So last night we headed to ‘pub street’ the main stretch here but it’s pretty westernised, lots of beggers, stands, more roasted insects, I have just got used to the cooked insects with a stick shoved through them but last night I got the shock of my life as I walked by a stall and there was a young girl, no more than 6, with 2 live tarantulas in her hands.😫 David thought my over reaction was hilarious and kept looking for her again all night.
We had a meal, definitely both still eating veggie out here!! We attempted to go for a few drinks but we were both shattered from the early rise so decided to get some rolled ice-cream which is made in front of you with fresh fruit and head back up and plan our next stop- Phnom Penh. We didn’t get much planning done David faceplanted his iPad snoring!!!
Today was a good day! We got up and I popped to the supermarket and brought up breakfast, tiny bananas that are really sweet and choc chip bread.
We then went to the shop nextdoor to hire 2 bicycles, for 1 us dollar each, I remember seeing this store as we arrived and thinking no chance am I getting on one of those rickety rusty things, what a difference a day makes!!
Cycling round here is actually better than walking because you get a bit of a breeze, on the way up to the Khmer temples we got stuck in a protest and diverted to these tiny little back streets and stand still traffic of every vehicle you could think of, talk about thrown in the deep end. The best thing you can do in these roads is be bold and just go, and hope everyone in front of you moves out of your way. There is no rules and it’s crazy busy. David was actually pretty impressed I agreed to cycle given my new York cycling failings.
We headed straight onto the long route once we reached the temples, most look very similar but are much bigger than you think and it’s quite possible to get lost in them. We even found a swinging vine to have a go on, which was incredible hanging from the canopy of the trees.
There are monkeys all around and monkey attacks are quite common, I saw a lady batting one over the head with a water bottle as she tried to get off her moped but it’s because the tourists feed then scraps.
For lunch we got full pineapple each, david says I’m learning with the haggling because I got them half price! The best temple by far was the ta prohm which was made famous by tomb raider. This is all falling down because the amount of trees growing through it. The biggest annoyance here were the Chinese tourists who spend ages posing for photos in different outfits. I forgot to mention that yesterday we saw a Chinese tourist dressed as Lara croft!!
The bike ride was pretty lengthy, just short of 10km each way to the temples and then roughly 10-15km round them. By the time we were heading back we couldn’t feel our bums at all!
Tomorrow we have booked a tour to see the floating villages of tonle sap.
South East Asia 2019 