After my next pitstop in Phnom Pen [documented in an entry posted in February], I left again bright and early for Siem Reap, the logistic base for the one cash cow the Cambodian rulers enjoy: the Archeological sites of Angkor. When I was ready for the sites, I rented a bike and in 100 F (38 C) stifling heat, I started getting the much yearned exercise I had been longing for. I got plenty of it: once I got to the entrance to Angkor Wat, I was told I needed a ticket, but that I had to go back to town to get it. How could have I missed the signs? Because there aren’t any not written in sanskrit (rather, its script adapted to khmer language) and nobody tells you anything, unless you ask. But you look at the map and think: these people will be out with all bells and ribbons to get $ 20 a day (with discounts for 3 or 7 day passes), they must be at every entrance. Wrong: the guards are, to tell you that there’s only one location where you can have the priilege to give them money and it is miles and miles away. The site is vast and the private company that has an exclusive contract with the Cambodian government to run the place, does not care about much but this: making you suffer to give them money, it seemed to be its motto. Apparently, they are afraid that if available in more than one location passes could be easily falsified. And they can be: they are computer printouts, though with each bearer’s photo. But while I passed miles of desolate countryside (not the way there I had chosen spontaneously, the nicest, re-forrested road, since it had turned out to be the shortest too) with impending construction of more “luxury infrastructure” for the free spending “this is just like Giza or Rome” tourist all this is geared towards, I was seething with rage. There were a few bikers, a couple told me they had done the same thing I did the day before and I saved another couple from doing it. At the end of a day spent unwittingly trailing me, I directed them back toward town (it was after dark and by then I knew my way around pretty well) and they offered me “something to smoke” which I declined, though I told them I appreciated the symbolism of the offer: it was obviously something precious and important to them and the guide books warn against any kind of possession or purchase, which can bring “Midnight Express” kind of trouble, in their say.