Where to start with this trip? It was epic – amazing, physically and emotionally challenging, thought-provoking, occasionally relaxing… everything a good holiday should be. We travelled around 2000kms up the eastern border of Cambodia, along the top of the country and then back down into Phnom Penh, passing along the way some of Cambodia’s most beautiful natural areas and taking in dozens of ancient Khmer temples. Once again I took along Brendan (brother) and Brendon (husband) – or Don and Dan as I like to call them.
I thought I had it timed perfectly – a couple of weeks after the end of the wet season so that the roads were passable, but not too far into the dry season so that its really dusty. What I didn’t know was that we’d coincided our arrival in Phnom Penh exactly with the beginning of Bon Om Tuk (Water Festival)- one of the biggest festivals on the Khmer calendar. During the wet season, so much water flows down the Tonle Sap river it actually changes direction and starts heading back upstream to flood the huge lake above. When the rains stop the water once again starts heading south towards the Mekong delta, and the festival is held to celebrate the event. Hundreds of boats representing different towns and villages descend on Phom Penh, each colourfully decorated and holding 40 rowers, to race along the Tonle Sap. Along with the boat crews come hordes of people taking their annual trip to the city – apparently up to 2 million additional visitors flock into Phnom Penh.
Boat racers in Phnom Penh
Stuck in traffic in a tuk tuk
Don, Dan and Lee - otherwise known as Mr Motorbike rental
First mistake – we didn’t book accommodation weeks in advance. Second mistake was thinking we could travel around the city seeing and doing whatever we wanted. During the day we didn’t have too many problems but in the evening, thousands of people headed downtown from all over and the roads became clogged with overloaded tuk tuks and motorbikes. The city was literally at a standstill each evening we were in Phnom Penh and any plans to head down to the riverfront were most definitely out.
While in Phnom Penh, apart from checking over our rental bikes and doing last minute organising for the trip, we also visited the two main sites commemorating the dead from the Cambodian revolution of 1975-78, during which the Communist Khmer Rouge implemented extreme agrarian reform (based on Mao Zedong’s revolution in China) and up to 2 million people died – perhaps 1/4 or 1/3 of the population. In January 1979 the Vietnamese ousted the Khmer Rouge, causing the Communists to begin a guerilla warfare campaign that lasted for another 20 years before they finally surrendered in 1998. It was during this period that almost all of Cambodia’s landmines were laid, a scourge that still causes much destruction in the country.
We visited Tuol Sleng, or S-21, an old high school in Phnom Penh which was turned into a prison and was the scene of torture for thousands. It has now been turned into a museum of genocide. Most of the cells have been left exactly as they were found when the Vietnamese invaded in early 1979, to find 12 prisoners alive. The most chilling part of the exhibition for me were the hundreds of photos of inmates who passed through, almost all of which would have been killed. The Khmer Rouge were excellent record keepers and each inmate was photographed and their details stored. The expressions on these faces are unforgettable – many smiling for the cameras, some defiant, others simply terrified.
From there we went straight to the Killing Fields, about 20kms out of the city. This was where the inmates of Tuol Sleng – men, women and children- were taken to be bludgeoned to death. The skulls of thousands of victims are piled high in a beautiful shrine. The place is awful and grisly but also peaceful and respectfully done. Visitors are encouraged to light incense or lay a flower for all victims of the Khmer Rouge.
Back in town we hooked up with a couple of VIDA volunteer mates, Martin and Mina, to go out on the town for the night. We started with happy hour cocktails at the Elephant Bar in the sublime Hotel Le Royal, which has been hosting Phnom Penh’s rich and influential for more than 80 years. Martin and Mina had in mind dinner at Khmer restaurant Romdeng, which is set up as an NGO model teaching disadvantaged kids much like KOTO, but we were thwarted by the crazy streets clogged with revellers. Instead we stopped off and had a great Japanese meal in a peaceful courtyard, away from the madness.
The next day we were horrified to wake up and hear about the tragedy that had occurred overnight, where more than 300 people had been killed after panic broke out on an overcrowded bridge over the river. It was hard to get to the bottom of what really happened on the river that night as there were a lot of rumours flying around. Whatever the cause, it’s terrible to think that what started as a wonderful party for the city turned into tragedy so quickly.
Phnom Penh to Kampong Cham (120kms)
Day 1 of the bike trip was an easy ride up National Highway 6 (and then on to 7) to Kampong Cham, a peaceful little town on the banks of the Mekong. Along the way we stopped frequently for sugarcane juice or strong iced coffee sweetened with condensed milk, and not for the last time were amazed by the honesty of the local people who always laughed and gave our money back when we misunderstood whether we should be paying $3 or 3000 riel.
Taking a break to have some sugar cane juice
Once in Kompong Cham we did what became our routine for the rest of the trip – check into a hotel, wash off the dust and grime of the road, throw on shorts and thongs instead of hot dirty riding gear and find ourselves a cold beer.
