Ride The Tiger – Tourist Biking in Vietnam

Right, there seem to be a load of people who keep reading my posts on “Bikes in Vietnam”. I’m guessing thats because you’re interested in riding there. But the fact is, I wrote “Bikes in Vietnam” for my own amusement, but more importantly, I wrote it BEFORE my trip. Now I’ve actually done it, I can hopefully tell you something useful about the realities. So I’ve decided to write one last post on my blog. If you want to ride bikes in Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia for that matter), this is for you. All information is correct as of early 2011.

 

Bikes in Vietnam

First of all, if you’re thinking of riding a bike through Vietnam, its a brilliant experience. I met loads of backpackers who did the whole Saigon-Hue-Hanoi thing by train or bus, but they didnt have a fraction of the experiences I had riding it. Do it.

Vietnam has a universal biking culture. Everyone rides. This is excellent for lots of reasons, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind.

Place is rammed with the things.

Pretty much every bike of any description in Vietnam is less than 150cc. This is because there are massive import duties on anything over this. Bikes over 150cc are incredibly rare, and likely to be obscenely expensive. So pretty much anything you get is going to be slow and tiny by western standards. Embrace it. You dont want to be going any faster than 35mph (60kph) anyway, because this would be horrifically dangerous for reasons which should become clear a bit later on.

Whether a bike or moped is a “genuine” Honda or Suzuki seems to be a hugely ambiguous area in SE Asia. The Vietnamese go out of their way to ensure they buy the real thing, and buy new from dealers. But on the used market, its safe to assume any moped you buy was not made in Japan. It may be made by the manufacturer, but in Vietnam or Thailand, or it may be one of the endless Chinese copies. Bikes are slightly more likely to be genuine, mainly because there are relatively few of them, so they arent worth copying. There are plenty of bikes with bits of other bikes on them though. But the point is that it being a fake is not necessarily a problem, just take it into account when considering the price. I rode a fake Chinese bike for the whole trip.

“Fake” Suzuki 125 Custom. But it doesnt matter, you can’t get parts anyway.

 

 

Which Kind of Bike?

If you’ve decided to buy a bike, the first thing you need to decide is, bike or moped?

If you’re staying somewhere, and you’re not travelling overland any real distance, get a moped. Theres a reason they’re everywhere. Everyone knows how to fix them, parts are everywhere, they’re incredibly easy to ride and generally faster than the bikes. Thats it.

However, if you want to ride through Vietnam (or anywhere over distance in SE Asia generally), you should get a motorbike. This is for 2 reasons –

Firstly, because they have a proper seat. When you load the back of a moped up with all your stuff, you have to sit on pointy bit of seat on the front. This is not comfortable unless you’re happy with dented buttocks. Also, its helpful if you dont have knees, since the plastic legshield thing is generally not designed with western ones in mind. After 7 hours on a moped you’ll be chewing the handlebars. You’ll have a numb arse on the bikes too though, you can just stand it a bit longer.

The second reason, and the really important one, is the tyres. Normal mopeds in asia have tiny narrow tyres. They are not designed for for all your gear and your huge western arse. The tyres just pop with depressing regularity. A couple of the guys that I rode around with got mopeds, and you could expect at least a puncture a day. We had a day when one moped got 5 punctures. Dont do it. The bikes by comparison have fat balloon like tyres, and they bounce most things off. I had 2 punctures in 2 months riding the same roads as the mopeds, because I was on a bike. Buy a bike. Are we clear?

Note lack of room for knees and arse. Exploding tyres complimentary.

Bikes have their downsides though. There are loads of bikes in Vietnam of all different kinds, and almost all of them have the same problem. They’re oddities. The Vietnamese generally dont ride them, so mechanics don’t really stock parts for them. So if all goes well with the serious mechanical stuff on your bike (with its completely unknown history of endless abuse, crashes and bodging), you’ll be fine. But if it doesn’t, and you need serious parts for some random 1990’s Suzuki in the middle of nowhere, that could be less fun.

Minsks don’t have this problem. There are parts about for them because they were made for so long. There are even dealers specifically for them. Do NOT buy one. To be totally fair to them, they have a comfy seat and they’re better than average offroad. But they are horrifically unreliable. One of the guys that I rode with had one, it broke down all the time, and no mechanic could fix it for more than a few hours. I wanted to try riding it just for the experience, but it was always broken. It once broke down 6 times in one day. And when it broke down for the seventh time, he just rolled it off a cliff and walked away. True story. Bad times. He wasn’t the only one with a similar tale of Minsk-based woe.

