The Adventure Begins....

Picking up the bike on Monday afternoon was relatively trouble free although involving the familiar wait whilst preparations were completed. I’d left Allie back at the hotel, as for some odd reason I felt really nervous about the ride back through the heavy traffic. Given the diminutive size of the little 250 I’m at a loss to explain why. However it was thankfully, completely uneventful, and as soon as I swung my leg over the saddle I felt much more at ease. The only slight issue being that as I’d had to wait whilst the boss picked up her kids from school the traffic had just about quadrupled due to the number of school kids riding scooters home after their days learning. Once back at the hotel it was a quick strip down to get at the battery to wire in my special loom that I brought along to power my Sat Nav and USB charger. In doing so I discovered that the air filter was as near to being completely clogged as made no difference; that had to be sorted before we left. One phone call and I’d arranged to pop back at 8am for a new on to be fitted.

The view from Our Hotel across the mighty Mekong River

The delay meant that by the time I’d got the luggage (of which as usual there was far to much) strapped securely to the bike it was gone 11am before we headed off. We couldn’t have gone more that a couple of miles before we made our first of many stops to try to get ourselves a bit more comfortable on the machine. I’d chosen the 250 Degree over a couple of over 250 Honda derivatives as the seat had appeared a bit more suited to two people; I was wrong. It may have looked a little thicker but made for comfort it was not. Add to that the fact that we had a large bag strapped on the rack which was pushing Allie forward and I was, as you might say, stuck between Allie and a hard place, namely the fuel tank. Meanwhile, Allie was sitting with the hard rear rail of the seat catching her, not a situation conducive to harmony of either rider or pillion on the first day of a four week ride. It would have to be sorted! I lost count of the number of stops we made on the 125km trip to Kampong Cham to regain circulation in out legs and backsides but suffice it to say that it detracted significantly from the pleasure of the ride for both of us; and we had some far longer days to come.

Stopping on the edge of the town for once last de-numbing session I spotted a couple of young western looking girls on bicycles heading into a market café and walked over to see if they knew of a decent, reasonably priced hotel. Once they got over the shock of being accosted by a dirty. scruffy old man wearing bike kit, they pointed us toward the river front where we found a nice hotel with a room overlooking the river for $15; a little over budget, but not enough to worry about as in spite of the relatively short ride, we’d both had enough for our first day’s ride. What with the discomfort and the unseasonally high temperatures (40C+) we were completely knackered and just wanted some ice cold water, a cold shower and some food (yes, in that order !), after all we hadn’t eaten since having a light breakfast at our hotel in Phnom Penh. Fortunately dusk falls early our here which meant we didn’t feel quite so bad collapsing into our beds by around 7pm !!!

In spite of our ridiculously early night, we still didn’t awake until the first rays of dawn shone across the Mekong River at about 6.30am. I would like to say that we awoke refreshed and raring to go… it wouldn’t however be strictly true. I guess the heat and humidity were conspiring against us on that front and it needed nice long cold showers to bring us both fully back to life. Yesterday evening after sorting ourselves out in the hotel we wandered around to the local street market. We saw lots of nice comfy mattresses which I briefly considered buying and butchering down to seat size before spotting some latex pillows which seemed to be an altogether more sensible proposition, so bought one for the princely sum of $4. Back at our room it was duly taken apart and the stuffing used to make a nice comfy bum pad for Allie, which also enabled her to sit just a little further back relieving the pressure on my delicate bits… Our test run the following morning was a resounding success so we can now look at the rest of our rides with joy rather than dread.

In view of the trials of our ride out from Phnom Penh we had decided to stay two nights in Kampong Cham, after all the rough route we were following was set up as a 13 day trip and we had 4 weeks… That would not only give us time to sort the bike properly but also get ourselves mentally for the next leg of the trip north towards the Laos and the national parks. We took a leisurely breakfast at the same café where we had eaten last night and were surprised by a French couple, Phillip and Joanne, whom we had first met in Phnom Penh joining us, along with the two girls who had pointed us to our hotel. Phillip and Joanne had also hired a bike from Angkor Motorcycles, a 250cc Baja, so I wasted no time in hopping aboard to see how it compared to our machine. In terms of seat size and comfort it was as near as makes no difference identical; the only difference being in the seat height being a little taller. Just as well really as I didn’t fancy the run back into Phnom Penh to change over, although if it was going to make the trip more enjoyable it would have had to have been done!

Breakfasted, we said goodbye to our new friends, confident that we would meet up again a little further on as it seemed that we were following roughly the same route with our next scheduled stops being Sen Monorum, where we were all looking forward to seeing and hope fully walking with and washing, Elephants!!!