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Published: January 18th 2007
Anyway as i was leaving Vietnam i got this mad idea to do some touring of north east cambodia on a bike. As Will had left i needed a new partner in crime for this trip so i put up a few posters in some local bars where all the tourists hung out with travel and contact details......not a fecking word from any of the chickens did i get!!!
I did meet a guy from Oldcastle in Meath who said he would come then pulled out due to expenses and then a guy from melbourne who pulled out due to him imagining every possible dooms day scenario that could happen on the trip(which is alot if you think about it!)
So after much consideration i decided to head off on my own and plan to meet with other bikers on my journey. I headed down to the bike shop which was the best in town (angkormotorcycles@yahoo.com if youre interested, all other bikes i passed on my trip were amazingly from here too!!) and met a french guy who wasnt going my way but said he rented bikes here for 10 years and never had any problem with them so i decided
Happy Christmas
The couple who saved us :) that was good enough for me. It took a while to get used to a big bike and i was a bit nervous coz i was never on a bike this size before and 250cc is a lot of power under a wee mans arse! But i drove it around for a few hours and was ready to leave early the next day.......
Day 1
So set off early with out any incident. Was about 2 hours outside of the city thinking everything was going well when i felt a burning sensation on my left thigh. I thought it was from the engine but when i looked down, to my horror i saw a huge fecking hornet or something(it was too big to be a normal wasp) digging his stingy ass into my leg. I flicked him off and pulled over. My leg went blue then black and i had it cut off the day after........well thats what i was thinking anyway at the time. It was fecking painful and there was already a scar which i STILL have 3 weeks later! I explained to some locals what happened with some arm flapping trying to imitate a bloody hornet and
they decided the best thing for me was to get drunk (presumably for the amputation)and offered me home made rocket fuel which i declined but they rubbed a bit on my leg any for the hell of it. After about 30 minutes i had a choice to go back to a town 20km behind me and ask for advice at a hospital or continue on. The pain and numbness had spread to most of the thigh so i decided to continue on ha! I left the main raod and headed down a dirt road. There were potholes everywhere and it was great fun on the bike. The bike just ate potholes for fun!
I got to Krache just as it got dark after stopping in a few villages to chat with the locals and went straight to bed after a meal.
Day 2
In the morning i went to see the endagered irrawaddy fresh water dolphin that lives in the Mekong. There are very few of these in the world and this pool had 20 in it. It was really cool to see them so close but trying to photo them was not cool at all and pure luck to
catch one of them.
The afternoon was a pretty short and uneventful drive to Steung Treng. I had plenty of time to kill here so i went driving around the area into the villages. I passed a military base where some lads were getting ready for a game of footie and the called me over. I was only to glad to show them some of the old magic!!!Beside us was a pitch with 12 year olds playing and beside that was a little lane leading to the soldiers sleeping quaters. After about 20 minutes and an amazing solo effort where i rounded 3 players then the keeper(John Barnesesque) and burried it, we noticed all the kids on the other pitch running towards the lane. I looked over and saw a car stuck sideways in the ditch. I have no idea how it managed to do that, i must have swerved to avoid something and crashed. Anyway all the soldiers who you think would run over and help just looked over, assessed the situation and after about 10 seconds agreed to play on with the game and leave it to the kids to get the car out of the ditch. I
couldnt believe it but laughed so much. I had no intetion of going to help myself. Thats the kind of effect i suppose football has on peope all over the world.....great stuff!!!! The game ended in a draw and the car got pulled out by the kids so we all went home satisfied especially myself after rolling back the years with goal of the game hehe.
Day 3
I set off early to Ban Lung in north east cambodia up near the Laos and Vietnam borders. The "road" was mental!! It was a red dust raod with absolutely huge potholes well over a meter deep in places and thats no exaduration!! But the bike i had was just briliant. i could travel easily at 50km or 60km on these roads and twice as fast as cars or busses. There were a few times when i thought " shit im gonna get smashed here" as i approached a huge pot hole too fast and too late to avoid it (the road has so many holes you cannot avoid them all and just have to go into some) but the bike would glide over it and the suspension absorbed the bump. Basically
the quicker you went the smoother the journey was. I stopped of for some food in a village and as usual was surrounded by 20 locals. I wonder what they think of us foreigners driving through their villages taking photos of everything. I landed at Ban Lung in a lovely orangey red colour from the road dust (which stil hasnt washed fully out of some of the clothes) that any young one going to riddleys on a saturday night would be proud of!!! The rest of the day was spent resting and walking aorund the town which has to be THE dustiest town in the world. Everything here is red orange and washing you car or walls of your house is a total waste of time. After 2 days here i couldnt wait to get out as i was constantly dirty but the worst was the dust in your eyes, there was just never a break in the dust especially when cars or bikes drove past. Its a great little town but i dunno why the main roads in it are not paved and the little side streets are paved....makes no sense at all.
