From Phnom Penh to Thailand

the easy way to fix a child onto a bike
Bayon Temple
they call her pie, georgepie

in former times the elephants were carrying the stones for the tempel, now they carry fat tourist i wonder what is worse...

the pumpkins

there is only one shady spot for this guard

monkey business

busloads of these creatures swirling around the temples

my lovely steel horse
the boatracers training for the big day

siem reap at night

slow motion
rice farmers always say hello

four! kids on a bike

one of the stonemason take away stalls


its lilly season

monks on their way back to temple after collecting food

Long time no see, but finally we managed to sit down and write again!

The place we are writing from is actually country number 2 of our trip, Thailand. How we came here we tell you now:
So after our 10 nights in Phnom Penh that we really enjoyed we took of first North to a little town called Skon and then westwards on the northern site of the big lake that kind of divides cambodia, called Tonle Sap. The roads were pretty good and the traffic only light. Actually we really really enjoyed the ride because the countryside is just beautiful! It is pancake flat, mostly wet land which means flooded rice fields or little ponds are dotted along the way beside the street and every house is build on stilts, like in the mekong delta vietnam. The people are just the friendliest people we ever met in asia, the food is delicious and cheap...nothing to complain about! On the way to Siem Riep we slept in some pretty remote places but we always felt welcome as people were smiling their heads of. We were a little bit in a hurry to get to Siem Riep because we heard that the Water festival is on which is the biggest happening for the Khmer people in the whole year. We arrived actually right in time since the whole river in the city was crowded with people preparing for the big boat race while at night hundreds of lights in the trees were shining in different colours.

The main reason most people come to Siem Reap is the mighty Angkor Thom, which is the ancient capital of the khmer empire, in former times including thailand, laos and vietnam also known as Angkor Wat.

There is not much to tell because this is something you really have to see! Splattered over many many miles are a lot of temples originated from the 9th to the 16th century and they are unbelievable beautiful and impressing! You can't see it on the pictures in its full grace and still after 3 days of visit we have only seen a little bit of it. We were cycling every day about 60kms around the area to visit the temples and escape the tour busses that flood the area from about 8.30am with flash firing armies of all nations and ages. Still there is always a way to go around the busy places or come very early in the morning to see the sun rising and we had a great time watching the monkeys play and the light change in the temples. It all has a special feel about it and one day we cycled around on top of the old outer wall were nobody else seems to go. There were massive old fig trees towering high into the sky, growing on top of the old walls made out of stone once transported there on the back of elephants from 70kms away...

The 4 Days in a busy town made it easy for us to continue our way into the sticks again, this time not as easy going because of the surface of the road. 30kms west of Siem Reap the pavement stopped on the main highway which connects Siem Reap with Bangkok, we heard it doesn't get paved because there is an national airline which is very very interested to maintain that the plane is more apealing than the bus and good old bakschisch (bribes) does its work.

After we got used to it, it wasn't too bad and we still managed to make 60 to 80kms a day with headwind and monotone food supply (soup). Once we turned of the main highway north we were as much in the sticks as never before and the people just stared at us like we were some animals from the zoo. (Actually we might have looked a bit wild with all the red dust everywhere) This 200kms of rough dirt road with potholes that can swallow a whole truck paid its toll in form of flat tire and a broken pannier mount, fixed with a shoe lace. The road got smaller and the villages were shrinking, it made us hardly believe that there would be an international border crossing but after climbing over the final hill of mud and holes we made it.

As soon as we crossed the border we found ourselves back in civilization and on billiard smooth pavement, driving on the left side again, and 7elevens to buy huge much needed ice coffees!

So long, we hope you enjoy the pictures!

We love you all

Love us back!

Write in our GUESTBOOK! (No Swearwords!!!!)

you may not hear from us for a while because we going to do a ten day meditation course in a temple in the jungle in the north of thailand with no speak no see no nothing just us and our thoughts, called vipssana.

We will write you afterwards if we haven't gone insane...

byebye