It was twenty minutes into the first day of biking around the temple site that I began to regret the decision to cycle. I had turned off the dusty main stretch, away from the early morning carts, rikshaws, bikes and cars weaving either side and even coming head on towards me, and had reached the paved straight which leads to the moat around Angkor Wat itself, when I pulled over to take a picture, and realised I was walking like a cowboy, and utterly drenched in sweat. The humidity was staggering.
But as rikshaw drivers hurried past me with their more sensible occupants between the sites, I walked around the temples, some deep in the jungle, others perched on top of hills, or jutting out of cleared grounds, and was blown away to the point where I forgot my saddle sores and sunburn, accepted and enjoyed my stupefaction.
