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Published: November 3rd 2008
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My arm and voice were only just recovering from leaving one really friendly country before we were hit by the absolutely mega friendly Cambodians.............. Overdrive
Little did we know that we had entered Cambodia on tha last day of their 3 day national holiday and everyone was going home, back to Phnom Penh ... and yes where were we heading ... Phnom Penh!! We were overtaken by mini-buses crammed to the rafters with people and luggage, plus another 10-15 people and bags sat on the roof. It was a sight to behold ... even the scooters were overloaded with 2-6 people on each one as they tried waving frantically at us whilst weaving all over the road....
Little did we know what was waiting for us up the road as suddenly the traffic came to a massive halt and we entered a 2-3 miles queue for the MeKong ferry crossing ... blooming heck we still had another 40 miles to do once we crossed the river to Phnom Penh!! We tried to battle through the crowds, but to no avail, so we took drastic action and wheeled our bikes down the river bank to one on the
'flooded tributies' and got a boat to the ferry crossing. Unfortunately we had to be proper tourist idiots and wave a dollar about and we soon got the boatmans attention!! The unfortunate thing is that Cambodia use the American Dollar along with their currency the Riel and it gets well confusing as you can only draw out the Dollar as well!!!
Once we had crossed the river we made good progress to PP and introduced to even more mayhem. PP is a city moving at 100mph with building work everywhere. However, there is still 2 massive extremes with poverty everywhere you look lying next to large fancy western banks. The west is moving into PP fast!!
Whilst we were there we visited 'S21' the Khmer Rouge torture prison and the 'Killing Fields', which is where they buried the bodies. These sort of killing fields are scattered all over Cambodia, with up to 20,000 different ones and many still being discovered. I will truthfully say how the west stood to one side in the 70's and let this happen is a disgrace. An estimated 2-3 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge.
We decided
to do a loop around the very flooded lake of Tonle Sap up to Siem Reap and then back to PP before we headed down to the coast to enter back into Thaialnd. I will truthfully say I have never ridden on as many flat roads in my life, what also made it even more difficult was we encounted the most hottest and dry heat I have ever come across. This was made even better when we did a track section of red dust with Carl's underpants on our heads ... You'll see from the picture!!
We entered Siem Reap with 115 miles in our legs (our longest day so far) and in the dark, as the place we had planned to stay at had no hostel/hotels. SR is very modern with the money it is making from tourism and Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is a massive complex of temples, lakes, trees, big roots, majestic gate houses and lots of tourist. It is very impressive and we hope you enjoy the photos. Our favourite temple was Angkor Thom, which is the one used in the first Tomb Raider film. The trees and roots there have taken over this one!!!
We also met a couple of Brit female cyclists who were also taking a career break, see there are loads of people doing it, sod the recession....
As we headed back to PP and the coast we encounted even more flat roads and unfortunately my foot problem/cramping decided to have a go!!! Along the way we saw more rice fields than anywhere else in SE Asia, many Cambodian still waving frantically and and the odd thunderstorm. One of the most noticeable things for Carl was that in the 10 years since he was last here, the NGO's have got rid of a lot of the land mines that were running along side of the major roads.
We found a smart little colonial town called Kampot, with its old French buildings and river set against a mountain back drop. Yes mountains!! We had found some in Cambodia!!! After a day of chilling and meeting a scary female German cyclist, who made me and Carl look like amateurs as she has cycled from Germany, through the Ukraine, Russia, Mongolia, China and SE Asia!! We think she had a lot of time on her hands as she was hoping
to stay away for another 2-3 years.
With the mountains between us and Thailand we knew the next couple of days were going to be different and bliss compaired to the flatness we had been experiencing! The southern route is a fantastic with very little traffic and very scenic, definately the most scenic area we did in Cambodia. The cross over to Thialand from Kho Kong was swift and easy and a very nice quiet border.
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jen
non-member comment
wow
great...the pictures are gettin me really enthused now......wow saz those are some impressive leg muscles...look out for next years hill climbs....pah! scooter overloadin is nothin..i saw a bloke with three live sheep on a scooter in SA...mmm nice dental practice, think ill look for work when im out there!