Cambodia:Temple Central

This entry is part 9 of 19 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #14

Ian Bowden’s huge, three-country ride through Indochina with Britton Adventures concludes this issue. It’s been a journey-and-a-half, and he kicks off the final chapter with a flight into Cambodia.

We flew from Pakse in Laos to Siem Reap in Cambodia to see the world-renowned temples, arriving around 4.00pm after the flight was delayed. We lost Terry today. He had to fly back to NZ early to sort out a business matter, so the team was reduced to Scott and Alison, Craig, Greg and myself, plus Mike and Angela. We picked up our bikes and Cambodian crew in Phnom Penh two days after arrival.

We dined well the first night in a small, ordinary-looking restaurant where the food was fantastic, especially the seafood, my favourite. Next we took a look around the centre of town and checked out the nightlife. The place was buzzing with a lot of tourists like us, and we ended up enjoying a few hours in a large, open, upstairs bar with a band.

Sole food

Our guide arrived the next morning to take us on a tour of the temples.

Everyone’s heard about Angkor Wat, but it’s just one of eight major temples to see. We were keen to see the famous temples but couldn’t handle eight of them. Angela, who’s very familiar with what motorcyclists can tolerate, suggested three, maybe four, would be our tolerance level. She was right.

After three of the best we’d seen enough.

In fact, one was enough for Craig.

Angkor Wat was first and it was impres-sive. The place is huge. The stonework and detail carved into it was truly amazing, and I’d rate it as more of a must-see than Machu Picchu in Peru, which I’d visited recently.

Next was what I called the ‘Smiley Face Temple’ – the Bayon Temple. The colloquial name was because all the stone faces were smiling. It also was impressive.

Last was Ta Prohm, the temple featured in the movie Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie. The jungle is reclaiming the ground and there are massive tree roots growing through parts of it.

We passed on a lake visit in the afternoon and instead relaxed by the hotel pool with a mojito or two. I also had a very good massage to free up the body after Laos.

That night another good meal was followed by a visit to ‘Mr Feet’ for the works in foot massages.

After an hour-and-a-half it was like walking on clouds.

Our feet had never felt so good.

Moving on

We decided on a morning flight to Phnom Penh, as we were told it was flat and not a very interesting ride. It sure looked flat from the plane window.

We had lunch at the famous Foreign Correspondents’ Club overlooking the Mekong, and in the afternoon visited the Killing Fields monument. Cambodia has had a sad, chequered past that has cost the country dearly, the worst being when the Khmer Rouge, led by the fanatical Pol Pot, took over in 1976. Out of a population of seven million, the Khmer Rouge murdered three million. That, plus other instability throughout the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, including being involved with the Vietnam war, put the development of this country back years.

On a better note, Cambodia appears to be going ahead now.

On reflection

A short drive to a lock-up the next morning took us to our Cambodian crew of La (lead rider and guide), Pech (mechanic), and Sovan, driver of our back-up vehicle.

The show was soon on the road, and for this final leg we were riding XR250 Hondas and doing battle with the chaotic traffic. I thought Hanoi was bad. This place was worse.

We were in battle mode as we forced our way through the congestion. One aggressive lady tried forcing past me in the melee and I just shouldered her out and bent her mirror.

I wasn’t a slow learner. I think every traffic law we knew was broken on the way out of town, and it was a heap of fun.

Playing chicken

La led us through a slum area next to the railway tracks to get past some of the congestion. It was evident a lot of poverty existed there and the smells were interesting.

Once out of town it was onto the dirt, bouncing along a trail next to big pylons. There was water everywhere as it’d rained the night before, and some parts were slick. We continued on good trails to a lunch stop at a roadside food place that had fairly ordinary food.

The afternoon trails were very good as we wound into a bit of hill country. I had the poor little XR fair humming as we slid our way along the loamy tracks to the Kirirom National Park and a nice resort with a pool. No guesses as to where we ended up after a hot day in the saddle. We all enjoyed cold beers beside and in the pool, except for Greg, who was feeling a bit off colour.

Scott joined the chicken club on this day in style. Feathers still hung in the air as I sped past the poor chicken’s remains. The count mounted. He was suitably ribbed that night over dinner.

Don’t pay the ferryman

Sealed roads started off our next day on the way to the southern coastal town of Sihanoukville. The bitumen soon turned to damp, red dirt with a few traps for the unwary. A couple of hours later we turned off a busy road on to a great trail past an old quarry, and it was first-rate dirt riding we all enjoyed.

A while later, with threatening clouds in the surrounding hills, we arrived at a washout with a couple of locals standing around. La had a chat and it turned out a river up ahead was too deep to cross, but one of the lads had a boat that could ferry us over for a small fee.

He jumped on his scooter, in shorts and flip flops with his young son standing behind the ’bars, and raced off up the track to the crossing.

I couldn’t believe how fast he rode off up the track. He led us to his boat, we got the first three bikes on and he putted away downstream. His wife was there helping to load the bikes outside their humble home.

