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Published: March 28th 2008
We never did reach Battambang and so I really should replace the name of that town with Pursat, but artistic license is everything!
I'm still unsure how to tell this tale. Looking back on that clear dawn, all I can say is that if I had known what was in store for us I never would have set out on this trip. Perhaps that's not quite correct because the emotional memory of these last two days is already transforming, much like thinking back to childbirth, I'm already asking myself "was it really that bad"?
The night before our departure from KKK, Sophat had seen three 'white men' on big dirt bikes eating at a road side stall and in hind sight I wish he had struck up a conversation to ask them where they were going and where they had driven in from, much as a woman might have done. It was only when we were well into the journey that we saw evidence of them having traveled this same route although in the opposite direction. The last person we saw before entering the mountains confirmed the fact that the trail of trash and tire tracks had been left by three men.
Be that as it may, their rubbish trail actually helped us determine where the route lay at times and confirmed that it was actually possible to follow with a bike even when everything else would lead a sensible person to conclude otherwise. It was much later that I found out that no-one has managed this journey with TWO on a bike. With an extra container of petrol strapped to the bike and a small ration of cooked rice and water, we set out unwittingly ill prepared for what lay ahead. I look back on the nervous excitement I felt and see a person so impulsive as to have lost the basic fear instinct.
The first two hours were exhilarating as they are for me on any new adventure and as I looked at the misty mountains ahead, I wondered if the idea of road blocks to extort money and goods from foreign travelers had entered the mind of the wiley Khmer. Nothing so sophisticated. The only attempt to extort (really beg) for money came from a woman who had strung several lines of twine across to block the trail, and then with a practical mind had spread laundry over it to dry. Rather than pay money I thought the best way to help would be to leave one of the small 'overpacking' items such as a small bar of guesthouse soap. The twine was lowered and we passed on by, quickly becoming aware that the fairly level dust track had now come to an end and it was the beginning of the truly off road leg of the journey.
To succinctly describe the next two hours provides a challenge but here goes. An experienced older German biker I once talked to about travel in this area had mentioned also that he would never have undertaken the trip if he had known what was in store. I just assumed that he had struck off into some unchartered area as he described having to get his bike across narrow crumbling ledges spanning chasms of significant depth below. One wrong move and the bike would be lost. Well this was either the same place, or the very few tracks to be found winding through these mountains are in identical states.
We were having to take the bike up and down rocky hillsides, often by lifting it and pushing it up stage by stage with frequent rests to replenish our energy. We would ride through plant growth that looked untouched by the three previous bikers and wonder if they had found an alternative way. As we were to find out during the second half of this venture, experienced hikers would have found the gradient and conditions trying, but here we were with a bike of all things.
The photographs will explain everything more clearly when I'm able to upload them to this site but for now I will just say that somehow we moved that bike over single log bridges and thin mud ledges, over thoroughly rotten partial bridges made long ago, under fallen trees blocking the path and even had to build a bridge or two in order to cross a deep gash in the earth. Fording ground level streams and rivers presented few problems for Sophat but I would often choose to wade or carefully find my way across by foot. Conditions on the slopes were too muddy at times and rather than risk being on a sliding bike, I would walk in order to make Sophat's life a little easier.
Four hours into this and the mountaineering seemed endless, which is when the bike engine started to make a strange noise. It was running on all cylinders but the ability to shift gears came to an abrupt halt as we were pushing it up a particularly rocky and steep section. "What can we do"? Asked a distraught Sophat and it was up to me to present the two options. We could push a dead weight bike up and down mountains until we reach the one village on this route, or push the bike into the bushes and cover it in the hope that it could be recovered by well paid locals at a later date but for the first course of action, substitute the "we" with the name "Sophat". There was no way I could continue to move this thing and we hadn't seen a soul since the laundry lady. After a brief rest we made the valient effort to push the bike up to the first available flat spot and then it took some determined shoving to get it stuck upright into the thick bamboo forest. Covering it further with ferns (thanks for the knife Matthew, it came in handy several times) we said a sad goodbye and wondered if we would ever seei it again.
Not knowing where we were in relation to any village but still comforted by the regular signs of the three possibly wiser men before us, I unevenly divided the load to be carried and we set off on foot just as the thunder that had been rumbling overhead was joined by rain. Refreshing at first, it then became more determined and we dug out the two ripped and ultra thin ponchos as well as the small but thick plastic sheet used to shield the packs on the back of the bike. Thus inadequately attired we continued our hike through thick vegetation and over terrain that rapidly turned into mud then small streams.
A brief aside here. When I first met Sophat, he was a Ranger with Virachey National Park and was my assigned guide during a trek to the Ho Chi Minh trail. During further trips together he learned to be considerate of his paying customers in the forest, to hold back the spikey rattan and bamboo so that others could pass without it thwacking them in the face. He became more thoughtful at pointing out slippery areas or when tourists should watch out for semi hidden dangers. Perhaps it's because I now converse with him in Khmer, eat Khmer food and can live as Khmer do, when faced with little alternative, that has afforded him the right to to demote me to a second class status, the rightful place of the Cambodian female or any female for that matter. Such is also the case when we're on the bike. If I'm off dreaming and enjoying the scenery I only have myself to blame for not ducking under low branches or bracing over a particularly viscious pothole. It used to be that we had a code to alert me to upcoming dangers but now it is a case of 'Rider Beware' and so it is with trekking too.