And thats where the “Win” comes in. The Win is a chinese copy of some old Honda design, but the important part about it, is that it uses a copy of the old Honda C90 moped engine. Now every mechanic in Asia knows how to fix a C90, and every puncture repair shed in the middle of nowhere has mechanical bits, which means you dont have to worry about that part at least. And its reliable, unlike the Minsk. Not that its without faults mind you. The Win is pretty slow, with rubbish brakes, its vibey as hell, and not particularly comfortable. But on the upside it is tough as old boots. Massively overloaded, I must have bottomed out the front suspension hundreds of times on mine. I snapped off mudguards and kicked off the front sprocket cover hitting a pothole, covered it in mud, and rode it flat out everywhere. I gave that bike some serious abuse, and it took it all with aplomb, and didnt let me down once. I genuinely think it represents the best compromise for riding in Vietnam.

Totally Abusable.

That said, pretty much any bike will do the job. And you’d be surprised how well a 125cc Japanese cruiser copes offroad when you have no choice. And if you can find a moped with fat tyres, go for it. But dont buy a Minsk. Really. Don’t.

 

Buying a Bike

Most people buy their bikes off westerners, and sell them to other westerners. Thats the reality. You can either get them off tourists selling them at the end of their trip (look out for adverts at hostels, or just ask around), or there are westerners running businesses selling bikes to tourists in both Hanoi and Saigon. But i’m not going to give any names, because none were very good in all honesty. At best, they could be described as amateurish. If you can, buy one off a fellow tourist, you’ll get a better price. Expect any bike you buy to need work, they’ve all had a hard life. If you buy off a tourist, ask them to be honest about any problems it has. If they’ve been riding it for a while, they’ll know if it has any issues, any noises its started making, and how to start the damn thing. You can try to get any problems sorted before you head off into the wild then.

If you possibly can, find a friendly Vietnamese person and ask if they can help you buy a bike. One of the staff at our local hostel offered to help us when we needed to buy a moped in Hue, and although she knew nothing about bikes, she took us to a dealer who literally wheeled out mopeds for us until we found one that was basically brand new, and we got it for much less than I paid for my battered old bike. She did all the translation and haggling for us, in her free time, and refused to accept any payment from us at all. We could only thank her profusely. I don’t know if you will be that lucky, but there were certainly genuinely helpful friendly people all over Vietnam (and equally the occasional person out to get as much of your cash as they could).

For the record, I ended up buying a bike off a western dealer, and although it was straight, and it ran ok, it was burning serious oil. By the time I got half way down Vietnam I needed to have one of the valves replaced and the chain and sprockets were wrecked. I should have spotted the knackered chain and sprockets myself though really. Rookie error.

 

Prices

Prices for mopeds and bikes are about $250-650 USD. I’ll give you the prices paid by the people I met, and what they got for their money, as a general guide.

$250 – A horrific looking moped that looked like it was constructed from bits of other crashed mopeds. Crankcase was cracked.
$300 – A supposedly fully overhauled Minsk. Dont.
$350 – A used but immaculate Suzuki moped, with Vietnamese assistance.
$400 – My battered Win “Pooey”.
$500 – A tatty but working Suzuki GN125.
$650 – A brand spanking new Chinese Win.

When it comes to selling, you’re going to have to take what you can get. If you’re selling to a tourist, you can probably get pretty much what you paid. To everyone else, they generally know you have to sell, so its just down to if they want to be nice or really screw you over. Some people got horrific prices selling to Vietnamese people in Saigon. I sold to a tourist and made a small loss, easily worth the use I’d had out of the bike.

 

Vietnamese Mechanics

Mechanics in Vietnam, and SE Asia generally, are excellent, and of the get-the-job-done-and-think-nothing-of-it type. Its a core profession. Many of them work and live in the same small shed. They work fast and efficiently with a tiny collection of tools and equipment, and charge a pittance. There will be a mechanic in every single tiny hamlet you will visit, and if he’s not available, experienced amateurs are abundant (even if they are, in some cases, massively inebriated). In some cases, if they fix the bike but haven’t given you any parts (innertubes, fluids etc.), they will refuse to let you pay them. In huge contrast to most financial transactions in Vietnam (where you can expect to pay more than the locals, and if you’re not careful, much more), I dont think I was ever charged more for work on the bike than a local. Brilliant blokes. You can feel free to fix your own bike and sort your own punctures, but frankly, they are much faster, very experienced, and incredibly cheap.

Drunker than your average MotoGP pit crew.

 

Spares and Repairs

Generally speaking, its not worth carrying loads of spares. Either they’ll have the parts where you’re going, in the case of a Win or a moped, or you wont be able to get them easily even in the cities anyway. But if you have a bike, it is worth getting some spare innertubes. Out of the way places only stock moped-sized innertubes. Dont bother with anything else except maybe a pair of pliers, an adjustable wrench and some duct tape. The mechanic, usually a short push away, will have pretty much everything else.

