15/03/2011 Bangkok to Siem Reap

There are surprisingly only 350 km between Bangkok and the Cambodian tourist hub of Siem Reap. It took us 4 days to cover the distance.

 

The King and the Queen are always present on the road

Getting out of Bangkok had more to do with a 20 km zigzag between cars than anything else. But out of the city, we biked through nice villages, field and eucalyptus plantations.

On the second night, we ended up sleeping in a typically Thai one room apartment, unoccupied and generously offered to us for the night by the owner. We met our neighbour, Kao, a former architect from Bangkok who decided to go back to the countryside and start a tree nursery business.

 Dumpyard near the border. Here garbages are simply burned to make some room for the incoming wastes.

The Cambodian border at Poipet is a big mess of people pushing wooden buggies, backpackers crossing on foot, duty-free hotels, construction sites, zigzagging scooters and young kids on their bicycle crossing the border to go to school.

At first sight, Cambodians looks more friendly than their neighbour, especially the children on the side of the road who are cosntantly waving us and saying "hello" or "good bye". Most of the towns, which doesn't include Siem Reap, have little electricity, so become very dark at night, and water on tap is not a standard. People wake up with the sun and everything is over before 8pm.

 sculpting buddhas

The landscape remembers us the Canadian prairies but much dryer, almost dead. Burned crops where skinny cows and chickens are digging for food into the charcoal soils are stretching for ever.

On the almost no-car roads, we see tons of bicycles. Some of them are carrying products to be sell, including dead pigs delivered at the back of the bikes, four legs in the air. The influence of the many NGOs is apparent: schools at every 20 km, students with brand new bicycles, tractors in the fields. Sometimes, a World Vision's jeep passes us on the road.

Siem Reap seems to be in a different country: cars everywhere, electricity, tuk-tuks, white people, luxurious hotels with swimming pool at the back, French bakeries and NGO headquarters. Even children are more hostile, trying to sell us Angkor pictures or screaming at us "go back home". We understand them, there is such a touristic pressure here, they must be tired of the white people. Despite all of that, we really enjoyed Siem Reap with its relax vibe, nice people and the incredible aura of the Angkor temples just a few kilometers North.