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Published: August 12th 2007
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Road to Bakor National Park
This photo gives some idea of what the road was like, but it really doesn't to justice as it was far worse than it appears here. There's not really a great deal to do in Kampot, it consists of pretty much a single road, however, a few kilometers up the road was the entrance to the Bakor National Park. From what I could gater, this national park, located up in the mountains consisted of some an old abandoned village, once used by the Khamer Rouge, some waterfalls and great views, so it sounded like it could be worth visiting, in addition, it was apparently only accessible by four wheel drive car/truck or motorbike, so that sounded fun already.
I took a day pack and set off at around 9am. A few kilometers down the road at the foot of the mountain was the entrance to the National Park and when I arrived I met three Danish guys who were also on 250cc dirt bikes that they’re hired nearby. They had set off earlier but one of them had acquired a puncture early on the way up, so they’d had to come back down to get it mended. Fortunate for me, as it now meant I had some riding buddies, I didn’t fancy getting stuck halfway up a mountain with a puncture by myself.
They warned me that
Bridge to waterfalls
This was great, I was really starting to feel like Indiana Jones by now the road ahead was in pretty bad condition………and they weren’t lying. The road, if you can call it that, quickly turned from: shoddy tarmac, with small areas of pot holes, rocks and boulders, etc, to……………pot holes, rock and boulders etc, with small areas of shoddy tarmac. Seriously, this road was a disaster, it made the road from the boarder of Cambodia to Siem Reap seem like a runway. However, this was exactly what these bikes were designed for, so it was a good chance to put them to the test.
We set off tentatively at first, but soon got our confidence up and after riding for about 3hours we reached our first stop, which was a disused temple……..it was shit, so I won’t waste time talking about it.
We then rode for another 30 minutes or so before coming across a fork in the road. The sign here read, and I have a photo of this but it takes too long to upload so you’ll have to take my word for it,……”waterfalls” one way, “Casino” the other way. Now I don’t know who does the town planning for Kampot, but given that to get where I was, it had taken
me 3 hours on an off road dirt bike, with the begins of some serious saddle soreness, I don’t think this was the most well thought out location for a casino. You would have to have some kind of serious gambling problem to want to visit this casino. Anyway, we set off towards the waterfalls with the intention of coming back to the ‘casino’ and rode for about 30mins before reaching to end of the road and continuing on foot to the waterfalls.
Upon arriving at the waterfalls we were duly rewarded for our long ride up, they were great. Two levels of crashing falls, with the lower level deep enough to swim, which is what we did. The top tier wasn’t especially deep but it was refreshing to rinse off in them, the bottom tier was much deeper and we were able to swim about a bit and get in behind the falls. We spent a couple of hours at the falls and exploring the area before hunger struck, so we then got back on our bikes, back to the fork in the road and off towards the ‘Casino’.
I didn’t really get the full story on the casino,
Waterfalls
The top tier of the waterfalls, ok, so it's not the Niagra, but better than I was expecting. but as far as I could tell it was part of a small settlement, which was used by the Khamer rouge during the war. There were some more disused buildings, potentially, a great view over the valley…it was too cloudy to see anything much and a ranger station. We were all so hungry by now that all we really cared about was getting to the restaurant at the rangers station. Now, I don’t know who put it into our heads that there was a restaurant up this mountain, but whoever did, was cruel. We were starving and ready for a nice substantial meal, instead we were greeted with………..a shoddy Cambodian version of pot noodles. I’m not exactly a big fan of pot noodles at the best of times, but given I was soon ready to eat my own arm, I knocked back two of those, a can of coke and a pack of cookies.
Soon after this we decided to make a move back down as we wanted to be back well before it got dark. We rode for about 30-45mins back down the mountain before being waved down by a group of tourists who were stranded as the
Waterfalls
Bottom tier four by four they were being given a tour in had lost all its fuel after rupturing the fuel tank going over a rock. So I ended up taking their little tour guide dude back to the rangers cabin so he could get more fuel and tools. I bought him back to the truck and he was able to mend the hole so we set off back down the mountain, content in the fact we just done a good deed……..not content in the fact my back had been doused in petrol upon giving him a ride.
So after a great little adventure, we made it down by about 5pm safe and sounds….almost…!!
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