 

Legality

Tourists cannot legally own bikes in Vietnam. You need to be a resident with a home address. Therefore, when you buy a bike it should come with a registration document, probably laminated, and made out in the name of a Vietnamese guy you’ve never heard of. This is normal.

Similarly, you cannot realistically get a license. International motorcycle licenses, and those of other nations, are not recognised. Getting a Vietnamese license involves getting the test questions translated from Vietnamese and all kinds of nonsense. Don’t bother.

And there’s no vehicle insurance available for tourists either. Make sure you get travel health insurance and make sure it covers you for riding bikes.

But, and this is the important bit, none of the above is generally a problem. In the cities, I can only assume that the Police have been told to leave the tourists alone, because we were completely ignored on the bikes. In more out of the way places, I was told not to stop for police, as they’re likely to be corrupt and looking for a bribe. I can’t tell you what happens when you do stop, as I followed this advice to the letter and sped past 3 or 4 attempts to pull me over by Police on foot at the side of the road. Nobody chased us.

 

Roads and Traffic Laws

Major roads in Vietnam are generally tarmac, somewhere between perfect and badly potholed. The less it’s used, the better the surface is likely to be. Off the major roads, expect anything. Tarmac is perfectly possible, but dirt or gravel are also likely to put in an appearance. Cambodia and what I saw of Laos are a much more serious proposition. There, even the major highways can be dirt/gravel, and anything off them is likely to resemble a hiking trail. Bridges will be incredibly rickety wooden affairs.

Generally between this…

…and this.

Forget everything you know about traffic laws, particularly things like right-of-way, using only one side of the road, and any concept of personal space. The faster you do this, the quicker you will have a reasonable chance of survival. There is a nominal drive on the right system, but its very much just taken as general guideline. Right-of-way is determined entirely by size. If you’re the biggest thing on the road, it is the job of everything else to move out of your way. On a bike, that puts you above pedestrians and cyclists, and below everything else. Cars, vans, trucks and buses will behave as though you’re not there, and its your job to make sure you’re not. People will take to the verges/pavements without hesitation, and its perfectly when riding in the cities to be surrounded by bikes, riding directly across your path and generally swerving around. Indicators bear no relation to the intended action. Even in the countryside, vehicles, children and animals will just wander out in front of you. I saw a buffalo come out of a ditch and 2 Vietnamese guys on a moped went straight into it, resulting in them bouncing off the buffalo and over a hedge. Stuff like this will happen. If you assume that insane traffic maneuvers are about to take place at any time, you won’t be surprised when they do.

 

Routes and Maps

Analog GPS.

I didn’t see a single decent roadmap in SE Asia. There were a couple of half-decent city maps. Thats it. So in my only real recommendation, i’d like to recommend “The Rough Guide Map – Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia”. You can get it on Amazon and so on. It was absolutely brilliant, and very detailed. You do need to take the really tiny place names with a pinch of salt, but other than that, faultless. It’s also printed on plastic, so it doesnt matter if you get it wet, which you will. While travelling on the bikes, it was just known as “The Bible”. Its now mounted on my wall with my route drawn on it. I’m sure other maps are available, but I only had that one, and I didnt need anything else. I suppose I could have taken a GPS, but it didn’t seem as fun as duct-taping a compass to my speedo and having a map in my hand.

There are 2 main routes that run from Saigon to Hanoi. The shorter one, on a more coastal route, and the one used by most of the traffic, is simply known as Highway One. The one which runs further inland, is much quieter and much more mountainous, is known as the Ho Chi Minh Highway (or HCMH). I would highly suggest you take the HCMH. The brief stretches of Highway One I rode were a nightmare of blaring trucks and dodging potholes. By contrast, 90% of the HCMH was beautiful quiet tarmac, with only the remaining 10% being buffaloes, waving/suicidal children, mudslides, crazy bus drivers etc.

Which brings me on to another reason to take the HCMH, or any route less travelled. The further you get from the big population centres, the less used to tourists they are, and the friendlier they generally become. Once you’re away from the major cities, you’re more or less a minor celebrity. Being quite tall, people wanted to come and stand next to me just to marvel at my height, like I was a circus giant. And children would run out of houses just to wave at you as you went past. Its worth it just for that, I’m telling you.

 

Borders

I only attempted 2 border crossings on the bike.

