APSARA National Authority has built a bicycle bridge along the bridge of Takeo Temple to facilitate the cycling of tourists in the Angkor site more easily.

Sok Soseila, Deputy Director of the Department of Water, Forestry and Infrastructure Management of the APSARA National Authority, said that the APSARA started building bicycle tracks at the Angkor site in 2020 to facilitate tourists who enjoy cycling. The bike tracks in the Angkor site have a total length of more than 23 kilometers, including four bridges.

Takeo Temple Bicycle Bridge is one of the four locations above which the APSARA National Authority built to accommodate cyclists who want to differentiate between the road or the general travel bridge and the bicycle road.

The bridge is 2.5 meters wide and 65 meters long. The other three bicycle bridges include the Angkor, Kraing Krouch, and Neak Poan. Apart from this, there are also small bridges across two other places, such as the Yosothor moat and the former Neak Poan water gate.

The main purpose of establishing bicycle tracks in Angkor is to separate the normal traffic roads and bicycle tracks to promote cycling, reducing accidents on the road between motorists and cyclists especially to reduce vehicle exhaust that affects the temples.

As for the style of construction of the bicycle bridge, Soseila stated that he chose a simple arrangement similar to the surrounding nature without creating anything new and prominent, in line with the management’s concept that conservation goes hand in hand with development.

Soseilaalso suggested that tourists participate in promoting more cycling in the Angkor area to change the environment, because cycling gives us enough time to visit or study the surrounding nature, especially eliminate toxic fumes that are harmful to the conservation of the temple.