Scott was still feeling a bit guilty about mowing down some poor family’s chicken the day before and tried to right things by offering this lady some money, since it looked like they didn’t have much.

Picture it! She didn’t understand English, and there’s this crazy westerner explaining how he ran over a chicken yesterday and would like to give her some cash.

She had a very puzzled look, for sure. I think she thought he wanted something from her for the money.

We cracked up, it was so funny. And so did Scott later when he thought about it.

Sihanoukville

After three trips to get us all across the river, the sky opened and it came down in bucketloads. We rode off the boat with still about 20km to go.

The track fast became a river and we got totally soaked, even our boots filled up from above with just the force of the rain.

So it was a rather damp team that arrived at the hotel at 2.00pm, tossed all the wet gear into the baths, and walked up the road to an incredibly good restaurant staffed by underprivileged students. The food there was the best we’d had on the tour and I’d rank a couple of the dishes among the best I’ve had anywhere.

A friend and former business partner of Mike’s owned a place close to our hotel, so we all went to say hello to Gary at the Shipwreck Bar, then proceeded to get shipwrecked ourselves.

It was a good bar with pool tables, rugby stuff on the walls and big screens with sport and music playing, friendly staff, and best of all the beer was served very cold in stubby coolers.

Crabs in seaside Kep

It was an easy start the next day for the shipwrecked crew.

We headed east along the coast, the highlight being a blast into the mountains up a great, smooth road with racetrack curves. It screamed sportsbike or supermotard – unfortunately, 250s didn’t quite cut it.

There were a few sights worth stopping for, like an abandoned casino and kings’ summer retreat, although we passed on the waterfall visit since we ODed on water-falls. Lunch was at The Rusty Keyhole, an English-style establishment that boasted ‘the best ribs in Cambodia.

A short time later we arrived at Kep to find a really nice resort tucked into the jungle with beautiful views over the ocean. Three of us rode the short distance to the beach to check it out and take a couple of pictures, and we found the rest of our crew were already there. Dinner invitations were handed out and a couple of beers later a nice lady was serving up fresh crabs caught locally. They were alongside prawns, salad and fish soup, all eaten as the sun set over the beach.

It’s a hard life.

Peppered tarantula temptation

Cruising through Kep and along the coast to Kampot on a nice fine morning is how our last day on the bikes started. Our destination was Phnom Penh.

We were soon burning along a country dirt road to our first stop, a pepper farm.

This area is renowned for growing some of the best pepper in Asia, so we bought vacuum packs of fresh peppercorns to take home.

From there we continued on the dirt for hours, passing through little villages, before getting back on a busy road heading north towards the chaos of the city. A final sidetrack took us to a lake for lunch on the water, and then it was full on.

Again, every traffic law we’d learnt at home was broken on our mad dash through Phnom Penh. Speeding, overtaking, under-taking, riding on the footpath, riding on the wrong side, running lights, cutting off, lane splitting and only giving way to things bigger – stuff you’d lose your license for back home – was a lot of fun though, and not for the faint-hearted.

It was my final night on the tour. I had to fly out the next morning to meet work commitments, but the others were stopping over for a final farewell in Ho Chi Minh City before returning to New Zealand.

Another great restaurant, run by the same group that ran the one we visited in Sihanoukville, feautred that night.

The food was fantastic until the last dish arrived. Fancy a tantalising spider to titillate your taste buds, anyone?

First they introduced a live tarantula to crawl over us. Yuck! Then out came the dish: crispy tarantula with pepper-sauce dip.

I passed and so did Greg, but Alison didn’t muck about. “Come on, you wimps!” she jeered as she popped one in her mouth – crunch, crunch, munch, munch – as she managed a smile, complete with spider fangs sticking out between the teeth, before swallowing!

The others tried it too. Call me a wimp, I don’t care. I don’t eat spiders.

The chicken count and end game

That was it, 30 days and three countries, all on ’bikes. What an adventure.

We’d ridden just over 4000km, a lot of it on dirt roads and trails, all of it designed to ride the best routes possible. Many of the sights could only have been seen and enjoyed from the seat of a motorcycle. It’s the best way to see and experience a country in my opinion.

There were rest days and time taken to visit special places of interest. The food in the three countries was all different and great. For me Cambodia had some of the best dishes I’d ever eaten, closely followed by Laos then Vietnam. The team members were fantastic and everybody got on great. Mike and Angela of Britton Adventures put together a great motorcycle tour package and were with us the whole time to provide that personal touch.

The only thing I thought could’ve been better would be more dirt trails in Vietnam.

However, the weather did play a part and we probably did alternate routes when it rained. Overall the weather was kind to us. There were a few days of rain in Vietnam, none in Laos and only one afternoon deluge in Cambodia.

For me the highlight was Laos, the riding in this little-known country was fantastic, and as I stated earlier, the best I’ve ridden in Asia.

Oh, and the final chicken count was seven confessed.