I had a fairly early start mainly because I had no idea where breakfast was coming from. First item on the agenda was the old 12th century bridge in town. It’s still in use albeit only for bicycles, motorbikes and pedestrians. It’s built from latterite with no adhesives, so it’s held together surprisingly well. It’s impressive and there was a tour bus there before me. That’s almost as impressive.
So, tourism done, it was time for breakfast and on the way out of town I saw a small restaurant and went in. We had no language in common except for the word rice, so rice it was. And it was beautiful too. It reminded me of Vietnam. The girls who ran the place were definitely gigglers, so everything I did was watched and laughed about. It made for an entertaining meal. All that for $1.50
Next task was coffee, oh yeah, there was some 60kms of cycling to be done as well, but that was the easy part. The coffee task proved problematic as there were a few small places that were closed. I thought I’d found a place. It had a coffee machine and a nice setting, but no staff, so I left and resumed my quest. 200m up the road was a Cafe Amazon – always a compromise but it would do.
In the end, the coffee was top notch. Now all I had to do was get to Siem Reap.
All of this stopping meant that I was continually passing the same slow farm vehicles on highway 6. One such vehicle had about six members of a family in the trailer along with a lot of their belongings.
After two passes there were smiles and waves. On the third, they couldn’t stop laughing.
I seemed to be following the rain as the road became wet and the dark clouds seemed to be always on the horizon. The rain wasn’t moving fast enough though, as I got caught fair and square in the middle of a heavy shower. The spray from the trucks was a fine mist of mud which went over everything. The rain stopped though and it ended up being an easy run into Siem Reap.
I hadn’t been able to book the place that I’d stayed at twice previously and I thought that was a bit strange. So I rode directly there. They’d changed hands. I walked in and told the guy I wanted to stay two nights, he just thought I said tonight, so he said one night tonight, I said no, two nights but yes tonight, then I added tonight but two nights from tonight … and then he said they were full. It may have been just too much for him or he may just hate conversations like that as much as I do when they cross a language barrier or he just thought I was an idiot. All valid options.
I went and had a late lunch. I had a cheese baguette and realised I hadn’t had Brie for six months. I think I had a stupid happy look on my face because the waitress commented – you really liked that didn’t you ? Yup, sure did. While at Paris Bakery, I booked a nice hotel around the corner and arrived there before they received their email from Booking.com. Faster than a speeding bullet.
What a nice hotel. I’m livin’ it up for a couple of nights. It’s part of the end of ride wind-down. The bike is mainly under cover in the ground floor pool area – there’s a rooftop pool too 😁. I have a really large room which now has my washing line and lots of washing draped over it.
I went for a walk to stretch my legs and can’t believe the changes to this town in 10 years. Apparently, during Covid, they did a lot of resurfacing and paving. The result is much cleaner city. Some of the old buildings have been renovated and some of the character of the place has disappeared with the changes. I could eventually see this place going down the path of Luang Prabang and Hoi An.
