Angkor and Siem Reap: biker's heaven

If I have ever had any passion for any sport in past, it was mountain biking. Yet, since I have moved to Prague, started university, and spent most of my free time travelling, I haven't sat in a saddle of mountain bike. It has been 5 years now. 

Angkor  is one of the architectural wonders of this planet, of human kind.  It was built by a civilization of Khmers between 9th and 14th century and it is believed that it had been the largest preindustrial city in the world spreading over 1000 square kilometers. The decline of the civilization had left the area to the mercy of nature. The deep forests of  Indo-China had cloaked the temples made of rock in the core of Angkor for centuries and in the mean time nature had performed its magic.

The restoration started in the beginning  of the 20th century and archeologist literally had to solve riddles to rebuild pieces of the great city. Today, Angkor is part of of Cambodia, one of the poorest countries of the region. 

So, what should you expect as a tourist? You can buy a 1-day/3-day/7-day pass for $20/$40/$60 and you get an access to any part of the "archeological" park. Staff is seldom distributed around the park, usually at the entrance of the temples and once in a while you get controlled. Although Angkor attracts huge number of tourists, mainly from Japan, Korea, and France (really :-) ), the area is really huge so you don't constantly feel that 100 Japanese is breathing behind your back.

Bulk of tourists often see mainly Angkor Wat, which is maybe the biggest and was certainly nice but not really the highlight for me. Mainly because the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan in nearby Central Java were much more impressive in my opinion.

For me, the main draw was this incredible scale of the area. Because all that, the method of transport is up to you: you can explore by feet, bicycle, or you can hire a tuk-tuk. For me it ment long desired freedom. 

To explain a bit why it is so enjoyable to opt for MTB. In Cambodia, the infrastructure is very bad, there is seldom asphalt road but often the roads are unpaved. [Yet,  this has been changing, particularly due to tourism in this area; there is nice road around Angkor. ] 

Second thing typical for SE Asia is that the main mean of transport is a motor bike. I myself sometimes stay breathless how people here can utilize bikes for transport of anything - from thousands of eggs to huge pieces of furniture. 

So generally their highways are like our forgotten country-side roads,  they get very busy during the day with lots of traffic moving very slowly between the major areas of Cambodia. But their small roads are something special: they are mostly single tracks created by decades of riding motor bikes to the field or from home in middle of nowhere to the town. 

It is like a dream. The single tracks curve in between huge trees of Cambodian forest,  large-scale dry fields, or lonely palm trees. Once in a while there is a tiny village composed of few wooden houses with children smiling and vigorously  waving  at you. Once in a while you encouter lonely buffalos attached to the nearest tree. It isn't flies gathering around you when you sweat too much. Just incredibly colored butterflies are randlomly wandering around. 

While this would be enough for me to be very excited, that isn't all. Imagine yourself enjoying ride when all of the sudden there appears this: 

No tourists, this sight is just for your eyes. Just incredible. I could probably spend here months instead of a week!  

There is plenty of places to rent a MTB. The cheapest for $3/day are probably worse than having a city bike, but for $8 you can get really good bike (I recommend full-suspension. I unfortunately didn't and sometimes I regretted it a lot)...

Just be careful and don't go to pee too far from the track, there still might be unexploded mines :-).