Break Downs Including A Tuk Tuk and A Temple
With the AC that didn't work, my sleep was just okay. I was so tired from our huge day yesterday that it didn't matter for the first few hours but eventually, I did wake up sweaty a couple times. I got up kind of early and went across the street to do some blogging. The lobby area of this hostel is comfortable for me so I didn't mind hanging out. I got a banana shake while I waited for Lacey to get up.
We had breakfast and talked about what to do today. We have a plan for the next couple days. We'll do an adventurous motorbike tour up a mountain on Thursday and see the sunrise at Angkor Wat on Friday before we fly back to Bangkok. That just left us with questions for today. After some research, we decided to go to Beng Mealea. It's a mildly ruined temple farrrr out from the city (about 50 miles). The distance from the city means very few crowds but also limited options to get there. It's $30 to use a tuk-tuk and $65 to use a car. We're going kind of cheap so we did the tuk-tuk. Little did we know the adventure we were getting into.
Driving at around 40 or 50 km/h on the highway with trucks and cars whizzing by you can be pretty nerve-wracking if you think about it too much. Luckily, we didn't really have a care in the world so we just sat back and enjoyed the ride. In a tuk-tuk, it should have taken us about 1.5 hours or so but this ride took longer.
We got about halfway to the temple and the motorbike started to sound a little weird. Then it started to sound really weird. Eventually, it pooped out. The driver adjusted a couple knobs, said the heat was not great for the bike, and we went again. Then it broke down again about 10 miles out. After fixing it, it still didn't sound good so we stopped and the driver's brother came and picked us up and took us to the temple. If we had other plans for the day or were not in a happy mood to start, I think this would have been very discouraging and alarming but we had a good time with it and just enjoyed the adventure. It took us just over 2 hours total to get to the temple.
Driving through the countryside was really interesting and we both enjoyed watching it go by (even if we did go very slowly at the end haha). The houses are all built on stilts to help protect against rains. Just about every single person gets around via motorbike. We drove by a lot of schools too so it was interesting seeing everyone leave the school with bicycles or motorbikes. It's hard to describe but we appreciated seeing a different side to Cambodia.
Beng Mealea was billed online as one of the best Angkor Wat temple experiences. They said you would feel like Indiana Jones climbing over rocks and seeing a truly jungle covered temple. We did not see that. I think they've done a bunch of jungle clearing around the temple in recent years. Also, there's a lot of wooden walkways and stairs and stuff to get to see that inside of the temple. It was still cool, don't get me wrong. But we were a little underwhelmed after the temples we saw the day before. A sizable chunk of the walking path was just walking around the outside walls of the complex. Like, again, that's nice but we were expecting a little bit more. Long story short, we were really glad we only paid $30 and not more to get there.
We got back to our tuk-tuk and the driver said it was all fixed and we should be good to get back to our hostel. Keyword: "should". Most of the drive was really good. Then we got into the city area and, of course, we got a flat tire. What a mess haha. We felt so bad for the driver; this must have been the bad day to end all bad days for him. The driver stopped at a mechanic shop and got the tire fixed in 10 mins. We finally ended our tuk-tuk adventure back at the hostel.
The rest of the night we just hung out in the lobby and in our room. Lacey was awesome and talked to the office and we got our room changed so we had AC. I wrote another blog. We ate dinner at the hostel because it was easy. I had Beef Lok Lak which is a Cambodian thing. It is beef stewed in a sauce with capers and onions. It was good! Lacey had fried rice and she realllllly liked it.
We ended the day with some fried ice cream at the Night Market. Fried ice cream here in Cambodia means they mix up the ingredients on an anti-griddle which cools everything down quickly. Then they flatten out the ice cream and roll it up into little rolls. I thought it was delicious but Lacey wasn't as into it.
Tomorrow is our big motorbike adventure!
 |
| Broken Down Tuk Tuk |
We had breakfast and talked about what to do today. We have a plan for the next couple days. We'll do an adventurous motorbike tour up a mountain on Thursday and see the sunrise at Angkor Wat on Friday before we fly back to Bangkok. That just left us with questions for today. After some research, we decided to go to Beng Mealea. It's a mildly ruined temple farrrr out from the city (about 50 miles). The distance from the city means very few crowds but also limited options to get there. It's $30 to use a tuk-tuk and $65 to use a car. We're going kind of cheap so we did the tuk-tuk. Little did we know the adventure we were getting into.
Driving at around 40 or 50 km/h on the highway with trucks and cars whizzing by you can be pretty nerve-wracking if you think about it too much. Luckily, we didn't really have a care in the world so we just sat back and enjoyed the ride. In a tuk-tuk, it should have taken us about 1.5 hours or so but this ride took longer.
 |
| Ruins of a Library |
We got about halfway to the temple and the motorbike started to sound a little weird. Then it started to sound really weird. Eventually, it pooped out. The driver adjusted a couple knobs, said the heat was not great for the bike, and we went again. Then it broke down again about 10 miles out. After fixing it, it still didn't sound good so we stopped and the driver's brother came and picked us up and took us to the temple. If we had other plans for the day or were not in a happy mood to start, I think this would have been very discouraging and alarming but we had a good time with it and just enjoyed the adventure. It took us just over 2 hours total to get to the temple.
Driving through the countryside was really interesting and we both enjoyed watching it go by (even if we did go very slowly at the end haha). The houses are all built on stilts to help protect against rains. Just about every single person gets around via motorbike. We drove by a lot of schools too so it was interesting seeing everyone leave the school with bicycles or motorbikes. It's hard to describe but we appreciated seeing a different side to Cambodia.
 |
| Beng Mealea Walkways |
Beng Mealea was billed online as one of the best Angkor Wat temple experiences. They said you would feel like Indiana Jones climbing over rocks and seeing a truly jungle covered temple. We did not see that. I think they've done a bunch of jungle clearing around the temple in recent years. Also, there's a lot of wooden walkways and stairs and stuff to get to see that inside of the temple. It was still cool, don't get me wrong. But we were a little underwhelmed after the temples we saw the day before. A sizable chunk of the walking path was just walking around the outside walls of the complex. Like, again, that's nice but we were expecting a little bit more. Long story short, we were really glad we only paid $30 and not more to get there.
 |
| Cambodia Countryside |
We got back to our tuk-tuk and the driver said it was all fixed and we should be good to get back to our hostel. Keyword: "should". Most of the drive was really good. Then we got into the city area and, of course, we got a flat tire. What a mess haha. We felt so bad for the driver; this must have been the bad day to end all bad days for him. The driver stopped at a mechanic shop and got the tire fixed in 10 mins. We finally ended our tuk-tuk adventure back at the hostel.
 |
| Flat Tire |
The rest of the night we just hung out in the lobby and in our room. Lacey was awesome and talked to the office and we got our room changed so we had AC. I wrote another blog. We ate dinner at the hostel because it was easy. I had Beef Lok Lak which is a Cambodian thing. It is beef stewed in a sauce with capers and onions. It was good! Lacey had fried rice and she realllllly liked it.
We ended the day with some fried ice cream at the Night Market. Fried ice cream here in Cambodia means they mix up the ingredients on an anti-griddle which cools everything down quickly. Then they flatten out the ice cream and roll it up into little rolls. I thought it was delicious but Lacey wasn't as into it.
Tomorrow is our big motorbike adventure!
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