The first was at Lao Bao, just north of Hue, where you can cross from Vietnam into Laos. The Vietnamese told us they were happy to let us leave, but that Laos would not let us in. They even let us walk across the border and ask them. There the very nice Laotian border guard told us politely but firmly that we were welcome, but the bikes were not, because the bikes were not in our names (an assumption in which he was entirely correct…). But when I actually got to Laos, I saw bikes riding around with Vietnamese plates, so I’m guessing there is a much less strigent border somewhere. Good luck finding it!

The other border I crossed was from Vietnam into Cambodia, in the South, just east of Chau Doc. We paid a fee, they stamped our books, we were through. They didnt give the bikes a second glance. Easy peasy.

 

General Information

If you’re still reading at this point, I’m just going to put some bits and pieces of potentially useful information in, as and when I think of them.

*Pretty much every house and hotel in Vietnam has somewhere secure to store motorcycles. If it doesnt have somewhere specifically for it, they’ll bring the bikes into the building. I bought a bicycle lock at the start of the trip, and didnt use it once. The only exception I saw to this was the old quarter in Hanoi, where space is at such a premium its not possible. But they have bike parks dotted around, where you can drop your bike and they’ll keep an eye on it overnight. Although, the only time I actually used one, when I picked the bike up the sidestand was snapped off, and I had to give them some seriously meaningful looks (all that was really possible in the circumstances), until they got it welded back on.

Bar Trek – The Voyage Home

Well i made it back home! Due to changes in my general travel plan along the way though, this involved a pretty major journey just to get to Saigon, where i had originally planned to end my trip. Ended up getting so complicated i had to write down a plan just so my frazzled and generally travel-fatigued brain could cope…

The Plan. Overnight Bus to Vientiene (capital of Laos) -> Plane to Saigon -> Overnight in Saigon -> Plane to Kuala Lumpur -> Overnight in Kuala Lumpur -> Plane to London. At least the part after this was simplified, since Air Asia messed with my flight again, which meant my original plan of getting a bus into London, and then another bus to Cardiff, wasnt feasable. Instead i begged Bill to come pick me up, which he graciously agreed to, on the condition i didnt trim the beard in the meantime…

Shower in my hotel in Saigon, where as well as the standard hot and cold water, you are offered the option of eels. Once you’ve seen this, thats a scary option…

The upside of my plan was, however, that i got one last night out in Saigon with Charlie, volunteer co-ordinator, travelling missionary for the Cult of Will Allen (long may the breadbasket reign…), and general good egg. Completely forgot to take pictures of this event however, other than some drunken messing about with Charlie’s ludicrous helmet/goggles combo.

Incredibly hung over, i then made my way to Kuala Lumpur, pausing only to fight nausea on route. Unlike my last visit to KL though, where i spent 17 hours in the bloody airport, this time i took the train into the city itself, found a hotel, and tried to while away my 26 hour wait looking around the city. Only to find everything bloody closes on a Sunday. The only thing open was a Buddhist temple, so i went for a look, and ended up having a chat with a precocious  Sri Lankan girl. She must have been maybe 10 years old, but she spoke perfect english. She told me in a totally matter of fact way that her and her mother were refugees in Malaysia, that her father had been arrested in Sri Lanka, and she had no idea when or if she would see him again. What can you say to that?

After a few more sweaty hours in KL, i got back on the plane for the 14 hour flight to the UK, where i was met by not one, but a brace of Careys, who wafted me home, getting there about 7am.

Pak Ou Caves

For our second outing from Luang Prabang, we got mopeds. We’d hesitated before because due to the local laws, mopeds are really expensive to rent here. But i was going home, Rhys was keen, and we persuaded Katie, who’d only been on the back before, that she should really try it.

Rhys, utilising his complimentary bike helmet to protect himself during the highly dangerous act of Sprite drinking.

I gave Katie a quick lesson around the town when the mopeds turned up, not as crazy as it sounds in a town this quiet. She was surprisingly good given that she’d never been in control of a motor vehicle before. And the first 10km to the caves was good road, so that was nice. Then we had 15kms of dirt road, gravel and up and down hills. Dirt riding on your first ever day riding, and Katie dealt with it admirably. Kudos.

At least when we got there we had to take a boat across the river, so that was a chance to relax. The white stuff you can see at the bottom of the cliffs in the background are the steps into the caves.

My attempt to hide my, by now extravagant beard, behind Rhys, didn’t quite come off.

The caves themselves are like a storage warehouse for Buddha’s of every shape and size, honestly there’s hundreds of the bloody things. And here and there…

…something a bit different. Like a statue of a man with a brain instead of a head, having a massive shit while posing in the “semi-teapot” position.

