Day 2: Bring on the heat, bring on the temples!

By 8am as we prepped our bikes for the day ahead the sun was already pounding down on us. Thankfully, this time we were ready for it, embracing its all-encompassing warmth that brings red faces, feeling puffed, and sweat. Lots and lots of sweat!

Today we did a mad dash around the Angkor complex, stopping at Angkor Thom, the Tomb Raider jungle temple, the lady's temple, and finally Angkoor Wot itself - the crowning achievement of what was one of the world's first great civilisations. When Angkor was a bustling metropolis of more than 1 million people, London was a country village of just 50,000. It's truly remarkable.

The intricate detail of the peering faces at Angkor Thom were spectacular. What wasn't so spectacular was the human wal l of unaware tourists in every possible direction. Still, we managed to snap some brilliant group shots and agree on a photo theme for the day: JUMPING!

Jumped at Angkor Thom and we jumped at Angkor Wot. Dan got funky and super excited at the jungle temple and then joined Claire in the all-star jumping photo at Angkor Wot. It was an all-out fun-splosion!

As we also needed to cover 60km on the cycles today, we hunkered down and did the second bigger portion - 35 kilometres - in two big sections jut before the afternoon heat took our breath away. In fact, we even worked in a ACTUAL 10km bike race, with special congrats to Sam and Amy, who were victorious!

Our day finished at the awe-inspiring Angkor Wot, where we firt met a group of monks who asked us, "why are you wearing matching outfits?" To which we responded, "we are a charity group on a challenge together. Why are you wearing the same outfit?" They thought this was hilarious!

From there it was inside to begin one of the trip's major challenges: a photo hunt through the entire complex for three very specific reliefs. While everyone started quite casually, within ten minutes you could tell the teams were edging for victory. In fact, the entire thing ended in a full-on running race across the complex (note the two matching shirts in the bottom left of the picture below).

Mindshare claimed victory, with MediaCom a close second thanks to Amy's brilliant hustle at the end! It was another dip in the pool for us (60km in 42-degree heat is no laughing matter) followed by dinner and bed. Tomorrow is an early one. 75 kilometres to cover!

GO TEAM!

P.S. A special shoutout to Liz, who struggled (but succeeded) to take a photo of some tourists using their POLAROID HELLO KITTY CAMERA. Yes, that happened. Well done!