There is no need to go into temple ruin overload when in Siem Reap, as there are plenty of other sights, sounds, and smells to experience in this exotic part of the world.
Technically, it's not legal to hire a motorbike in Siem Reap if you are on a tourist visa, but most rental places do not enforce this rule. However, be cautious about doing so, due to the high number of accidents, and check whether your travel insurance will cover you in the event of an accident. If you are tired of tuk-tuk transport, grab a new best friend for a day who has a motorbike. I do mean through a travel agency, not a random figure on the roadside, and go exploring out in the countryside as a pillion passenger. Spend a few hours bumping over the outlying dirt roads and relish in what the countryside has to offer. You will come across random villages, see the life of a local working farmer, smile at the young boys climbing trees to collect palm oil, and laugh with the kids who will run along beside the bike. This is the true face of rural Cambodian people. You may have one of those 'feel-good' moments interacting with the locals, and you will definitely get some fresh air.
There are several national parks reachable from Siem Reap for a day’s excursion or an overnight run away. Jungle trekking and peeping at the local wildlife is best in the Virachey National Park, and Bokor National Park (south near Kampot) is an historical haven of colonial buildings such as the abandoned French colonial Bokor Hill Station and the Bokor Palace sitting amidst temples, and waterfalls under the canopy of a dense rainforest. While the Phnom Kulen National Park is famous for its stunning waterfalls and smothered in the remnants of the birth of the Khmer Empire in AD 802. Phnom Kulen is an isolated small mountain range formed of sandstone of which the national park forms part. It’s located about 48 kilometers from Siem Reap and considered a holy mountain with special religious significance for Hindus and Buddhists.
This is where you find the Siem Reap River, which is the source for all the water flowing through the Angkor Temples complex. It is also revered as one of only two places on earth that Buddha is supposedly to have stepped. It’s a sacred forested wonderland of ancient and primitive mystique. Remote temples hide in the jungle, and there is the astounding 'River of a Thousand Lingas', which is an ancient Angkorian site of hundreds of carved lingas (an ancient representation of the Hindu God Shiva) in the riverbed of the Kbal Spean River that are tributes to the god. The water here is considered holy, as this was where Jayavarman II would indulge in his daily bath, and the river ends in a beautiful waterfall and pool. There are also the remnants of the ancient Khmer city and possibly the first capital of the Angkorian empire, Mahendraparvata, smothered in dense jungle with only hints of its once urban complex presence mapped out by LiDAR technology.
If being on the back of a motor bike doesn't hold any fear for you, then tackle the long ride to the Phnom Kulen National Park and go where bikes really aren't meant to go as there is no track, to find the massive stone elephant which normally only hikers get to see—it’s not on any regular tourist hit list. Being on the lazy side and having the opportunity to go on the back of a motorbike, rather than hiking for hot dusty miles, I thought my rear would be able to handle this trip labelled only for the ‘die hards'. I was soon to experience a true mountain motorbike bush bash over bumpy, potholed roads and what were meant to be dirt tracks, which left a lot to be desired.
My guide and I sailed along on our scooter over roads that held rice grain drying in the sun everywhere on blue tarps, even on the side of the main highway. We laughed at little pigs in woven cages perched on the back of rickety motorbikes. We fleetingly watched young boys fishing with nets or swimming in the wide irrigation streams along the roadside. Masses of people, the women wearing the most archaic bonnets and the men coolie hats, bobbed up and down in the rice fields, as it was harvest time. It was as if the main highway didn't exist for the locals. It was a part of their farming landscape to the point that even the bullocks were lounging on the side of the roadway, having a nice feed.
Once we hit the dirt track of the National Park our ‘sailing’ turned into a torturous but hilarious maneuvering of red mud slippery hillsides, rocky river crossings and bamboo pole bridges all but collapsing. In the midst of virtually nowhere, a mammoth stone-carved moss covered elephant, ‘Srah Damrei', held court over archaic stone ‘almost’ discernable statues of a legless cow and a gigantic frog. Standing sentry on a nearby hill were two huge lion statues and warrior bas-relief carvings. We gaped in awe, as we stood very much alone in this sacred and isolated area, which paid homage to warriors of another era that had been created in the 8th or 9th Centuries.
We then preceded to the remote Preah Ang Thom Pagoda, a Buddhist monastery from the 16th Century which houses the treasured and the largest reclining statue of Buddha in Cambodia—a figure reclining for 8-meters long carved into a sandstone boulder. After many steps up (too many) as the Pagoda is built into a cliff face there were golden flags hanging everywhere, lazily weaving their magic in a gentle breeze. A Cambodian soothsayer was predicting a family's fortunes, or maybe misfortunes, inside the temple.
Twenty minutes more of bush riding and I deigned to put my swimmers on in a little changing hut built on the rocks beside one of the two gushing waterfalls in the national park. Slipping and sliding precariously and in a most unladylike fashion, I fell into water that literally took my breath away as it was so cold. Even the water is meant to be sacred, cleansing, and restorative to anyone who bathes in it. With flower-bedecked bamboo swings surrounding the water, it looked like a scene from a fairytale. I was waiting for little mythical creatures to flutter about in the sparkling water spray.
Then we raced the dusk back to town along the highway, where sweet potato by the bucketful is laid out to dry in the sun on the roadside for miles.
And yes, I had plenty of ‘feel good’ moments that day.
For a reputable tour company in Siem Reap head to the offices of Beyond Unique Escapes.
Gail Palethorpe, a self proclaimed Australian gypsy, is a freelance writer, photographer and eternal traveller. Check out her website Gail Palethorpe Photography and her Shutterstock profile.