On the way back. Katie is actually crying laughing here, as she had just managed, on her first day, to inadvertently pull an absolutely massive wheelie. She revved the engine, but it was in neutral, so still revving, she knocked it into first.  Obviously, then me and Rhys had to have a go. When Rhys fell off the bike trying it, but still managed to hold onto the handlebars, and chased the thing down the road with the bike still wheelieing, i nearly shat.

Kuang Si Waterfall

I feel its only fair to counter the impression that what we did in Luang Prabang was bugger all. We mostly did that, but we did venture out once or twice. Firstly, to the Kuang Si waterfall. And bear sanctuary. No joke, there really was, randomly, a bear sanctuary there.

We didnt rent bikes for this one, so it was a bumpy 25km tuk tuk ride all the way.

But then you got this, which kinda compensated. Honestly, the whole place looks like a Timotei advert.

I know it looks like Rhys has been photoshopped into this one, but he really was there, honestly.

Attempt at an arty pic.

The main waterfall, which was pretty spectacular. Apparently it used to have a rock which sang as the water hit it, but its fallen off. So it goes. You could climb to the top too, which we did in a rather sweaty fashion, and were rewarded with the opportunity to wade around in a semi swamp. Did have a lovely view though.

Do Not Swimming Area. The main waterfall and a couple of pools below it were off limits for swimming, but the ones you could swim in were equally lovely, so no one was bothered.

Like this one. Quite proud of this shot, showing Mike, one of the guys we went with, in a pose i can only describe as “Aiiiiieeee!”.

Oh, and there were bears. Rescued from various places, and pretty cool, although they weren’t inclined to pose for photos (the inconsiderate bastards), and this was the best shot i got. Pretty good daytrip all in all, although we should have rented mopeds, but we remedied that with the next outing…

Luang Prabang – What the hell? – UPDATED

Ok, i haven’t posted anything for a few days, basically because i’ve been trying to maximise my enjoyment of the little time i had left. But since i’ve now started my epic trek home, and since quite a lot of that involves hanging around (in this case in Saigon), i’ve got the opportunity to post some stuff.

So, Luang Prabang. Its lovely. Deeply lovely. I think Vientiane probably lacks character because Luang Prabang has stolen it all. For a start, its incredibly quiet, easily the most chilled out city i’ve been too on the whole trip. Everyone is friendly, the place is packed with monks and temples, its full of cafes and little bars and bookshops, the market is excellent, and everyone seems determined to make the place as delightful as possible. Its also slightly weird.

Not many temples get their entrance guardians to apply lippy and get their nails done. Admittedly, the lippy is applied somewhat amateurishly, but what do you expect when its being done by a creature with freshly painted claws?

Oooo look, its a temple! This one apparently in the traditional Laos style.

It has a big Buddha. They love painting things gold here, its like a national obsession, which they don’t seem to think makes things look gaudy and tasteless at all.

This temple is apparently dedicated to the film Tremors. Presumably they have giant gold statues of Kevin Bacon inside.

One of the main streets. This is not a quiet period, its genuinely like this all the time, including the monks, lots of whom have mobile phones even though they aren’t meant to own anything. Even when there is traffic, people seem to drive and ride at barely more than walking pace. This is not an Asia i recognized frankly.

View from Utopia, a bar/cafe/restaurant thing looking over the Mekong. We went here for breakfast 3 days in a row. Who wouldn’t?

Looking down the little street where we stayed to our guesthouse. We spent most evenings just chilling on the balcony, winding down after a hard days relaxation.

Most of Luang Prabang is a promontory between the Mekong and one of its tributaries, so pretty much wherever you are, a view like this is only a minute or two away.

Obligatory sunset shot, taken from a temple sited on a big hill in the middle of town.

On the balcony at the guesthouse with Katie, the least-German German, and most hippielike non-hippie you’re ever likely to meet. She’s deeply evil too, though she tries to appear otherwise. Note silly hats, both Katie’s. Rhys and Katie now get to travel across Laos to Hanoi now, the jammy buggers.

Vientiane and Vang Vieng

Well there wasn’t actually a lot to do in Vientiane, capital of Laos, and seemingly, one of those cities that exists because it has to. Its ok, it just doesn’t have a lot of character. Which is a shame, because the first stage of my epic journey home involves going back there. For a city though, it is very quiet, which applies to most of Laos generally.

Anyway, it doesn’t have much, but what it does have, is a gun range. So we went, just purely to help round out our view of Laos’  ancient and mystical culture, of course.

We got to shoot Uzi’s (although again sadly no AK47). As you can see i was massively disappointed to only fire an Uzi.

And we got to shoot a Colt 45, which was brilliant. Rhys here shown in his most caring and child-friendly posture.

