July 24, 2019 to July 28, 2019
Rest Days in Seam Reap
Some of the best days of the tour were spent in this amazing town. It got me thinking the ideal way to do these tours is connect the dots from oasis to oasis, or base to base. You bike those lines in between, then stay for extended periods of time in each base while living your nomadic existence, in this case a digital nomad. Siem Reap would definitely qualify as such a place to tack on the itinerary.
Some great news was to happen to James, he got a job confirmation in Vancouver Canada and was off to start the next phase of his life. The transition out of Hong Kong had been quick and painless for him and certainly better than most people. With only one backpack of belongings, he would hop the bus to meet some people in Ho Chi Minh city and then he would fly out of Asia mid-August. We were going to celebrate his transition for sure. Despite some major hiccups I would face over the next 5 years, his advice would later pay big dividends
As for me, I was going to keep this cycle tour going on my own. The few days of planning here in Siem Reap was needed to figure out where to go next. What better place to plan than the Apsara Dream hotel which James had helped find for me the next day to move over.
What I figured was that it seemed reasonable to just keep biking to Phnom Penh then head towards Sihanoukville and the islands. But as I researched more and talked to James who knows a lot of stuff, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. He said "You're aware that the Chinese have destroyed Sihanoukville right?"
I said "Not really, the last time I was there was in 2017 and I had an awesome time it was the same as I already remembered on all the previous trips. When did the Chinese do this, and how did it happen so fast?"
He said "They did it all in the last two years. I'm not kidding. It was right after you left and between now and then. Go and see for yourself, you will be stunned. I guarantee you this is true."
Once I heard that I knew he had to be right. I've experienced firsthand the breakneck pace of change in the Chinese mainland over many years and I know for a fact they can easily destroy something in two years. They have done it time and time again.
The real shock factor was that I didn't know they could do something like this abroad.
[Update April 2024: All it took was the covid pandemic to prove they could export chaos and pandemonium all over the world. The world in turn definitely woke up to that]
But more and more research confirmed that James was right. The reviews on TripAdvisor showed countless people in the last year alone reporting that the Chinese had bought up the land, built casinos, priced the locals out of their own area. They had also tore down all the old bars, and made a filthy mess of the entire beach from the construction and goodness knows what else. This really was sickening. Eventually I stopped the research.
Even so, I decided to first bike to Phnom Penh then make a decision. I would attend an InterNations event there and talk to more people. If they confirmed all this information then I would skip Sihanoukville altogether and go to Kampot instead.
With a bunch of time to enjoy in Siem Reap, I made the most of it and visited Angkor Wat with James, checked out a bunch of nightclubs, and also some various cultural performances.
It was at the clubs where I wanted to test out my streetsmarts as they are well known for places to go in which to target western guys and hustle them. The way in which I managed to outsmart all the touts, pickpockets, and hustlers made me rather confident that I had truly failed forward in this area and had made great strides. This competence would continue to develop in the future.
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Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 1,391 km (864 miles)
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