Day 8 - Tbeng Meanchey to Koh Ker

This morning we let our dodgy hotel and headed off to Prasat Preah Vihear - a temple on the border with Thailand.  Unfortunately for Tracey and Mr Happy they got a flat just as they were leaving.  Sapa and I had already headed off and after a quick phone call Sapa said we would keep going but slower which was great as I could take a few photos.  Eventually Tracey and Mr H over took us and we stopped in Sra Em for a 10 min break which turned into 1 hour as Sapa discovered a crack in his back rim (probably from hitting the pot holes the day before.  He went off to have it welded up.  It is such a contrast to Australia that they can go and get something fixed straight away.  While we waited we wandered through the street markets looking for frog kebabs for Tracey, but couldn't even find cooked fish.  She bought a donut type thing and I bought roasted green bananas, neither were very edible. In our wanders Tracey made friends with a local child who seemed quite friendly but then started to punch and pinch us.  Turns out that we hadn't upset her at all, this is just what kids do here when they like you... or so our guide told us.  

(Tracey wearing her new purchase - a fish mongers hat)

Finally the bike was fixed, our guides had demolished their massive lunch and we were finally back on the road to Prasat Preah Vihear.  We got to the ticket booth were we had to present our passports and have an entry ticket written up (although it is free to enter) and then we had to pay $5 for a local guy to drive us up the hill while our guides waited under a tree in hammocks.  

The road up the hill was quite steep in parts and was a little scary particularly as at one point I didn't think the bike I was on had enough guts to make it.  Each of the bikes has a 4 litre bottle of water in the step through section somehow connected to the engine to cool the motor as they easily over heat due to the work out they get on the hill.  On the road up we passed police with rifles sitting looking bored, huts were quite poor people are living and near the top an intense game of volleyball playing out between the local men. Despite the poor living conditions we are seeing around Cambodia, most people seem to not be suffering from hunger.

We asked the transport guys to come back in1.5hours and then walked up the final section to the temple ruins.  At first we thought that we had given way to much time, but it all just kept unfolding with every turn.  A local man latched on to us and kept suggesting good spots for taking photos and then showed us where bullets from Thailand had shot up parts of the steps and statutes, as well as showing us an unexplored (?) mini missile thing, which we think might have just been planted there.

This temple was definitely a highlight and worth the day and a half on the bike to get to.  And to top it off there was hardly anyone around to get in the way of the perfect photos... Always a bonus!

Back down the hill we traded bikes and guides and then headed off to Koh Ker where we would stay overnight and see another lot of temples in the morning.

The guest house there was a bit grotty but there was no real option.  We had to eat there as well as it was too far to walk into town.  Unfortunately they apparently had no food so rather that asking us what we wanted they just made steamed rice with an egg and onion omelet, as I can't eat onion it was going to be steamed rice with chilli sauce for me, however they seemed to find another egg (maybe from under a chock somewhere) and I got a fried egg as well.