Explore the soulful ruins within Angkor Wat by mountain bike - a UN World Heritage site with more than 100 ruins that lie across the 150 square mile preserve.

If you want adventure - Cambodia will oblige. Many guys visit Angkor among the main temples bhy hired car or moto. But the UN World Heritage site holds far more than Angkor Wat, the moated temple-mountain that is Cambodia's signature image. More than 100 ruins lie across the 150-square mile preserve, not to mention farming villages and a network of cart tracks and footpaths. So explore this souful landscape by mountain bike. In Cambodia's two-wheeled culture, it seems the perfect way to avoid the herds of tourists and seek out some unprogrammed experiences.

Since the Khmer Rouge's collapse in 1998, tourism to Cambodia has exploded, especially in Siem Reap, a once-catatonic provincial capital four miles south of Angkor Wat now bursting with hotels, restaurants, and bars. Get a head start on the Small Circuit, an 11-mile route around Angkor's greatest hits. Start early because by 7AM package tourists already flood Angkor Wat's western entrance. Push another mile north to the ancient walled city of Angkor Thom. The road is smooth and empty, the forest alive with the chatter of birds and macaque monkeys.

For the next hour you'll have Angkor Thom's centerpiece temple, the 800-year-old Bayon - with its human-face towers and bas-reliefs of brutal battles - practically all to yourself. Wisps of incense come from a small, second-tier shrine where an elderly Buddhist monk blesses your journey. Don't exhaust that karma, however, for your next leg, a three-mile passage to Ta Prohm. The near-flat terrain should mean easy cycling, but vans and buses dash along the circuit at NASCAR speeds. You'll be relieved to reach Ta Prohm, where the roots of enormous trees grip the stones in a loving, lethal embrace. Spend the next hour bantering with monks practicing their English and scrambling over the temple's collapsed galleries.

It's a 20-minute ride back to Angkor Wat east gate and make for the nearest gallery of bas-reliefs to admire "Churning of the Ocean of Milk," a tug-of-war between gods and monsters stretching across 50 yards of sandstone. Nearby, other elaborate carvings depict a Khmer-style hell: men in chains, men devoured by wild animals, and men hearded onto tour buses...LOL.

The next morning head to the Roluos group, a cluster of ninth-century temples nearly 15 miles east of Angkor Wat. Thread through market-bound motos overloaded with firewood, slaughtered pigs, and baguettes, and cruise through the patchwork of paddy on Highway 6. Your plan is to off-road from Roluos to Banteay Samre, about 10 miles north. Warning: anything beyond 12 miles from Siem Reap will put you at risk of land mines.

The "road" is a sunburnt slog of dust, ruts, and kettle-size holes through an improverished frontier of marginal fields and rude huts. After an hour of bucking and bouncing in low gears and high temperatures, you'll arrive in a hamlet where you can buy a warm Coke.

After another hour's joust, leavened only by sightings of mongooses, and a viper, you'll reach Banteay Square. After a 24-mile pounding that has yielded only a handful of ruins, you might be too beat to appreciate the temple's elegant stonework. The next day, give yourself a break by riding in the shade and have a greater temple payoff. The trick will be escaping the traffic and mobs.

To get around the hundreds of tourists milling about the south gate, take a path atop the 30-foot high walls, which run nearly eight miles in a perfect square. After a short, steep climb, the silence atop the jungled rampart will instantly reedeem the ride. Pedal a mile to a small tower at the fort's southwest corner, then work north along the western wall.  Rattle down a rough spur to the west gate, where a dirt trail passes beneath a 75-foot-tall stone face wreathed in trees. The vibe will stay serene along a red-dirt track to the Bayon, then another forgotten cobbled path to the east gate. A millennium ago this was the main street of a mighty empire that stretched nearly to Burma. Now, only the sounds are of unseen birds and insects.

Head to Ta Nei, a 12th-century shrine swallowed by jungle about two miles to the east. A signless road will swing you through a forest and over a French-built dam, to the deserted, moss-covered temple. Then trailblaze to Preah Khan, a temple just a mile to the northwest, bombing into the dark woods on sandy singletrack. All too soon the bush will spit you out at Preah Kahn's quiet eastern entrance, where a stone processional of demons and deities stretches toward the distant temple.

Coast the rest of the day, wandering around ceremonial pools, checking out timeworn carvings. After more than 20 miles of cycling and quality time at eight near-empty ruins, kick back at a snack stand beside the Bayon and sip freshly split coconuts while monks chant at a nearby temple. As they drone, shadow and sunlight dance on the temple's enigmatic faces. Angkor still holds secrets in its mystic stones.

You get so jaded going around on a motorbike or car, being around a lot of other people, seeing the same scenes. But when you get off-road for five minutes you'll see Angkor for what it really is.