I woke up in the middle of the night with the very familiar signs of severe stomach upset and spent much of the rest of the night on the toilet or throwing up. I consoled myself with the thought that if we were stuck in Kompong Cham tomorrow because I was too sick to ride, there were definitely worse places to be stuck for a day….
Kampong Cham to Kratie (120kms)
I woke up feeling a bit weak and still nauseous but determined to head out to Kratie. This was a beautiful day’s riding along the Mekong on tarmac and dirt, through gorgeous riverside villages and past lush rural scenery.
Cambodian cows look like this....
Not like this
This whole area has a large population of Muslim Cham people – I’ve written about them briefly in another post as they are spread amongst a number of South East Asian countries including central Vietnam. As we rode along the stunningly pretty winding roads along the river, we passed dozens of school children, the girls all wearing neat hijabs to match their navy and white uniforms.
This day should have been an easy one but I must admit I found it a bit tough and tiring due to feeling generally crap, so I was very pleased to reach Kratie (pronounced Kra-cheh) by mid afternoon. Kratie is another faded colonial town situated by the Mekong, and is the place to see the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins of the Mekong. There are apparently only about 70 of them left. I was in two minds about taking a boat out to see them – World Wildlife Fund states the boat’s engines can disturb them – but in the end I went straight to sleep and when I woke up in the early evening it was too late to head 15kms north to try to spot them.
Instead we hopped back on our motorbikes and rode across the Mekong to check out an old French lighthouse. Derelict for years, it has recently been cleaned up and now you can actually climb up the extremely steep steel ladders to the top. I made it up two flights before fear of heights turned me back – Dan and Don climbed the whole way up and took some gorgeous photos of the view from the top.
Looking down from lighthouse
Coconut and banana treat sold along the river
Kratie – Sen Monorom (210kms)
Today’s ride would take us south down the very fast Highway 7 until we turned off to head east to Mondulkiri province, abutting Vietnam. Mondulkiri is famous for its wildlife, forests, waterfalls and ethnic minority people (the Bunong). Unfortunately it also falls victim to rampant illegal logging. At a tiny town just before Snuol, we turned off Highway 7 early to take a shortcut, 15kms or so on a logging trail through beautiful shady forest. This trail was just bumpy and muddy enough to have Don and Dan extremely happy. I followed at a much slower pace, quietly freaking out inside my helmet every time I had to negotiate the huge puddles of water left on the track.
The road to Mondulkiri - in the background is a sign showing which animals are protected in the forest - including elephants, tigers and bears
These guards are here to protect the forest from illegal loggers - there is so much high-level corruption though that the forests are extremely vulnerable
After rejoining the main road east, we found the whole way had recently been tarmaced, making it an easy trip on smooth roads with no other traffic. The scenery alternated between beautiful forest and denuded hillsides, and once again we found many of the locals were Muslim (at our lunch stop the women casually reached for their colourful sequined head scarves when we arrived and then laughed at Brendon when he asked for a beer).
Cambodian transport
By the time we reached the town of Sen Monorom the temperature had dropped significantly as we were now at 800 metres altitude. We stayed just outside the town on a windswept hillside. Nature Lodge has individual cabins overlooking the mountains, and a very funky central gathering place/restaurant/bar area built amongst and into the trees. The staff were very welcoming and the backpackers friendly, and we made ourselves at home here for 2 nights.
On our day off we took a ride out into the gorgeous forested hills to Bou Sra waterfall, and on the way back stopped for an iced coffee at a friendly Bunong village. It was here that I managed to completely embarrass myself by dropping my bike in the middle of the road going through the village, while 20 village kids and their mothers, previously waving happily to me, looked on. Despite being a really stupid crash (I was distracted, looking at cute piglets, went to put my foot down and fell into a pot hole) this ended up being the one time in the entire trip I actually managed to hurt myself – I grazed my leg and badly bruised my ribs, which gave me trouble for the rest of the trip and beyond. That night at Nature Lodge the resident Bunong healer/masseuse applied hots rocks from the fire and massage to my bruised body – very nice.
Bou Sraa waterfall
Cute piglets
Sen Monorom has a great restaurant called Khmer Kitchen with friendly staff and wonderful food. We appreciated the company and advice of the owner, who doubles as a guide. Below is their fantastic Trey Amok (Cambodian fish curry topped with coconut cream).
