The next part of our adventure starts in Ban Lung, we’re we’d managed to spend enough down time to wash off the dirt and forget about the aches and pains of the previous days. So when we had to choose between the main road and the ‘scenic’ road, we all voted for scenic.
Ban Lung – Stung Treng via Siem Pang (approx 160kms)
We headed north along a good dirt road through beautiful scenery and highland villages to the riverside town of Veun Sai on the Tonle San river and bordering the Virachay National Park. Virachay is one of the largest national parks in Cambodia and is still not fully explored. It is apparently home to clouded leopards, elephants, tigers and sun bears, though of course you’d be pretty lucky to see wildlife such as this. We crossed to the north side via the ferry and unfortunately didn’t have time to explore downstream, where there are ethnic minority villages and burial grounds (Ratanakiri is home to the Jarai, Tompuon, Brau and Kreaung, as well as having large populations of Lao and Chinese). I would have loved to have more time to explore this area and in particular meet and chat with the locals in the villages populated with Cambodians of Chinese descent- apparently entire villages in the area still speak Chinese.
Instead we pushed on – first along a beautiful riverside road shaded by palm trees, passing through idyllic palm-shaded stilt home communities. After about 10kms we hooked a left and the track immediately disintegrated into a muddy rice field mess. Who would have thought a bit of mud could cause so much difficulty! We ended up stuck in this morass for quite a while, making some progress and then falling over in the mud. In the end Brendon rode my bike through the entire field and I waded through.
EVen Brendon managed to completely bog himself in mud
The road after that improved only slightly. Much like Death Highway, the ‘road’ consisted of a sandy, muddy, rutted track through extremely remote forest. We passed no villages. I must admit, this was another one of my ‘oh, shit’ moments as I had no accurate idea of the conditions ahead or how long this slow and exhausting track would last. By the map I estimated we had about 60kms to go – a huge distance at the rate we were traveling at.
Not far into the forest Dan took a spectacular dive roll off his motorbike and emerged from the grass to find his clutch was broken. Another worrying moment. As always, there was nothing to do but press on and Dan skilfully managed to get through the rest of the day without the use of a clutch. He had to start in gear and then not stop; never stop; no matter what presented itself (mud, river, sand, trees), Dan travelled through it all at a steady 2nd or 3rd gear with no pause.
After several exhausting hours in the forest the track began to improve and we were able to pick up some speed. Finally in the late afternoon we reached a village on the edge of a wide river (the Tonle Kong). The sound of our big bikes attracted half of the village out of their houses and they all followed us down to the wide river, where they pointed out the shallowest route to ride across the river. That’s right – ride across a big, wide, presumably deep river! Brendon made it across and so Dan reluctantly headed off, despite the absence of a clutch (if he had stalled we would have been in a bit of trouble!). He also made it across. By that time Don had returned to ride my bike across and I walked through the thigh-high water – crossing large deep rivers by motorbike is not really my thing….
Brendan crossing the Tonle Kong
Total confusion reigned whenever we brought out the map....much easier just to get pointed directions to the next town, and the next....
On the other side we entered the town of Siem Pang – awesomely friendly people and purveyors of fine ice coffee by the river. Unfortunately we had no time to linger as it was already 4pm or so and we still had about 110 kms to travel. Luckily for us the graded dirt road to the N7 highway was new and smooth. This area is remote and renowned for its rare birds, including giant ibises and endangered vultures. Despite the looming darkness I really enjoyed this ride – the forest was beautiful in the fading light and the sky was spectacular.
The dirt road meets the paved National Highway 7 at the Laos border. We had no time to stop as it was almost dark and there was still another 50kms to go. By the time we arrived in the Mekong riverside town of Stung Treng we were exhausted and the light had long gone. Most fortunately we stopped at Riverside Guesthouse, where we met a bunch of other bikers and their two tour leaders who were following a similar trail to us. The tourers (5 or 6 English guys) were pretty surprised to hear we’d travelled the same trails they had, particularly as one of us was (shock, horror) a girl!
