Vietnam Velo Vacation

 Breakfast courtesy of the hotel- coffee french bread & jam and bananas. Packed our bags for our room move later. Strolled over to pub street for our 10 am cooking course. We were the only 2 doing it. Quick visit to the market to show us different herbs and veg and then down to chopping for what seemed like ages. Chilli. Onion. Tumeric (never seen it fresh before), garlic, veg etc. I made a mango salad, veg amok. Pete made fresh spring rolls and a curry and desert was bananas and mango. It was all very very delicious. So full we brought a goody bag back.  Our new room was ready and so much nicer. Bright white, good layout, light with a balcony overlooking the pool. Spent most of the afternoon by the pool reading and watching the younger generation have fun. My bike was picked up by a tuk tuk to be taken to a bus and then transported back to Banlung for BeeBee. Very sad to see it go.  Finished our left overs from the cooking course and ventured to Pub street. Still a b...

 Pancakes, fruit and coffee for breakfast chez Mr Bun and then packed our gear up for our last cycle with panniers to a central hotel in Siem Reap that I booked back in December.  Waited for the girls to finish morning school to say goodbye, although we are dropping Pete's bike off there tomorrow afternoon and staying for a meal so will see them again,  and set off. Our room at Blossoming  Roundel Boutique was very depressing- dull orange, dark, little view! Very disappointing as the photos had looked so good! We counted up the money we had left - thought it was plenty for 2 days but then bought 2 Man City shirts for Mr Bun and Champion, in the market,  a case of beer to take them and lunch out and that was us just about wiped out!  Lazy afternoon by the pool and saw what looked like much nicer rooms with balconies. Enquired and for $2 more per night, we could move into one the next morning.  Booked onto a cookery course for tomorrow in pub street- yep...

 Jenny has a fear of rodents and I’m not awfully keen, so I was surprised when she said she wanted to visit the Apopo Hero Rat Centre. These are no ordinary rats, they are highly trained animals that are able after their training to sniff out tnt a major ingredient in the production of land mines and other explosive devices. The Apopo organisation is a not for profit charity that clears land mines from war torn countries and ensures that productive land can be made safe and put back into food production. The Tanzanian giant rats are used for this purpose and using Pavlovian techniques are trained to find buried mines using food as a reward. The place was fascinating but we both declined the offer to hold Alvy the Tanzanian rat. The number of deaths and injuries from the remains of these weapons of war is staggering and the number of areas still awaiting to be cleared is alarming, venturing away from paths and roads could be fatal!! These mines are the consequence of the war between...

 Temple Day!  I researched the numerous blogs on line and found a suggested cycle route for a day tour. The temples are quite far apart so we knew we would just see a few but hopefully we would remember them.  With another 36 degree heat looming, we left at 7.30am after Mr Buns scrumptious breakfast of pancake and fruit. Angkor Wat was our first stop. Built in the 12th century, and described as a hindu- Buddhist temple, it is huge and magnificent. Thousands come here each morning for sunrise, but not wanting the crowds or the early start, we found the numbers fine at this later time. After a chilled stroll around and a cold drink we cycled onto the next temple. All the temples we saw were subtly different in size, construction, level of condition and degree to which they had been restored. One in particular was known as the temple with trees growing out of it. We overheard one guide saying at this temple that if a seed takes root within the walls, this is now removed to p...

 Apologies for the appearance of yesterday's blog. Not sure why the bold text was there and Pete spent a good while trying to delete it but to no avail.  Started the day with a lovely breakfast if pancakes and fresh fruit cooked by Mr Bun, our homestay host. Pete and I chilled for a while before venturing to the market where I bought some baggy trousers for the temple visit, Pete topped up the internet on the travel mobile and then had a haircut for $2.  Back to the homestay for a few hours before venturing out again on bikes to purchase a ticket for the Angkor Wat temples for tomorrow. If you buy a ticket after 5pm for the next day you can that evening go and see the sunset by the temples. Unfortunately I picked the closest temple. Arrived at 5.20 and the temple area  closed at 5.30, so we viewed the sunset from our return cycle to the homestay.  As well as breakfast, the homestay provides an evening meal. There are 6 of us staying here so with the family it's ...

 We left at 12:30pm having had a relaxing breakfast and morning dip in the pool- that is me anyway. Jen decided to get up at 5 to cycle up a mountain to see the sunrise- an 11 mile round trip. Not a problem as today was an easy 12km to our next planned stay in the nearby village Homestay.  Things didn’t work out as planned, when we got to the Homestay that was very primitive and not the best accommodation, they began with a charge of $50 (including meals) we paid less than that at the boojie hotel yesterday. With some negotiations that came down to $25 but by which time we did not feel comfortable about staying as they had tried to rip us off. It was now 1pm and very hot. Should we stay and forget our principles or leave and take our chances - we decided to leave and cycle the 60 km to Siem Reap in the burning afternoon sun. Jen was worried as she had already put in some hard miles. We followed Komoot into Siem Reap unfortunately the road it took us on was restricted to those ...