CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 505 km round trip from Siem Reap - roughly 8 h 29 in the saddle. On the way it passes Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li, Temple of Preah Vihear and back through Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Angkor is bigger than most visitors expect, and its scale only starts to make sense once you realise that it was a city, not a temple. The great complex north of Siem Reap, in north-western Cambodia, was the capital of the Khmer Empire from the ninth century to the fifteenth, and at its height it covered hundreds of square kilometres, with reservoirs, canals, roads and houses of wood that have long since vanished. What survives is the stone: Angkor Wat, built in the early twelfth century by King Suryavarman II as a temple to Vishnu, with its five towers, long galleries of carved relief and a moat that mirrors the sunrise, and Angkor Thom, the walled city built by Jayavarman VII, with the Bayon and its dozens of towers carved with huge, smiling faces.
Read the complete Angkor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Angkor is where the day begins. Next is Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li.
For a few short decades in the tenth century, the capital of the Khmer empire was not at Angkor but here, deep in the forest of northern Cambodia. King Jayavarman IV established his court at Koh Ker, then called Lingapura, and in less than twenty years his builders raised dozens of temples across a wide area, before the capital returned to Angkor. The jungle took the city back. Today Koh Ker is a scatter of brick and sandstone sanctuaries among the trees, and in 2023 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Read the complete Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li comes up about 116 km into the recorded legs. Next is Temple of Preah Vihear.
The Temple of Preah Vihear is a Khmer sanctuary built on the lip of the Dângrêk escarpment, the long sandstone wall that separates the Cambodian plain from the Thai plateau. The temple itself is Cambodian, dedicated to Shiva, and its builders, working over several centuries from the ninth century onward, laid it out as a long axis climbing from the plain to the cliff edge instead of the usual compact tower on a square.
Read the complete Temple of Preah Vihear write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 252 km into the recorded legs you reach Temple of Preah Vihear. Next is back through Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li, late in the day. Next is Angkor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Angkor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Angkor. That is the ride.
Angkor → Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li is 116 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li → Temple of Preah Vihear is 136 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Temple of Preah Vihear → back through Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li is 135 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Li → Angkor is 117 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.