Day 10 - Wednesday

Jeesh, where to start? Breakfast. Bacon and egg in a baguette. Then Suits. Suit day at last! We headed out into the wilderness. Then Tom fell off and broke his clutch lever and ego. I was leading and didn't realise this for a good few miles when I noticed I was on my own. So I waited, and waited, then started heading back, then saw Tony who I knew had been at the tail, and I worried a bit. But Tom was fine, headed back to a garage nursing a clutch lever stump. So we followed and met him in town where all had mostly been fixed at a local garage. easy!

The extent of the crash damage.

New clutch lever, same ego, wilderness Take Two. To cut a long (3 hour?) story shorter, we got lost. So lost we did a knee deep river crossing (managed to keep my boots dry, skills!). While an entire tiny local village came to watch. There was a bridge over the river, but it was a tree trunk with some very loose planks fastened to it, about 5 foot high in the air and 15-20 foot long. We opted for the river crossing. Got through, celebrated, got stared at blankly by the locals, then watched a middle aged man on a Honda Wave scooter roll in over the bridge. Those bikes do everything. We did get the impression riding away from their little village that they may all rub their eyes 20 minutes later and start to question whether the 3 white men in suits on old dirt bikes who just did a pointless river crossing into the town, shouted hello to them all then rode off towards not much, did really exist or not.

Then we hit the jungle tracks proper. Got some vague directions to a town name we were after, had a dodgy market bought compass we half trusted, and we headed south into nothing really, just singletrack paths that often split 2 or 3 ways, sometimes re-converging, sometimes not. We headed south as best we could.

Then we realised we were going to run out of fuel. We could go back to that little village, where we hadn't seen any fuel for sale, or keep going onward for a completely unknown distance. Never before had I potentially had to use a compass to save my own life, we were a bit fucked. And we had a compass from an asian market and we didn't know where we were, even roughly, on our shitty tourist map which had no accuracy in the first place. But as is the way in these situations, a lone van rolled up and pointed us on our way.
To clarify the situation for you, I had to (I was nominated) stop a pick up truck, on a deserted forestry track, full of maybe 8 Cambodian men. Walk up to them, wearing a suit, and cheerfully say 'A'ight?'. They loved it, and we got directions. sort of.

Where I stopped the truck.

We made it to the next town, checked the map and realised that in 4 hours or so, we had done the easy quarter of our days route. So we binned it off and headed back to Kratie.
Onwards, we burnt it up, down the half built tarmac roads. 120kph max out. Then it rained. So hard it nearly washed the contacts out of my eye. So hard that Tom tried to wipe his Biggles style glasses to clear his vision, then realised they had filled up over his eyes. Seriously, what the??
Also, even slowing down to 30 or 40 kph, rain really hurts on your bare face!

The day was finished in style by riding through a small but long Cambodian village, 3 in a row, close formation, in suits, standing on the pegs, wearing sunglasses. Such a movie moment, the photo's should show how fucking awesome we looked.
Arrived in Kratie, ate two dinners + 3 beers a piece, watched the rain flood the street, had a couple more beers, then rode back to our old guesthouse. Where we found V again (Not illustrated, that was Tom stealing my camera and stealth perving)

To summarise; Suits, Crash, River Crossing, Near death in Wilderness, Hope, Rain, looking cool, food, pub.
Perfect Day??

Day 11 - Thursday.
Suits again today, keeps the sun off nicely, and it's just a great way of starting every conversation with a stranger with a smile on both sides.
Road miles mission today Kratie to Senmonorom.
After a reasonably early wake up, we got on the road south from Kratie. 2 hours, 1 tank of fuel and a sign for a turn off we need that doesn't exist. We finally find it miles later, confirming how bad our tourist map is, and how random Cambodian signs are. 2 major roads on our map, one isn't there and the other is a good 20-30km from where it is marked. Better map next time might save all the back-tracking.

Gotta get an overloaded bike picture in somewhere eh?

This is how we filled up most of the time in Cambodia, litre coke bottles filled up with fuel on the side of the roads. They often smoked while filing the bikes up.

Then onto a brand new road for another 2 hours up to Senmonorom in the hills (Cambodia has been very flat so far). Picture perfect new twisty mountain tarmac, where is the sports bike?? Then it rained again. Ho Hum.

Get to town, get a beer, head over to the 'Nature Lodge', an eco guesthouse from the guidebook. It turns out to be Very picturesque, carved natural wood buildings, private chalets, orchards and all. A bit of a posh travelers haunt judging by the clientele, but not so posh you don't get attacked by ants in the outside loo. Those things have a savage bite! Luckily we all got one each (sharing is caring) so could all sympathise.

A bit colder here too, burnt again after the massive heat of the mornings riding. Expensive here, but the beds are good so we will probably spend another day and heal the motorbike beaten bottoms. Lots of waterfalls round here, more chances to shower and swim.

Also, after 2 days of rain the large flying ants came out in massive force, which presented us in the bar, the sight of a huge Gecko feasting on them by a wall light. Like a comfortably 15" long, heavy lizard, stuck on a wall, scoffing big ants. Very cool, and made a good loud 'GEK   KOO' noise.

Day 12 - Friday
Probably a huge days riding to Phnom Pehn tomorrow, so chillaxing is the plan today.
American dirt biker next door did the dirt run we got lost on the other day. He made it over two days, we had completed all the hard bit it would seem, 'Death Highway' (his words) through the jungle. Then we bailed before the easier remaining dirt roads. Bugger.
Then he offered us bong access at 10am. We passed and went to breakfast.