After that, we were pretty much done with Vientiane, so we jumped on the bus to Vang Vieng, or as its otherwise known, “Tubing!”. Vang Vieng is Laos’ dedicated party town. Drug menus are posted in quite a few of the bars, everywhere sells buckets of alcohol and amphetamines. Basically the idea is to hire a tube in town, and then they drive you up the river and you float down again, stopping at the many bars with swings and huge slides on the way down to get slaughtered. This pic is from one of the bars in relatively quiet section…

The thing is though, the area is really beautiful. It has the first proper mountains i’ve seen since mid-Vietnam. We went to a guesthouse a little outside the main town so we could actually sleep, and this was the view from the breakfast area.

After a couple of days of that, we headed on to Luang Prabang. Through 250kms of road which might well be the best of the trip. I took pics out of the moving bus but they’re rubbish. This is the best shot i got of this amazing scenery, taken when we stopped for a toilet break. You just have to imagine it continues like this for 360 degrees. And 250kms. I was absolutely gutted that we did the entire thing in a sodding bus…

Laos! Finally…

Well, the bikes are gone, and Pasquale has headed off to Thailand. Sad, but it had to happen sooner or later. Me and Rhys however, have just completed an epic 24 hour bus journey to the capital of Laos, Vientiane.

It took 12 hours just to get here, the border with Laos, which looked somewhat like a building site, since they’re in the process of building proper border posts, and in the meantime you get your visas in a static railway car.

Then after another 4 or 5 hours on another bus, we got on the overnight sleeper bus. Rhys told me it would be a bus with spaced out and totally reclining seats, so we were pleasantly surprised when we got on and found that there were actual beds, albeit tiny ones about 5 feet long and 3 wide. And then we realised that we were sharing one…

I think its safe to say that travelling in Asia has been a bonding experience for me and Rhys generally, and we’ve shared beds along the way, but this, was definately the next level. My legs, are not bent in this photo through choice. Cosy. Sleep was not really an option.

And now we’ve got to Vientiane at 7am, and we cant get into our dorm beds till 12, so we’re basically just staggering around the time, smelly and bewildered, until we can get in there, take a shower, and go to sleep…

And now i have about 10 days to explore Laos, one of the countries i was most intrigued to see. We’d better get on with it. Up to Vang Vieng in the morning hopefully.

Siem Reap and New Year

Siem Reap. Its rather lovely. And now i’m no longer there and am,  in fact, in another country, i have time to write about it…

Siem Reap was described to me before i got there as an oriental benidorm, but i think thats doing it a bit of a disservice. It is pretty touristy, you could find out more about the reality of Cambodia from a day in the country than a month in Siem Reap, but thats not what its for. The reason it exists is the temples, and servicing the tourists who come to visit them, and it performs that function admirably. Its relaxed, and it has pretty much everything you could want. Hence why we ended up staying for about a week.

View from the chill-out area of the hostel onto the temple next door. Imagine a grateful “Ahhhhh” as you sink into the hammocks. Speaking of which, a hammock is a definate priority when i get back, they’re everywhere here, why aren’t they in the west?

View past a Cambodian lion down the river in the middle of town. There are busy streets either side, but it still seems to retain a strip of blissful calm.

“Happy” pizza places. They make genuinely excellent pizza, and if you ask for it to be “happy”, they add something a little extra. Then you wait an hour and realise you’re all laughing hysterically, and you have a burning desire for snacks. So you go and watch in awe, the art of the chocolate and banana pancateer. That was a good night, although some people did go to see temples the next day still utterly wasted…

The old market. This place was brilliant, all touristy booths selling assorted tat on the outside, but inside, a crazy maze with a fruit market, fish and meat market, clothing, hardware, jewellery, and any number of unidentified things i didn’t have the vocabulary to ask about. Everything an asian market should be, in fact. I spent about an hour and a half just wandering its cramped and twisty byways.

New Years Eve in Siem Reap, and the main bar area, imaginatively named Pub Street, was just a massive street party, with 3 seperate soundsystems fighting it out for dominance while fireworks went 0ff from every angle.

Clearly, we had a good time. I didnt even get that drunk, there wasnt really time, i just danced like a twat non-stop for about 5 hours.

Clearly, it had an effect on some people.

And yes, we went to the shooting range. Where i was, truth be told, massively disappointed. Rhys just loved the fact that he got to shoot a gun, but i’ve already done that. I wanted variety. I wanted to shoot an AK47, and at least one pistol. But all they had was this or an M-16, and it was really expensive.

One casual gunslinger.

