Once more with feeling

I forgot to post the obligatory Claremonster Racing in Cambodia (Angkor Wat) photos as well as a few more photos there.

My tour officially ended after breakfast today and everyone else left.  I hung around the hotel to say goodbye to a Suzanne and a few others, and then finally had a morning to talk on the phone.  My mornings are California evenings, but I have been out riding every day before 8 and don't get back until the middle of the night in California.  Around 11:30 I left the hotel, rented the best bicycle I could find for $6 a day, and headed back to the temple area.  It was a little different without a support wagon carrying our water and gear, and there was not even a pannier on the bike.  I had to wear my backpack.  I started with half a liter of water and when that was gone, I didn't want the weight of another liter, so at every temple stop, I bought a Diet Coke for wan dollah.  It might have been a four DC ride.

I rode back out to Angkor Wat thinking I would take the loop road to the west, but ending up taking the loop to the east.  But this time, kids, it was not because I cannot tell east from west.  I really knew where I was.  I decided to ride back to Preah Khan because I couldn't remember what was special about it, and Preah Khan is on the northeast side.  Preah Khan is a series of concentric courtyards with narrow entryways in the middle of each side.  Each door jamb is two steps up.  If you were building a fortress to protect this would be it, but our guide said it was simply a temple.  In the middle is a very small, square room with the stylized symbol that represents male, female, and something else.  I guess this makes sense in some religion.

So as long as I was on the east side, I decided to ride the east loop because it was only an inch on the map.  I stopped at a few more temples including a really cool one that you reach by a long boardwalk because it is built on an artificial island in the middle of an artificial lake.  After three hours of riding the east loop and temple hopping, I decided to give up on the west loop since that was an inch and a half on the map.  I stopped off at Angkor Wat again for a more leisurely look.  Angkor Wat is square with sides of about 200 meters.  On each side are incredible wall murals carved on sandstone in relief.  There are two murals on each wall, each about 100 meters.  One has an entire battle with the armies marching from either side and meeting in battle in the middle.  Another wall has the Angkor version of Dante's Inferno with horrible scenes of punishment and torture.  Another has fantastical animals - dragons, half bird/half man, half lion/half man.

I appreciated the temples a lot more today, going at my own pace.  The distances are too far to walk but ideal for bicycles.  The roads away from the main temples feel like pleasant country lanes even though I was never more than a short distance from another temple and an army of vendors.  And at the traffic jams in front of the main temples, I passed the buses and cars.

Some day I am going to start a company called Civilized Touring.  Why do all riders think they have to start at 7:30 and be done by noon?  I rode and toured from 11:30 to 5:30 this afternoon.  I had plenty of time for another massage, a nice dinner, and some walking around, and was back at my hotel at 9.  Civilized Touring.  Unfortunately, they are picking me up at 7:45 for tomorrow's tour to floating villages on the lake.  Oh, well.