Blogs from Koh Ker, North, Cambodia, Asia
February 19th 2011
Finally made it to Koh Ker. Woohoo. Cost me $95 mind and I had to gate crash someone elses private tour but hey, I made it. Mska, the German I was traveling with was a very keen photographer (hmmmm, already you are seeing the miss-match) and eager to see sunrise at Koh Ker. So, 4.30 am was our start time, man it's worse than being at work with all the early rises out here (not really). Alas, seems 4.30 was not early enough, and we caught sunrise along a very dusty and narrow road. Nothing worth stopping to snap and (as it turns out), Mska was not interested as he only snaps old rocks. Around 7 we pulled in for breakfast where poor old Mska nearly had an apoplexy when he heard me order noodle soup... ... read more
January 30th 2010
January 30 Learning from the two previous days we set out before dawn. Shuffling to the sounds of roosters and dogs barking non stop, the Cambodian eco-friendly alarm clock . Thankful to be all alone. The red road was to be ours for only a little bit of time...We have started to settle into the running and our bodies are getting into a rhythm. Today is the day we run to Koh Ker and get a chance to have a real bath (well a bucket bath) and sleep in a real bed. Breakfast on the side of the road brings a surprise! Two people from the television channel France 2, based out of New Delhi (http://blog.france2.fr/bureau-inde-france2/index.php/Inde) decided to do a story on us, here we go! Nathalie is now a French movie star! They spent the ... read more
January 29th 2010
January 29 Day two started off right were we had left off the day before. Ate a couple of bananas and headed out. The crew was to meet us back at the guard post to the entrance for the Beng Mealea sector. Our first 10km done, complete with early morning haze, a beautiful red sunrise partly explained by what was to become know to us as the local atmosphere replete with unending smoke from cooking, waste burning and grass fires it was time for breakfast of bananas, peanut butter and bread. The day started off wonderfully, temps not too hot and the humidity not yet at a full steam. For Jeff however, the day would not stay that way....Each moment of a running day brings its own surprises. One minute all is well and perfect and ... read more
January 28th 2010
After our first day of running we were treated to a wonderful and most inspiring surprise! Camping in the jungle temple Beng Mealea was more than we could have asked for. While most of the temples in the Angkor area are either restored or under some sort of restoration progress, Beng Mealea has been left completely untouched. It is difficult to imagine what happened to such a beautiful and massive temple but time and the jungle has not been kind, life will prevail and nature had taken a strong foothold... Arriving just before sunset, we were gifted with the privilege of having the temple completely to ourselves. It was quite surreal and proved a soul recharging place for us, a perfect fitting to our first day out.... We camped near the 'police' station and had a ... read more
May 11th 2009
At 4 am we were racing above a sleeping Bangkok on the elevated highways to catch the early bus to Aran from the Mawchit 11 bus station. We got a visa at the border, walked across into Poipet with the gamblers, the carts, and others on the way to Siem Reap. Wiki travel describes Poipet thus 'Other than gambling, whoring and lowering one's opinion of humanity, there are no sights or activities in Poipet. It is a miserable huddle of touts, beggars, thieves and dodgy casinos for daytripping Thais.' With a billing like that, I just had to check it out. We got a taxi to Siem Reap, and we were 30 minutes out of Poipet when the taxi broke down. As luck would have it, an empty taxi came by a few minutes later and ... read more
August 5th 2008
Koh Ker was briefly the capital of Cambodia during the 10th century. It was mainly inaccesible until several years ago when a new tollroad was built. Our guide, Mr Ouk Sophearin told us that the Cambodian people were very proud of the road when it was built. Hard to fathom a road could cause such nationalistic sentiment. I doubt many people were shouting "Ozzie, Ozzie Ozzie" or singing Waltzing Matilda when the Bruce Highway opened in Queensland. Anyway we set off via car around 6am. The drive took about 2 hours. We had to pay 5USD to enter Boeng Mealea and 10USD for Koh Ker. There was also a road toll of 5 or 10USD I think which our driver paid. This I'm told, goes straight into the pocket of some government offical. Interestingly, after the ... read more
