Siam Reap- Siam Defeated!

I rode into Kompong Chanang well past dark after wandering on some lost back roads north of Phnom Penh. I missed an important turn where highway 6 and highway 7 split and found myself on the wrong side of the river by late morning. Luckily I found an access road that led to a ferry crossing, but I was way off schedule and knew that my 90 KM trip had just become 130K that day. I had to ride through the heat of the afternoon which was as much fun as a hole in the head, but I did make it to Kompong Chanang where a friendly guesthouse made my dinner and cleaned me up as fast as they could manage.

Kompong Chanang is a small provincial center at the southern tip of the great Tonle Sap lake. It serves as a small trading/warehousing stop that connects the north parts of the waterway with the south. Here, I would hire a boat to take me to the north of the lake where I could continue my ride to Siam Reap, the gateway to Angkor Wat and the Roluos temple complex. I found a boat on the riverbank to take me out to the middle of the river where I would transfer to a larger boat that was headed up to the northern rim of the Tonle Sap.

The 4 hour boat trip was a welcome rest off of my feet and the unloading point was surrounded by a floating village of boat-people. Chong Kneas is entirely afloat on the small river that runs into the Northern part of the Tonle Sap. People make their living by fishing in the lake. After disembarking, I rode the rest of the way to Siam Reap and found a nice little Thai-owned guesthouse called the Red Lodge.

I spent the morning scouring the town for a bike tire that would fit my mountain bike. With bicycles being as popular as they are, I had no idea that it would be so hard to find a tube for my kind of bicycle, but a 26 inch mountain-width tire is nowhere to be found in Siam Reap. I had to settle for a skinny tube that I am very nervous about taking back out into the sticks when I head north.

I'm going to spend a few days in Siam Reap (means Siam defeated in Khmer) checking out the countless ancient Hindu/Buddhist temples. Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, the Bayon, and the Roluos Group make up the major temples that were built at the height of Khmer power between 875AD-1230AD. Then it's off to the border of Thailand and onward north to Laos.