Siem Reap -day 3 bicycle tour

Bakong

After two days of temple bashing by tuk tuk it was time to get off our butts and do some exercise.

The remaing Bakong carving

We grabbed a couple of shopping basket bikes from our guesthouse and set of for a group (The Rolous Group) of temples some fifteen kilometres away.

Prei Monti

According to the guide there are three main temples in this group, plus a number of other minor ones. They were all built during the late 9th century.

Bakong

Initially the traffic in town was bad but as we reached the countryside things improved. Cambodia (at least this part is generally flat so the cycling is easy if a little hot, the roads also seem to be dead straight which can be a little dull.

Preah Ko

Eventually, after a long hot ride we arrived at our first temple, Prei Monti. This was a 'bonus' temple as it was not in the guide book. Mind you, all there was were three ruined brick temples and a few stone columns.

Bull statue outside Preah Ko

Next up was Bakong, this was a much more impressive site, and surprisingly busy. There was a lot of work going on to save the brick towers that surrounded the main temple. Being so old, most of the carvings had disappeared except for one stone which was remarkably well preserved.

A horse!

Not far from Bakong was our next site, Preah Ko. Six brick towers that still had some of the lime mortar decorations. Oddly, although nearly all of the Khmer temples are symmetrical, one of towers is completely out of alignment.

Bug eyed beastie of Preah Ko

Lolei was a complete disappointment as both the remaining towers were completely scaffolded so there was nothing to see. But one of the collapsed towers did reveal a cross section of the building!

Cambodia beer, so good they named it twice?

Lunch was next, in a pleasant catering training centre near Bakong, a nice cool beer and Tom Yam soup for me.

That's my soup, where's the roll?

Just before lunch we saw a car that had been converted (Khmer style) into a tuk tuk, they had literally cut the top and rear off the car and stuck tuk tuk seats in the space. It had to be seen to be believed but we couldn't get our cameras out in time.

Lolei cross section

Finally it was time to start the long ride home. We went back via a slightly different route, picking up another 'bonus' temple (O Keak) on the way.

On the long ride home