Back on the trail the light faded due to the heavy grey clouds, and a mist obscured the mountains around us. We were ankle deep in fast flowing water when the heavens (for want of a better word) opened and battered everything below with a deluge of such force that we had to crouch under a bamboo thicket. This ripped our plastic covering and set two nearby dogs barking. Peering into the gloom of the undergrowth we saw two weathered wildlife hunters and their dogs that they were holding back from attacking us. Pleased to see our first sign of human life we had a brief conversation as they squatted under their small sheet of plastic.
The news wasn't good. They came from a far distant village and camped out during their hunts but they did know the area well. O'soum is the village we were heading for and it certainly was on this trail as there is only one village in this entire region they said. We then learned that it was perhaps 50 to 60km away and first we must cross a river that would be impassable during a rain like this but it would be a good place to camp for the night if we could reach it in time, which they doubted. It was around 2.30pm but already dark from the storm but with lightening around and loud thunder we had little choice but to continue on our way, wet through though we were and beginning to feel a little chilled even with steady hiking.
Sophat was anxious to leave the men as he didn't trust them, knowing that I was a foriegner undoubtedly with money if not other things useful to them. Most Khmer are small and thin and as Sophat is not so I feel perhaps a false sense of security should we actually find ourselves involved in some kind of confrontation. We put distance between us and for a while I lost myself in the sounds of the forest and the drumming of rain on the bike helmet I had decided to wear instead of carry (actually protects the head from damage while moving through the overgrown trail).
When thirsty we filled our empty bottles from the recently formed puddles or from any water source we came across, and picked up the discarded bottles left by our predecessors (empty cans, noodle packets, sweet wrappers...always in counts of three) and drank the collected water through the sieve of my cotton 'kromaar' to avoid larger unwanted particles in suspension. Sophat had breakfasted like a King (he lunches and sups like one too, given the chance) whereas I had eaten a few mouthfuls of Vietnamese noodle at 7am but we had the cooked rice to look forward to when we found a place to camp out. I'm thankful that my body is used to being half starved and I didn't feel the least bit hungry but Sophat's stomach thought that his throat had been cut!
With every clearing reached in this pristine forest our spirits rose at the hope of seeing smoke rise from a village hut, or to hear the bark of the village dogs. The only sign of human life continued to be the rubbish left by 'The Three' and then the stripped down skeleton of another big dirt bike that didn't make it. A comforting message that we were not the first to fail, but ominous as to the likely fate of our abandoned friend. We had traveled all around Cambodia on our beloved bike and arrogantly thought that a Suzuki 250 could handle this latest challenge and with a passenger. After all it had made it to Preah Vihear temple and to the crumbling old French casino atop Bokor National Park. It was invincible, or so we had hoped.
Sophat always trudged on ahead and would call out every so often for me to reply and judge my whereabouts. One particular call though had a note of excitement that had been missing from previous yells. He had reached the river we had been told about just as the night was falling and I hurried to catch up with him. To us it was a beautiful site especially because I had been wondering how we would sleep sleep bedded down on a wet forest floor overrun with termites, large and small ants but worst of all, the leeches that had been feeding on us all afternoon. They had been marching up my trouser legs like miniature 'Slinkys' moving against gravity instead of with it, almost surreal, like an attacking force in a computer game. The sheer numbers made it an eerie experience, and I wondered what would happen if I couldn't defend a certain stronghold at the top of my legs! Perish the thought - only I really couldn't ignore that possibility.
Feeling almost giddy with relief, we made for one of the patches of wet sand and dumped our two bags and helmets, stripped off to our underpants and set to washing all the blood off our bodies and out of our soaked clothing. The rain was light and fine, the temperature had warmed and there was just enough light to gather some wood and all the shreds of plastic together. Sophat managed to get a fire buring with some of the spare petrol we had brought with us and then he cut down three thin and supple bamboo poles that he jammed into the sand to form three half hoops. These formed the structure of our tent and were draped with the plastic sheet and the shreds of our ponchos. Secured with flexible but strong tendrils of a creeper and heavy stones around the base, we had some basic shelter from the outside. Storing the small packs and helmets inside for protection, we went out to one of the still warm river rocks and shared the rice meal before sitting next to fire, relieved that the sand would keep us leech free and provide a soft, if wet bed for the night. Dressed in both pairs of trousers, a light hoodie and Direct TV jacket I lay next to Sophat (who told me I looked like a Ninja, which started me on the "Ask a Ninja" theme tune), enjoyed the glow of the nearby fire now that the rain had stopped. I didn't expect to sleep, but huddled together for warmth we slept fitfully until 5am, when our little camp was dismantled, our things repacked into one bag (for Sophat to carry of course) ready for our journey to continue.
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Matthew Accardo
non-member comment
F___ing Nuts
So now that I have read this summary of people that do not prepare well for traveling I can only laugh. And I am certainly glad I swapped my good jacket, so you could not ruin it as well. And what, no theory on the benefits of jungle trekking in clogs? I wish I could have been there! Glad your safe, again.