Adventures in the Cardomoms

Well it was to be expected, the ride through the Cardomoms was an adventure alright. More of an endurance perhaps even a litle torturous. It was one of those occassions that you never forget. It is imprinted on Jacqui's and my memory, hard wired forever. We experienced incredible countryside, terrifying terrain and a road that was more an enormous trials track than thouroughfare.

The whole thing started with our bus trip to Phnom Penh from Battambang. We were sad to leave Battambang because we had such a good time there. I was a little bummed at the thought of Phnom Penh because of all those disgusting old men (who look like me) with very young girls on thier arms. I get so angry I want to hurt them, the rotten peadophiles! My imaginings were not too great in reality. We saw them but it was not too intense. We had booked a very nice hotel close to the river, but quiet enough to avoid the excess. As we had arrived on the Friday evening we had to wait till Saturday arvo to pick up the bike so that we could leave on the Sunday at sparrows fart and avoid the traffic. Phnom Penh competes with Saigon for traffic easily. It is chaotic and very dangerous. On Saturday we spent an interesting time in the Russian and main markets buying trinkets and essentials for the trip, I got a fan, a penknife, bungy straps and some chopsticks. Jacqui got some long sleeved fingerless gloves. We picked up the bike, a very tall Honda Baja 250cc dirt bike. It had a rack on the back and seemed to be everything we needed. We made it back to the hotel without too many life threatening incidents with the crazy traffic and we only got lost once. Rush hour traffic should be avoided at all costs!

The next day very early we left Phnom Penh for Prasat (halfway back towards Battambang). The trip was easy, the first bit where the roads were effectively dirt or dust should I say managed well by the bikes suspension. It was good to experience the suspension of the bike... so comfortable compared with the little scooter we took to Bantey Chammar. We arrived in Prasat at midday and found a hotel that suited. We had lunch in a local resteraunt where you got to point at one or two of a miriad of pots simmering on charcoal burners. We met an interesting Canadian there who was riding a bycycle around Cambodge. We spent a pleasant time chating and eating. During the afternoon we explored the district making sure we found the road to take to the Cardomoms. No worries or so we thought!

The next day we set out bright an early. We were headed to a place that sounded like Anglung or so I thought. We had met this bloke in Battambang who knew the Cardomoms well and I thought he had told me that there were plenty of backpacker hostels in Anglung. The books all talk about Veal Vieng or Promoui as the place to stay. The bloke told us that you turn left in Veal Vieng at a round about with a black elephant on it and then go on to Anglung. I had all this in my head as we set off. The road at first was very easy, bitumen and not very crowded. We made good time to a place called Kravanh. There we crossed a bridge and hit the dirt. Again the road was not bad, quite a few potholes and some very creative bridges but no serious problems. Again we made good time cruising along at about 40 - 60 km. I was worried that we were on the right road because we were not climbing into forest or mountain, but were on the flat agricultural land interspersed with small villages, the mountains were a distant view. We made it to Veal Vieng/Promoui/another name I can't remember by lunchtime. This business with name changes does my head in. It is very frustrating, and very difficult to plot a journey with. Anyway I decided to push on to Anglung as things were going so well. Given the road I thought this thing was going to be a doddle..... WRONG! My mistake was misunderstanding the Bloke in Battambang. He was talking about Veal Vieng as being the place with all the accommodation! The minute we left the round about with the elephant, things descended into a nightmare of extremely deep ruts and potholes that were a good example of a trials track. Anglung was a tiny village (the last one before the other side of the mountains) of maybe 20 huts and shanties. Definitely not a hostel in sight. We had gone too far to turn back and anyway you would be flat out turning round on the goat track we were on.

The climb out of Anglung was terrifying, one long series of impossibly deep ruts created by some daemonic truck that had got bogged in the wet season some months before. Most of it was rock hard but on some of the sharper bits had broken down into this powdery dust. The only good thing is that we were going uphill so I was able to use the power of the  bike and its big nobbly tyres to launch myself up and over it all. Once up the top it was a matter of navigating the ruts and potholes mostly in second gear. Doing this with a pillion on the back doubled the drama because the extra weight on the back made it swing around like some demented semi trailer. Holding the whole thing upright was a seroius job! We were definitely in the mountains now and the forest all around was dense and lush, very much a jungle. We pressed on for what seemed like hours, as it turned out it was hours! It took us another 6 to get to the coast. The hardest bits were going down the mountains. The ruts were no smaller and the sides of the roads dissappered into perilously steep mountain sides. The views were breathtaking but I had little time to take them in as I needed to stay fixated on the road surface which varied only with the size of the rocks that made up the road, the boulders that were sunk into it or the ruts that cut thier way through it all. The worst ruts were the ones that cut along the length of the road rather than across it. They were made by rains and were very deep and steep sided. Once in them it was a mammoth job to extract yourself. This is what caused our first "off"! We were going down this almost vertical slope and I slipped into a rut. There wasn't really a choice or should I say it was a choice of which rut to choose as there were more ruts than road! Anyway my rut was terminated by a big rock which terminated our motorised progress. Jacqui and I both left the machine on the left hand side, she falling free and me having my left boot trapped under the bike. Stupidly all I could think of was getting up quick to avoid getting hit by something coming from behind.... yeah sure in the middle of nowhere there would be traffic! Jacqui pulled the bike off me and we got it upright. No damage, great! Back on the bike we made it down the hill and got back into the trip. I noticed that there were problems getting more than 3 gears. So at a convenient spot I stopped to look. Jacqui got off and I bent down to have a look at the gear lever. It jumped into gear, stalled and threw me off on the same side as before face first (I am so thankful I had a motocross full face helmet on as I would have lost my face to the rocks!). There I was sitting in the dirt with the bike on the floor and my bloody phone starts to ring! We are in the middle of the jungle miles from anywhere and the phone goes off! It turns out to be some Cambodian woman speaking Khmer, which I can't Understand trying to sell me something! I am sorry to say I was a bit rude to her. I solved the problem with the gear stick, it was bent and we continued on. At one stage we came across a small village which was good  because we could get some fuel, we were running very low and this was a godsend. There was a huge lake created by this chinese dam, we skirted this for a couple of hours. There were times when we got close to a building connected to the dam and we would get onto a concrete strip. This was heaven and we relished the smoothness only to be thrown back cruelly onto even more horrendous dirt and rock. This went on and on and on. Finally about 30Km from Koh Kong, our destination we got onto another strip of concrete. I thought it was there just to tempt and to torture but it stayed with us till the end halleluliah! There were a couple of extra bits when we came across trucks going in the opposite direction and we had to get off the concrete, a twelve inch drop to the dirt but we managed. After the trip we had just done that was easy. You can't imagine my relief at arriving in Koh Kong. We went straight to a resteraunt on the waterfront and ordered mix juice shakes all round. The people there were impressed by our state, covered in dust and dirt, bloodied and bent but ecstatic that we had made it. My oh my what wonders life throws up. Someone asked us if we had seen any animals? I asked what kind of animals and they said tigers or elephants. I was nonplussed, I had not even thought about tigers! My god the road was enough of a tiger for me!