Over dinner the previous evening, I had promised to accompany Juli to go and catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat, which was supposed to be a big deal. Ryan, a traveller from the US, who was also staying at the same guesthouse was keen to join us. Juli showed up promptly at 5 am to wake me up, and along with Ryan, we rented three bicycles from the guesthouse. A lot of people had the exact same idea, as we saw heaps of bicycles headed in the same direction. But about halfway to the temple we suffered a setback when Juli’s bike got a flat tyre. Time was running out because the Sun wasn’t going to wait for us; and I had no intention of putting myself through the torture of waking up this early again the next day. So I told Juli to lock her bicycle by the side of the road, and hop on behind me on the carrier of my bicycle.

Ultimately, we made it Angkor Wat in time for the sunrise, which was actually quite a nice spectacle.

At 5 am, Ryan & I totally groggy, while Juli is clearly wide awake

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

From there, we cycled to the massive temple of Bayon (the one with the huge stone faces) and then on to Phrae Khan. We decided to leave Juli’s bike where we had locked it earlier and deal with it later on the way back. Ryan & I took turns to take Juli on our bikes. Ryan had to head back early as he had some work in town, so on the way back, Juli & I only had a single bicycle. So we took turns in pulling the weight and being the weight.

What a striking resemblance we have

Close up of the ancient man

When we got back to Angkor Wat, we hired a motorbike taxi. Our plan was that we’d go to Juli’s bicyle with the flat-tyre, I would sit behind on the motorbike taxi and carry it, while Juli rode my bicycle back to the guesthouse. But there was a problem. When we got to the spot where we had parked the bicycle early in the morning, it wasn’t there. The driver of the motorbike taxi and I looked everywhere around in the vicinity but the bicycle was nowhere to be found. It was obvious that someone had stolen it, as we hadn’t locked it to anything. We waited for Juli to get there and gave her the bad news. She was distraught because it was a new bicycle, and the guesthouse was sure to ask her to reimburse it in full.

The driver of the motorbike taxi asked us to wait there and rode away. In a short while, he returned with two policemen who also looked around a little, and then told us what we already knew - that it was careless of us to have parked the bicycle by the side of the road without securing it to anything else. One of the policemen then spoke into his walkie-talkie, and then broke into a smile. Some other policemen had found a bicycle by the side of the road and had taken it to one of their nearby camps.

One of the policemen offered to take me there on his motorcycle. I asked Juli to go on ahead to the guesthouse with my bicycle, and the driver of the motorbike taxi to follow the policeman’s motorcycle. Once at the police camp, I was happy to find out that it was indeed our bicycle that the cops had confiscated. It was as obvious as daylight that the main cop at the camp expected some sort of bribe for letting me take the bicycle, but I played the clueless tourist who doesn’t know the ways of the world almost to perfection. I gave him my most sincere thanks and a vigorous two-handed handshake and quickly placed the bicycle and myself on the motorbike taxi. The driver of the motorbike taxi was a smart man and understood my plan immediately. Before the cops could figure out a way to stop us, he had started the motorbike and we were gone. Back at the guesthouse, I gave the driver of the motorbike taxi a generous 5 USD tip. He had truly earned it.