One man, with possibly visible disappointment. I did shoot a couple of rounds, but it wasn’t the same. However, i found out that Vientiene in Laos has a shooting range too…

The Temples – Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm and Bayon

Since the reason Siem Reap exists is the temples, we were obviously going to do some. There are dozens in reality though, and each have their own charms, so we thought rather than trying to see them all, we’d try to get a feel for them, and then see a few that showed you a cross-section. First we went to the Angkor National Museum, to get an overview and see (the presumably precious and delicate) relics they’ve removed from the temples for safekeeping. But actually, there were only a small section of items on display, you weren’t allowed to take photos of them, and it was $12. I wished i hadn’t bothered to be honest, although there was one room with hundreds of Buddha’s they’d removed from Angkor Wat, and that was pretty cool.

Then we went to check out the Roulos complex, which is the earliest temple complex in the area, with the temples dating from the 8th and 9th Century. Sadly, this was as far as we got. As soon as we stepped through the gate, a guy asked for our tickets, so we asked him where we could buy one, and he said at the ticket office near Angkor Wat, 15kms away…

After that we pretty much just gave up the day as a bad job, went and got drunk, and resolved to get on with the big temples, starting with the biggest, Angkor Wat…

Angkor Wat

At sunrise… Which was pretty amazing, but at the same time, i couldn’t help but feel it probably looks 90% as amazing all the time, and i wouldn’t have had to get out of bed at 4.30am.

The idiots who got up at 4.30am. From right to left, Paul, Rhys, James, Me, Nicole and Pasquale.  After this, everyone with any sense went back to bed. I went to look at the carvings, which were frankly amazing.

Someone’s popular… This is an Apsara, a kind of goddess figure, usually dancing and doing their hair and getting their norks out a lot. The Cambodians do have a breast obsession, which clearly dates from about the 12th Century. There are paintings of women with their bristols out in hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, everywhere. But its not like actual Cambodians regularly get them out or anything. Its just a bit odd.

The carvings of battles and scenes from the Hindu epics cover all 4 sides of the exterior of the temple walls, amazingly detailed for hundreds of feet, and clearly a massive undertaking for them alone.

This depicts the massive battle in Hindu mythology, the start of which provides the setup for one of my favorite philosophical works, the Bhagavad Gita. I was really looking forward to seeing the depiction of Arjuna, one of the generals, and Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, as his 4 armed charioteer. But actually that section was a bit damaged, so i have a pic, but its rubbish. Enjoy this pic of people fighting an elephant instead.

Even the “ordinary” bits of the temple are covered in beautiful scrollwork carvings, like this pillar, with gods and goddesses, and at the bases, bramins sitting in contemplation.

But enough of that. Have another fight scene instead, this time depicting Hanuman’s monkey army fighting a load of demons, with the monkeys overwhelmingly favoring the “just keep biting till you hit something soft” fighting style.

Inside the temple walls. The entrance to which, the pillars are covered in writing in a mix of Khmer and Sanskrit, and relate to dedications and services performed by people during the early life of the temple.

Looking up at the top level, where only the King and the high priest could originally enter. Entrance these days requires queuing up with many Japanese people and climbing the incredibly steep steps to the one open entranceway.

Where you’re greeted by even more Apsaras.

The central tower, a representation of Mt. Meru, the mountain at the centre of the universe in Hindu Mythology. Sadly, you cant climb it, not for health and safety reasons, but because it doesn’t have any steps inside. And the doors into it are closed anyway, they were blocked when it was converted to a Buddhist temple (rather than one dedicated to Vishnu) in the 15th Century, and now 4 Buddha’s stand in the entranceways.

View over the complex from the top level, out to where we watched the sunrise. In all honesty, even though its supposed to be a masterpiece of architecture, i found myself strangely underwhelmed with the temple itself. Its massive, and the bas-reliefs are truly astounding, and the Buddhas and lions with their heads knocked off by the Khmer Rouge saddening, but the actual building structure itself failed to blow me away.

Ta Prohm

I was much more impressed with Ta Prohm, even at first sight. Ta Prohm is the archetypal jungle temple, ruined, covered in trees and vines, and left to the elements. Of course, its being looked after now, but they’ve got a difficult job on their hands, maintaining and preserving it without destroying its essential character.

Even the gateway is ruined and leans drunkenly.

View of the relatively intact main buildings.

The trees are literally growing on and through the buildings, an amazing unplanned fusion of nature and architecture.

The beauty of this temple is formed by its ruin. The carvings that cover the walls are also strewn on the floor in huge piles.

In trying to maintain it as it standing now, they’ve had to install steel structures in many of the buildings to keep them upright. And they have a throughly unatmospheric crane.