Day 4
This was a great
Irrawaddy Dolphin
best foto of about 100 i took.....was impossible to catch them day.The evening before i met a dutch couple and agreed to take them to visit some waterfals and the volcanic crater. So Whelan taxi tours service heads off early in the morning to the first waterfall with 2 people on the back of the bike. I knew i would have no problem because whole families drive around here on one bike and i counted 6 yes 6 grown men on one moped one time...madness!!!! So we arrived at the waterfall which was nice but the cool thing was that a we approached it a huge snake 1.5meters long and really thick saw us and ran(slid) for cover under some rocks. It was the first really wildlife i had seen in any country and it was great to see. I got a cool photo of it under the rock but didnt get too close coz it was big and more than likely poisonous. After that we visited the volcanic crater which had now filled with water and was like a huge cool swimming pool. The water was nice and warm and all the local kids were splashing around in it. Great fun and a beautiful location to just relax.
That evening
by chance i bumped into Dave from Miami. He had just arrived and came the same journey as i had, he even rented the bike from the same shop. There was a dirt road from Ban Lung to San Monorom that i had heard people whisper of and i fancied doing it but was told it was best not to do it especially alone. But on the map of cambodia it looked the same as the roads i had just come on so i was tempted to do it alone because i had met nobody along the way so far who wanted to do it too. We agreed that i would wait an extra day in Ban Lung while Dave visited the sites and then we would travel together, the day after, along this mysterious road i was advised(but not strongly enough) not to do.
Day 5
This was a relaxing day spent at the volcanic pool and some more waterfalls.
Day 6
Christmas eve
What a day! This is the trip from Ban Lung to San Monorom. Dave and i set out a bit later than planned around 9 or 9.30 due to an oil leak on Daves
bike. After a few wrong turns due to people not understanding our questions and pointing us in wrong directions we finally came to the river crossing. We were told that this is where the road ended and the next 60km would be "tough". Sounds like a challange to me!!! We crossed the river in good spirits and headed into the jungle. The road was not a road at all. It should never ever be put on a map indicating it as the same as the roads we had just been on. It was a tiny dirt track. The problem was that the surface was not solid but sandy and on a high bike with high centre of gravity it was hard to control. It was tough and hard work keeping balance and a steady pace but we were enjoying the challange. We were making slow but steady progress when after about an hour i was going round a slight corner when my bike fell from under me. I managed to stay on me feet but the bike fell hard. So hard that the fecking clutch snapped!!!! Great !!! What the f*ck do we do now!!!??? Dave headed back to a
Family shop
i stopped on the first and last day with this nice family to eat....unfortunately my 2nd stop with them was spent mostly in the toilet small wooden hut we passed about 1km back(why anyone would live out in this jungle i have now idea there is nothing but trees sand and long grass) Would you believe it but the guy had a spanner just the right size to loosen the bolts so i could change my clutch with the spare i had......i mean what are the chances!!! So after we changed the clutch i drove back and gave the man good money for the spanner so i could take it with us incase of further problems deeper in the jungle. He ws happy with the deal and the money he got for it. After about 45minutes we headed out again but this time every time i changed a gear the bike would cut out and id have to restart it while rolling along to maintain momentum....as if things werent hard enough already!!
Dave recommended i go infront for a while...i could see he was worried i might fall again. I drove for about 5 minutes and then sensed dave was not following me. I turned off the bike but could not here him. After a minute he came round a corner looking quite shook and
his clothes were torn. He had fallen hard with the bike on his leg. He cut his elbow and his foot got caught in the chain which tore open his shoe and missed his foot by centimters. Things were getting serious now and the fun had gone. This was now getting stressful and to quote dave, "Im ok lets just get going and get the f*ck out of here!". Onwards we went and the day got hotter and hotter, the sand got deeper, the grass higher but most worryingly of all the little track we were on was now a trail of a bike and some animal footprints about 1 foot wide. I had half a bottle of water and dave had none! We were so fecking niave about this trip i could not believe it! We ploughed on for 2 more hours concentrating hard on the track and staying upright. Out of nowhere we saw bikers coming towards us. There were 6 of them i think from australia and germany. We were glad to see life out here and we chatted and exchanged our journeys so far. I was kinda glad to hear that they had all fallen at
least once , some 3 or 4 times, so it did not make me feel so bad now. We chatted for half an hour and said our good lucks. The bad news was that after 3 hours we had done about 20km with 40 km ahead of us.......
