
We started our day off at 4:30 am. Early enough to have a light breakfast, coffee and pedal our way into the temples of Angkor for sunrise.
Eric gave us a very convincing outline for a one day bike tour through the temples: skip right over Angkor Wat, which is where everybody and their mother heads for sunrise and go straight to Phnom Bakheng, known as the sunset temple (the time when it is normally inundated by the crowds), which was completely abandoned when we got there. From then on we’d go in the opposite direction of the masses, more or less following the same pattern given in the Lonely Planet, through Angkor Thom and onto Ta Phrom and everything in between. Angkor Wat would be our final destination.

We missed sunrise by about 10 minutes but only because we climbed up the wrong temple (too steep of a climb that early in the morning) which didn’t even clear the top of the tree canopy.
Once atop Phnom Bekhong, there was nothing but us, the sky and the deep horizon. You could see for miles in each direction and it was absurdly quiet.

After a good half hour of peace and quiet, we headed into Angkor Thom toward Bayon but deviated from the customary path and carried our bikes to the top of Angkor Thom’s wall for a more scenic route.

Per Eric, it was about 3km worth of biking through vegetation, spider webs, a few statues and (very) small buildings. The detour left us on the East entrance to Angkor Thom, on a dirt road heading straight to the temple of Bayon. A very shady and pleasant ride into one of the most popular of the temples of Angkor.
Even with the extended route, we found the Temple of Bayon almost empty.

The place is incredible. Hundreds of faces adorn the site; they are supposedly the face of the king responsible for erecting the building, and they keep an eye on the temple visitors. The place is big enough to get lost, which I sort of did when I became separated from my biking mates.

As we were leaving, we caught the first wave of tourists making their way into the temple. Close call.
Bayon is in the center of an area known as Angkor Thom with several other smaller sites, shrines and temples distributed within its walls, with bunch of those immediately north of Bayon. The Royal Palace, The Terrace of Elephants and The Terrace of the Leper King are some of its most popular sites. We walked about these, decided to forgo climbing a few temples in the area and broke for a picnic at the Terrace of the Elephants.

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch.

After lunch, we hit Ta Nei. To reach this temple, we had to get off the main road (at the bend between Ta Keo & Ta Phrom) and onto a dirt road, parts of which was covered in water. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were the first (or only) people to visit this temple all day. It was small, covered in moss and being swallowed by the Cambodian jungle. It was great.

Above are the steep stairs of Ta Keo. I promise you that climbing up those steps is the closest you’ll ever come to being Spiderman. There is a nice (and flat) view from the top. The very narrow steps make the climb down a lot more treacherous but using the big, flat blocks framing the staircase can make your climb a whole lot easier, safer & 10X faster. (Surprisingly, I was the only one doing it.)

Next up was the famous Ta Phrom. Besides Angkor Wat, this was the only temple where we ran into a massive amount of tourists, but since it’s a lot more compact than Angkor Wat, it made it tougher to navigate. And because of its popularity, it will take (and took me) forever to take a decent shot, but it is all a slight nuisance relative to the stunning beauty of the place.

The temple is in the process of being taken over by giant trees and going through it feels like walking through a still shot of a battle between humankind and nature-with the building standing in nature’s war path.

The site got a lot of notice for its use in the movies Tomb Raider and Two Brothers, and one of the trees made the cover of the Cambodian edition of the Lonely Planet a few years back and now has its own platform, from where thousands of tourists get their picture taken.

The temple might be compact, but it is big. It’s big enough that once again, I split up with my crew, coming out on the East gate instead of the West (where we parked our bikes). I was lucky enough to get a free bus ride back.
By this time it was noon and we were exhausted. We found a bench area just outside Ta Phrom where we knocked out for an hour or so.
After our nap, we stopped at a couple of very small temples along the 6km ride to Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is massive. There are lots of tourists around and plenty of food vendors claiming that you can park your bikes in the area for free, if you buy their food. And after a full day of amazing temples, I had simply ran out of excitement. Not to say that Angkor Wat was not, but Bayon and Ta Phrom were far more impressive. Even its very prominent central towers were closed to the public due to maintenance (and overuse). As a plus, the green canvas covering part of the façade of the towers made for an awesome photo op.

I think Angkor Wat would have been better left for a single day on its own. Green canvas or not, I’m sure I would have had a more enjoyable visit without 9+ hours of walking and biking under my belt.

The highlight of Angkor Wat was our short convo (and pics!) with a couple of monks there. Buddhist monks have tended to be on the shy side for the most part (and these were too!), then again, there are all sorts of types of monks out there.

By the time we pedaled out of the temple area, we were exhausted, hungry, terribly sun burned and oh so ready for an ice cold beer and a shower.