completely western life there from Marks and Spencers food and clothes to numerous really high class restaurants. English is widely spoken and virtually ubiquitous in shops and menus and it’s a very easy introduction to SE Asia. Getting out of it on a bicycle however is not like the west. The city is like a bicycle wheel with huge roads forming the spokes out from the city and very few places to cross these 4 and 6 lane spokes. You end up either...
Read More3. Bangkok
Unless we venture to Phuket, this is likely to be the most touristy place we visit and you’re really spoilt here with everything being in English at all the touristy spots. English is widely spoken and it feels a very easy and soft introduction to SE Asia. It’s also very nice. Though the city is built entirely around the car with huge roads bludgeoning their way across town, the drivers themselves are quite polite and given the fact that half the time the roads are just a huge car park they seem very patient. No one hoots. Never. Not even when some idiot pulls out at a traffic...
Read More2. Cancelled and Refunded
We picked up our hire car in Ipswich having asked for an MG HS as we could just squeeze Tilly in the back and found they’d taken no chances and upgraded us to a Grandaddy Volvo, very nice it was too, it even had a Werther’s Original holder, or maybe that was a coin pocket …so we cruised down to Gatwick at 35mph, and headed to check in for our flight. No more than 48 hours before your flight you have to notify Norse if your bike box is bigger than 250cm total dimensions. We’d taken the back wheel off for this trip and had managed to slim Tilly down to 265...
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