On we went and the track had almost disappeared. The grass was now chest high sitting on the bike. I did not like it as you could not see the ground well and this part of the country had tiger, leopard, bear and snakes....i dont even want to know if there were mines in that area. The path split up every few mile. Somtimes it would rejoin a few meters down the road and sometime they would go off in different directions. Up to now we had been following daves compass to head in the direction of south. This time though i didnt like the path we chose and recommended we go back and take a different path. It was painful to go back even if it meant a few 100 meters coz it was such hard work. Thats when i heard voices speaking not far away. We followed the voices to
where so locals were working. They pointed us in the right direction and off we went again. It was hard to imagine that we were on the right track as there was nothing to indicate life around here at all. Later we passed a fecking family with 3 people on on bike out in the middle of this jungle heading in the opposite direction to us. I had no idea how they could do it and was amazed with the sight of the 3 people happily chugging along in the middle of hell. Again i stopped to ask for directions and they pointed us to countinue in the direction we were going. We were always heading in the right direction but felt so so lost.
Another hour had passed and all we wanted was to get out of here as soon as possible. Again the track split and i took the opposite track to Dave thinking it would join up again a few meters down the path. It didnt and i saw us both heading in different directions. I stopped and beeped the horn. Dave stopped and i shouted over which path was the right way? According to the compass
his path was more due south but the path i was on just felt more right. It seemed to have a little more wear on it but who was i to argue with a compass!!!! As i made my way back to where the paths split to join dave around the corner came the best christmas present ever. A local couple came round a tree on a bike. As usual i stopped and asked them in sign language coz they had no english which way to San Monorom and they told me they were headed that way themselves. It felt like winning the lotto!!! there was no way i was leaving these two. I shouted to Dave to come back but it took him a while coz he was sure his compass was right and was getting a bit pissed off with me stopping and asking so many people. I was getting pissed off with his compass too so we were all a bit pissed off and stressed by this stage but i was cheered up no end where the couple came along. They were amazing people and gave us half their food and water..... we must have looked really
desperate to them and they laughed so much at us. We followed them for maybe 4 hours fighting with the sand and the bikes. Dave fell again and then i fell again staying on my feet but lifting the bike out of the hole with the back pack on the back took ever last bit of strength i had and was nackeered when i got it out. I had to do it alone as the others were ahead of me and thank god the cluth didnt snap this time!.
Finally we got out of the jungle and onto a dirt road. If felt so good we were both screaming like lunatics and punching the air. The other two just kept laughing at us. By the time we got to the hotel it was dark for 2 hours already and 10 hours had passed since we left Ban Lung. I paid for the couple to stay in the hotel also sicne it only cost 5 quid. They were very grateful but not half as grateful as i was. It was one of the best nights sleep ever..........
When i think of the luck we had which seemed initally as bad luck
that got us out of there........dans oil leak delaying us at the beginning, me falling and braking the clutch delayed us for 45mins, meeting the other bikers delayed us 30mins, getting lost in the long grass till i turned the engine off to hear voices speaking no so far away, taking the wrong path to dave and having to go back to get to the other track .....without all these hold ups and mistakes we would never have met the couple and could still be in there!!! Sometimes it makes you wonder were they really all coincidences or is something else at work........
Day 7
Christmas day
This day was quiet and none evenfull. All schools and businesses here were open like any normal day and there were no celebrations which was strange but nice in a way too. I just did some exploring for and hour or two on the bike sticking to big roads this time!!!! We had a christmas beer in a pub in San Monorom. This bar had a wall full of letters and emails of other people stories who had sone the same trek as us. It was amazing to read some of the stories
and they made ours sound like a walk in the park. The owner said that only falling twice was amazing as the average is about 10 times!! He said that in the last year 1 group got lost for 3 days with no water and 3 people had also died not to mention others who broke limbs or injured themselves!!!! What was the name of the path we did? He told us it was known as "Death Highway" and there was good reason for calling it that. I had no idea it was going to be so bad but would i do it again??? Absolutely........NOT! Not ever!!! It was a horrible horrible journey where crazy shit goes through your mind and we were both afraid at times It was the first time i was ever really mentally and physically tested to such an extreme. Looking back on it now ill never forget it and its a great story but at the time i just wanted out of there.
Day 8
This was a 300km trip back to Phnom Penh. It was quite uneventful boring and long. Not much happened except 100km from the city i stopped and had to go
to the toilet4 times in one hour at a little cafe. Then i got sick and by the time i got to Phnom Penh i almost collapsed at the hotel, was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with Diahorea AND fever, spent a few hours there recovering and was handed 6 or 7 different drugs to take which did the job and helped me fully recover about 3 days later.......... thats enough scrambling for a while i reckon :o)
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Peter
non-member comment
Trip
Chris, Glad to hear ur allright mate, but i tell ya that was captivating reading. You could make a book or a movie from that story. Keep the blogs coming .. take care ...Pete.