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Published: November 23rd 2006
Me and the Machine
Moris's 100cc korean made Moto! Well, today I'm recovering from my moto trip through the north of Cambodia. To say the roads in the north are a disaster is a gross understatement! My buddy Jay was too much of a pussy to come on the journey... he thought it would be better to go relax on a beach! I was able to convince my friend Morris (aka my tuk tuk driver from the temples) to drive me on his moto. Monday morning at 4:30am we set off for the ancient capital city of Koh Ker. It took about 3.5 hours to go the 150km to the ruins... this was the easiest day of travel. Koh Ker is in a lot worse shape then the temples at Angkor... most of the temples are in ruins and the jungle has taken over... I liked that. The biggest advantage it has on Angkor is there are no tourists and no one asking you to buy things! The highlight of Koh ker is Prasat Thom... a temple which has seven tiers and stands 40m high... it's a good climb to the top where I got an unobstructed view of the area. The other thing that the area has to offer
The Oxe cart
There were many people traveling this way is landmines. In and around the temples there are camps set up with people clearing the mines. Almost everywhere we went there were "Danger Mines" signs posted... it's easy to see it's a big problem. We stayed the night at the town of Siyong... met two bikers who were peddlers there way through Cambodia...crazy bastards! Again we started at 4:30 in the morning except this day we were driving on shitty dirt roads in the dark instead of pavement like the day before. It was a pretty crazy morning... I couldn't wait for the sun to come up... I think Morris drives faster in the dark. We arrived at the village below Prasat Preah Vihear at about 9:30am after a long and bumping journey. We had to hire moto drives to take us up the mountain... Morris’s bike wasn't good enough to get up. It was a very steep road and in very bad shape. Of course when you get to the top there are the fat tourists who came from the Thai side which offers a paved road and air-con buses... I think my way was better! Neverless the site in amazing... you can see both Thailand and Cambodia...
Prasat Preah Viheat
The view of Prasat Preah Viheat from the Thai side the temple is built right on the edge of a cliff which goes straight down. This is probably my favorite temple location... it has nothing on Angkor Wat’s size and detail but, the view and atmosphere is top notch. Also I think the trip down the mountain was the craziest of my trip. Next we headed for the town of Anlong Veng... this was the Khmer Rouge's headquarters during the nineties... this was a relatively good road so it only took about 3 hours to drive the 100km. Our room had a TV with HBO... we watched "Major Payne". Thankfully we started at 9 on the last day... we went to Ta Mok's (former General of the Khmer Rouge) house... not very interesting but met a guy who spoke good English and chat with him. At about 10 we headed down the road back to Siem Reap. This is by far the worse road ever! By this point my ass and back were already sore... ever little bump was pain! My foot slept off the foot peg and I sliced my foot open. The icing on the cake was the rain... yes after about 3 hours it started raining. We
laid the bike down and then decided maybe we should take cover from the rain. We arrived in Siem Reap at about 4:30... which concluded the longest of our journeys... a total of 6.5hours to travel 120km. After a shower and a nap I was felling pretty good... my ass was still very sore. I headed out on the town with Morris... we cruised through town on the moto... stopped and ate some food which included cow brain (not so good)...finished off at a Cambodian night club which played real bad music from the nineties. All in all pretty fun few days.
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