But they ultimately have an unresolved problem. The trees provide much of the beauty and contrast that makes this temple truly special, but they are also slowly and inexorably levering the buildings apart. You can see the measuring devices they are using to measure the progress on the wall in this pic. But what are they going to do? They either have to remove the tree, or accept that its going to fall down. They could use stronger and stronger steel structures to hold it up i suppose, but that will end up spoiling the character anyway i think.

Bayon

The last temple was Bayon, known amongst the backpacking crowd as “the one with all the faces”. Its in the middle of the ancient city/temple of Angkor Thom, which is full of small temples and carvings, but Bayon itself is the centrepiece.

Entrance to Angkor Thom is through one of the 5 gates, guarded by demons and angels either side of the causeway, and by Airavata, Indra’s three headed elephant, on the gates themselves.

Bayon itself, which looks like a bit of mess from here, and is incredibly higgledy-piggledy inside, with small passageways and stairs and terraces on multiple levels all mixed together like an MC Escher drawing.

Apsara’s getting jiggy. I later found out that the curved fingers depicted in this bas-relief are formed by binding back the fingers with elephant grass for longer and longer periods until they stay that way permanently. Sounds painful.

The outer walls, like Angkor Wat, are covered in carvings. These though are notable for depicting ordinary Khmer people, not only in battle, but in scenes of daily life and celebration too. As you get further into the temple though, ordinary people appear less and less.

And the faces depicted on all 4 sides of the 37 remaining towers come more and more to the fore. Everywhere you look inside the temple, multiple faces look down on you. They’re thought to resemble the face of the temple’s builder, Jayavarman VII, in a remarkably narcissistic move, which even now Aled is probably planning to emulate.

I cant decide if the faces look compassionate and beneficent, smug, or just plain constipated.

The central tower, showing the carvings, gallerys and general madness. After this we headed back to get ready for New Years Eve!

Pooey’s Last Ride

This is a sad post to have to be making. Pooey is gone. We always planned to sell him (and Rhys’ bike “Mike”) in Siep Riep. But when we left Kompng Cham a couple of days ago, we were planning on staying at a remote temple on the way. That didnt work out, so we ended up getting to Siem Riep 2 days early. So i wasn’t really ready for it. I hadn’t steeled myself for the loss.

Pooey a couple of days ago after his Christmas wash. Behold his shiny form (and “race lightened” mudguard).

He was so beautiful…

Then we put him through 2 more long days mostly spent offroad. He took  it all with the aplomb which was his habit when faced with adversity.

Although he did get the occasion rest stop. I think this was the best lunch stop of the entire trip so far. Good food, hammocks, view over a lake full of flowering lillies. But anyway, back to Pooey.

When we got to Siem Riep, Dan’s bike “Gary” (best bike name of the trip btw) was parked outside. With some other guy on it. Steff and Dan had told us they’d sold their bikes to 3 guys who wanted to do a bike trip, and that we could probably sell at least one of the bikes to them when we got there. Turns out we missed Steff and Dan leaving by about 2 hours, which was a shame. So we introduced ourselves, and a couple of hours later, Rhys’ bike was sold to Joey, one of a trio of frankly, dangerously unhinged Cockneys. I tried to sell Pooey to a girl, Elena, travelling with them, but she didnt really seem fussed. Later we went out with Joey and got absolutely hammered, going to a “happy” pizza place, then on to a succession of bars, finally ended up at Joey’s favorite hooker bar, talking to randoms and playing pool with the off-duty prostitutes. Lovely.

But recovering the next day, and resigned to having to make up “for sale” signs for Pooey, Elena came and found me, and told me she was interested in buying the bike, literally an hour before they were meant to be leaving. I gave her a test ride, and as she came back and put it on the sidestand, the weld (which has lasted since Hanoi) gave way and the footpeg fell off. Not good. But this is Asia. 20 minutes later i’d been to find a welder and he was fixed. And promptly sold.

I gave her all the bike stuff too, spares, bungees, the lot, in a grief stricken frenzy. I was going to keep the helmet as a souvenir, but i’d have to carry it around everywhere for weeks, and Elena didn’t have one, so i handed it over.

And i thought the helmet looked ridiculous on me…

Rhys’ showing understandable remorse. Joey looked please with his purchase.

Weird thing is, all these bikes, which have travelled a long way together, are united again, but now with different riders. From left to right, Steff’s bike, Rhys’ bike, my bike, and Dan’s bike. With Dougie, Joey, Elena and Lee.

And then they buggered off, taking Pooey out of my life forever.

Bitch.

And now i’m bikeless. Not a good feeling. I had to sell him, i dont have time to ride through Laos now. We might hire dirtbikes for a couple of days in Laos and go for a ride, which will be cool, but its not the same. Feels like the end of an era.