Our Great Adventure: Day 69 26/11/2014

We had planned to go to Phnom Kulen today, a sacred mountain north east of Siem Reap. After doing a bit more researched and taking account of the cost of the taxi journey (it's too far to go by tuk tuk and there is no local bus) and entrance fees (which don't go to support any restoration or conservation work) we decided against it. We are on a budget after all which Diane is tasked with managing! Instead we had a leisurely start to the day and then borrowed bikes from the hotel. We still had one day left on our pass for Angkor and thought we should make use of it. It was glorious sunshine as we set off and although the slight breeze helped to avoid overheating you could feel the intensity of the sun. The plan was to visit the 9 gates of Angkor Thorm (we'd seen a few over the past two days but not all). We entered via the South Gate and soon realised that our plan was flawed as there was no road to go west to the Preah Chrung South West Gate and the bikes certainly weren't up for off road. Clearly the white lines are the map do not represent roads! Instead we headed north passing Bayon and then west along a rough but accessible track to visit the West Gate, similar to the South but in need of restoration. We had to retrace our steps from here back to Bayon and then headed north again to the North Gate. No road east from there so we retraced our steps again to Bayon and headed east but were unable to reach Deads Gate. By now the sky had started to darken and it wasn't long before the rain came. We settled under the trees at the roadside which didn't function particularly well as an umbrella. Simon wondered why he'd taken Diane's advice and left the ponchos at the hotel. The rain eased off so we headed off again only to get less than 50m before we were in the trees again. This time we had a tropical downpour and got absolutely drenched! Feeling slightly deflated we decided to head back to town (plus the bikes weren't great and we'd both got very painful posteriors by now). We arrived looking a bit bedraggled and feeling slightly out of place still extremely wet - it hadn't rained one drop in Siem Reap! Despite this is was good to get out and you do see a different perspective from a bicycle. We had lunch at a local bar and then headed back to our hotel to dry off and enjoy a dip in the pool. Later we packed ready for our onward journey tomorrow and had dinner at the hotel which has a lovely restaurant setting overlooking the pool with an open plan kitchen area. Definitely a place we'd recommend and one that is going to be hard to beat.