As seems to happen often in Cambodia (to us at least), we set off on a simple trip to a waterfall, signposted, and ended up riding an hour down increasingly bad paths, until it eventually turned into riding a boulder field down an old river bed. None-the-less it was probably (definately) the toughest and best off-roading and of us have ever done. Epic. No camera though!

We also hadn't filled up the bikes from the previous days journey and all hit the small reserve tank around 20 minutes from town. Eco-riding from then on!

Shaky, Drippy and Thirsty.

If you're gonna have a private pool and showers, it may as well be scenic.

Note the multi-purpose suit coming into its own again.

Filled up bellies and tanks and we hit up another waterfall with a lone bored looking elephant and a decent swimming area. Saw a local man visiting the falls with a megaphone, not sure why. Gave a guy a lift back towards town on the back of the bike, then hit up even more dirt tracks on the way to another signed, but ultimately non-existant waterfall. Great last days dirt biking, and good use of sticks and cow dung to make a tripod for bike pictures.

Finally, heading back into town, we hop onto the abandoned dirt airport runway and entertain ourselves and the local teenagers with drag races, burn outs and poor donught attempts. And I still haven't got much better at wheelying.

Day 13 - Saturday

Long ride today, well 350km of good roads back to Phnom Pehn, mostly uneventful. Well, eventful, but not for Cambodia!
The sun though. Oh My Buddha! Even in suits our hands, arms and ears and noses just cooked. You could almost feel them bubbling whenever the speeds slowed. Toms calves looked cooked to edible amounts following him along the road. We arrived though.

Getting the hang of this shooting from the hip on the bike...

Maybe not so while weaving traffic.

Mike

Tony

Tom

I abandoned my jacket and shirt at this stage. It doesn't even look as bad in this photo as it did in the flesh...

2000km in 10 days, mostly roads (of wildly varying quality!), but very uncomfortable seats. XR250's aren't long distance cruisers by design! Sitting in chairs now even hurts a bit.

Tom's off early tomorrow, Tony and I will remain and return the bikes. Tonight though, the Town, Dream Bar and maybe Coughy?

Day 14 - Sunday

Tom left early doors this morning to head back to Bangkok to give himself time to get his tattoo done. 12 hours on a bus for him today I believe...

Myself and Tony took a more leisurely breakfast then took one last bike trip to see the Phnom Pehn Killing Fields. After we failed to find suncream we unhappily accepted our inevitable future burnt states and got on the road.

Without giving the whole background to the Khmer Rouge genocide it is hard to explain the Killing Field story, but in an area the size of maybe 2 football fields, 17,000 people were executed over a period of mainly 5 years. Lorries were bringing in up to 300 people a day to be tortured and killed, all without the locals knowing the use of the area. What really put it in perspective for me, is that the worst period was from '78 to '79, and the minibus we took to Siem Reap this afternoon had maybe 2/3rds local [passengers who would have lived through it, lost family or been taken away to work.

Anyone who may be a threat to the state was taken, anyone educated; teachers, doctors, engineers, and then their entire families, down to children and babies who in this location were killed by being swung against a large tree before being thrown into a mass grave.
Not many pictures here as it didn't appeal to me to take them, but I'll find a concise link to the history to share.

Phnom Pehn Killing Field - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choeung_Ek

S21, and old school in central Phnom Pehn taken over to use as an interogation and confession turture centre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum

Khmer Rouge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge




Anyway, 5 hours on a minibus, fake headphones from the market were rubbish (shock!) and now in Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat Temples tomorrow. It's like Ibiza here, neon lights, banging clubs. Each to their own...

Day 15 - Monday + Day 16 - Tuesday

All this time eating and drinking from dodgy road Vendors, we get to the tourist capital of Cambodia and I'm woken with stomach cramps! Joy!
In fact monday and Tuesdays breakfasts involved eating half of the meal, running to the room to puke it back up, then returning downstairs to actually enjoy the second half of the food. Odd.

We hit up Angkor Wat Monday morning. It really is a hell of a sight/site. I'll let the pictures talk, but the most impressive thing is just the scale of the whole place.
Any one of the temples would be magnificent on its own, and there are seemingly miles of them. You can walk 5 minutes off the beaten track in any direction and find countless more temples with no-one near them, each as intricate as the main ones on the tourist trail.

Bats ^^^

For more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

Temples soon blend into temples in your mind though, and we headed back to town and wandered into the night markets.
This town (siem Reap) really is a tourist hell hole though (well, the centre part of it anyway) Huge neon signs pointing the way to 'Pub Street' and spotlights into the sky and all that gumpf.

As it was we hit the beers at a quiet bar and spend the night drinking with a couple from Edinburgh and Belgium, listening to their tales of living in Egypt. Sounds like somewhere to avoid!

Tuesday was spend hunting for a bookshop (success!) and in the markets again, and now found a swimmming pool to chill out at, like a real holiday! but mid-city, and we're missing the bikes...

No swimming trunks so I've cut the legs off of my suit trousers. I left the jacket and shirt in Phnom Pehn. Good 'ol multi purpose suits, they've done well!


Our second evening in Siem Reap was also spent with the couple we met the night before, Shaun and Camille. Must visit them if they set up here! They took us back to a (not very) gay bar near their guesthouse, told us it wasn't far from ours where we had been drinking previously, so we walked off bare footed. They then hailed a tuk-tuk...
We walked home I'm sure, no idea how we found our way or what, if anything, happened on the journey, neither I nor Tony remember anything past saying our goodnights at the bar. Feet seem fine though!