We ended up following the same route and meeting up with these guys most evenings for the next 4 or 5 days and so we got to know each other quite well. We particularly became friends with the two tour leaders, Mike the Welshman, a champion dirt biker in Cambodia, and Tommy, a very cool Khmer dirt biker who knew the local trails like no other. We enjoyed many a beer with those guys over the next few days and also got many extremely good tips about the trails ahead. I consider myself very lucky to have met them as this was the time that the map became quite useless – the roads are being upgraded so quickly that the map was completely out of date.
Brendon and this guy admired each other's tattoos
Stung Treng – Tbeng Meanchey (160kms)
The next day we took a wrong turn looking for the ferry stop and travelled down the river for a blissful 20kms of idyllic rural scenery. After backtracking to the town, we crossed the Mekong and continued travelling west, heading to Tbeng Meanchey. This was a good new, raised dirt road the whole way, replacing a section that is often impassable due to flooding in the wet season. Tommy and Mike had left us instructions to take a detour onto part of the old track through the forest – this time easy and fun and much more beautiful and interesting than the main road.
After rejoining the main road we stopped to check our map. A friendly man and his daughter waved us over to his little shop so we happily stopped for an an iced coffee. It turned out to be one of those great travel moments – we sat in the shop of possibly the most excitable and friendly Khmer in the whole of Preah Vihear province, trying to communicate in Khmer, French, and English while we all shared coffee and beer and lots of laughter. Absolutely priceless.
Daughter making ice coffee
Tbeng Meanchey – Koh Ker (approx 180kms)
From Tbeng Meanchey we headed north towards the Thai border. Our destination was Prasat Preah Prihear – a magnificent 10th century temple perched on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. The temple is set on a mountain plateau with a view of Cambodia below. Unfortunately the Thais and the Cambodians have been fighting over ownership of the temple for decades, despite the UN court ruling that it belonged to Cambodia in 1992 (though the main entrance is in Thailand). The permanently stationed soldiers on both sides periodically decide to start shooting at each other again, and so the temple is often off limits to tourists (in fact just this month fighting has once again broken out, several soldiers and civilians have been killed and thousands of Cambodian villagers have been evacuated).
After riding about 3 hours north on newly graded dirt roads we were extremely disappointed to be stopped at the bottom of the mountain leading up to Prasat Preah Vihear. A few minutes later the other bike crew turned up and Tommy translated for us – absolutely no one was being allowed up the mountain due to an upcoming ASEAN visit to this site (perhaps). No amount of bribes or contacts were going to change the situation. Terribly disappointing but absolutely uncontrollable. Brendon was made slightly more cheerful when some of the bored soldiers camped at the bottom of the mountain showed him their home made pump action guns, complete with a bike pump for power.
We travelled back down the same road south, heading for Koh Ker temple – capital of the Angkorian empire from 928 – 944. This was once an inaccessible temple surrounded by mines, however recent de-mining by CMAC (Cambodian Mine Action Centre) and better roads have made it somewhat easier to visit in recent times. When we turned up in the late evening at the only decent guesthouse, set in the rice paddy fields about 5 kms from the ruins, we were the only people there. Later on our familiar bike group turned up and we spent a pleasant evening drinking beer and talking bikes (I tried – I really did).
This guy was one of our hosts at the guesthouse, and this is the scorpion we found on someone's shoe. Later on this guy's wife cooked the scorpion. I'm serious.
At 6am the next morning we got up and made our way down to the ruins. Of course we were the only people there, and it was absolutely magical to spend a few hours in the early morning light wandering around these amazing temples set over an area 9 by 4kms – a magical morning that I will never forget. After visiting the main site, Don and Dan and I made our way slowly back to the guesthouse via the dozens of other temples scattered through the jungle. Each one had a caretaker (sometimes with family) who lived out in the forest to keep an eye on the precious temples.
Main temple at koh Ker
One of the families who camp out at the temples to keep an eye on things
Over the next week we saw many amazing temples, including the world-famous Angkor Wat, but an abandoned Koh Ker at sunrise stays with me as one of my favourite moments on this trip.