It was at Khmer Kitchen that we got talking about the next day’s ride. The first part of the day was to be a good dirt road, followed by 60kms of one of the most notoriously difficult and often impassable roads of Cambodia – nicknamed “Death Highway” by bikers. Highway is a seriously misleading name, as in reality it is just an ox-cart track through the forest – or to be precise, many ox-cart tracks through the forest – the major problem being how to choose the correct track one. In hindsight it was a bit reckless of me, as a relative newcomer to dirt biking, to attempt this extremely challenging track. I justified it to myself with the thought that I could leave early and take my time, and perhaps hire a Khmer moto-guide for this section to avoid getting lost in the forest. Most importantly, this is the only road between the two beautiful provinces of Mondulkiri and Ratanikiri, to travel between them any other way would have required a huge detour of hundreds of kilometres.
So I talked myself into the idea it would be challenging, but definitely do-able. And our new friend at Khmer Kitchen and a couple of older European bikers who overheard us talking and had just come through this route, confirmed this view. We were told that by following tire tracks and the advice of locals we would make it through. This turned out to be correct – we did make it through (with some signficant wrong-ways) – but their nonchalance probably left me feeling more relaxed about the next day’s ride than I should have been…..
Sen Monorom- Ban Lung (191kms)
We did leave early, as planned, and took along lots of water and snacks. We made good time along the good graded dirt road between Sen Monorom and Koh Nhek, through beautiful jungle full of amazing butterflies and flowers. At tiny Koh Nhek we stopped and re-fuelled with instant noodles and iced coffee for us and petrol for the bikes.
Delicous coconut-pumpkin snack wrapped in banana leaves
From there the road disintegrated into a muddy, sandy, rutted mess of ox-cart tracks through forest and grasslands, interspersed with tiny settlements of stilt homes. 15kms into this I had dropped my bike 3 times already, was exhausted and had drank most of the water we’d brought. Dan and Don were faring a whole lot better than me but we were all hot and tired (they were in charge of rushing back to pick up my bike whenever I dropped it). This went on for another unrelenting 45kms, plus an additional 10kms of wrong directions.
Our destination was the Srepok river, which, incidentally, was the setting of one of my all time favourite movies, Apocalypse Now. In this Vietnam anti-war movie, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) goes upriver in Cambodia to find Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has gone a bit feral and commandeered an army of Montagnards – mountain people- to fight his own private war.
The villagers who live along this remote stretch of ‘road’, evidently forgotten by their Government, were always (as everywhere in Cambodia) happy to see us and helpfully pointed us in the right direction. Sometimes it was an hour or so between sightings of people, and with the many paths to choose from I was always nervous until we found the next person to help us. Amazingly, plenty of Cambodians do this trip on their little 100cc Honda Dreams, perhaps with the wife and mother-in-law perched on the back. They occasionally cruised past us on their little bikes, seemingly gliding over the sand and the mud through which I and my powerful bike struggled with.
Ox carts are the only transport that can manage these tracks in the wet season
There are no towns along 'Death Highway" except for these tiny settlements
Night falls early and quickly in Cambodia, and we were still stuck in the forest as the sun’s rays grew low. Before long it was completely dark, our drinking water was gone and Brendon was onto his reserve tank of fuel. We just plowed on – what else can you do? – but moods were pretty low when we hadn’t been able to confirm our direction for more than an hour and there had been several cross roads where we guessed the correct direction by studying tire marks in the dark. Naturally we were overjoyed when we came across a young Khmer guy on an ox-cart, who confirmed we were still heading in the right direction.
Not long after that we came upon a man running towards us with a torch, and I just knew we this must be the man who would take us across the Srepok river. Sure enough, he and his shy teenage son quickly got us and our bikes loaded on the tiny wooden barge and safely across the river in the pitch black of a Cambodian night (so little electricity is used in the Cambodian countryside it is extremely dark). In my relief I wanted to hug them both but showed my appreciation by grossly overpaying them instead.
On the other side, at the tiny town of Lumphat (which, incidentally, used to be the provincial capital until American bombs completely destroyed it during the Vietnam War), the general store opened up to sell us water and petrol. From there it was another 40kms and an hour’s travel to our destination, the red dust town of Ban Lung. After a shower, a small meal and one or two beers, we were so completely exhausted we went straight to bed.
Next day was a rest day and we spent it swimming and lying by the beautiful and peaceful Boeng Yeak Lom – a perfectly round crater lake set amongst the jungle of Ratanikiri and sacred to the local ethnic tribes. Absolutely there is no better way to wash away the ingrained dirt, grime and stress of the previous day’s ride than this warm, clear, stunning swimming spot in the company of the happy and friendly Khmers who also visited.
Chaa Ong waterfall, Ratanikiri province
That night we once again met up with Martin, who with his young Khmer colleague Rasmey told us about the work they were doing with the tribal people of Ratanakiri province. These people are rapidly being displaced by land speculators buying up huge tracts of the still-undeveloped region. Martin and Rasmey were providing camcorders and training in how to use them to a number of the local people in an effort to record the story from their perspective.
We also discussed the next day’s route – the main road, which I knew to be good (but boring) dirt the whole way; or the scenic route, which I knew nothing about…..
