Koh Kong

Our first full day in Koh Kong and it just keeps getting better. A gentle wander through town brought us to a nice little river side café for breakfast and iced coffees, then back to our hotel to collect the bike for a leisurely ride across the Koh Kong bridge and head for the beach. And what a beach; a tropical paradise with a few drink stalls and cafes, plenty of shelter from the blazing sun for Allie, hammocks to laze in and cool, clear, safe water to swim in. Amazingly we had all this to ourselves, there was not another living sole to be seen, just a few sand crabs scuttling to and fro from their holes in the beach. Even Allie, who always professes that she doesn't do beaches, relaxed and enjoyed the few hours of just lazing about.

We’d been told about a great little place for lunch, the Crab Shack, so come that time of the day and we rode about half a mile further along the beach to that very place. Fat Sam hadn't been wrong! Nestled under a few trees right at the edge of the beach were scattered a few tables and chairs with the ramshackle restaurant at the far edge. If you’re in a beach side restaurant with the name “Crab Shack” there really is only one choice you can make from the menu!!! In fact we not only ordered the crab but also stir fried vegetables, seafood and rice; it was superb, and all the better for being washed down with an ice cold tinnie!

After letting the crab settle nicely we mounted up and headed back to look for the Buddha Hell we had been told about. We’d missed it on the way out so thought we’d try again as it should be just before we got to the bridge. I turned left through an arch which I thought would be the place, but still didn’t find it. We found out from Sam, at dinner in the evening, that I just hadn't gone far enough. So hope fully we will find it, third time lucky….. 

Across the bridge we rode through town and straight out the other side. This time looking for the mangrove swamp and watch tower we had read about. This one showed up on my GPS so should be easy to find I thought, but of course the GPS had other ideas! After turning us off the main road about 100yds too early, we had an “interesting” ride along some dirt roads running actually through the mangroves until we arrived at a locked gate. Damn, it had brought us to the tradesman’s entrance! A short back track with Allie getting ever more worried about going for a swim in the swamp and we arrived at the correct entrance. Funny, but I’d swear she used to be far more trusting of my riding, I don’t know what I've done to upset her equilibrium!

It was another attraction well worth the tiny entrance fee of about 75p each, with a concrete boardwalk running deep into the swamp, with covered platforms every so often, many of which had family parties picnicking on them. After walking through the covered market area and crossing the road I had originally tried to access from, we found the lookout tower at the far side of a very bouncy wooden suspension bridge. 

Crossing it caused little concern, however after going to the top of the tower, on the way back there was a couple of young lads making it bounce and sway rather more, which made for an “interesting” crossing. At the top of the tower we found three young teenage girls who for some unknown reason were very keen to have their photos taken with us. Back at Fat Sam’s in the evening, the expats were holding court in their usual positions at their usual table, it was as though we were caught in a time warp… and so the day ended!

  

It's very, very small world!

After two nights back in Phnom Penh which included a sunset cruise on the Mekong, it was back on the road north yesterday heading for Koh Kong. We’d enjoyed being back in the capitol as we knew our way around a bit by this time. We also booked in at a different hotel, the Channsoda, only just across the way from the Bright Lotus but a much nicer room for our $20. We spent our time just ambling along the water front and people watching, our favourite past-time. The sunset cruise was really good, there were only four couples on board, two other Brits, two French and two Americans with whom we got into conversation almost immediately. Matt and his wife, who were on a RWT, were from Portland, Oregon which was where I first hit the Pacific coast on my recent North American road trip. The skipper, Kim, handed out cold beers and peanuts along with lots of information about the scenes we were passing along the bank of the river and about Phnom Penh in general. Altogether a few dollars well spent; we had booked at our hotel and just taken pot luck, but I would certainly recommend Crocodile Cruises to anyone else heading this way.

The early morning run out of Phnom Penh was as mad heading south as it had been a couple of weeks ago when we went north to Kampong Cham. Bikes, cars, busses, trucks and tuc tucs all vying for space on National Road 4. It was a bit like the North Circular into London during the rush hour but at less than half the speed and without all the aggression and impatience! In fact I was having a ball; having finally sorted out Allie’s seat properly with a cushion purloined from our hotel, I could at last relax knowing that she was comfortable on the back and concentrate on riding.

Having done a bit of research on the web and in our guide books it appeared that there was accommodation to be had up in the hills in the Kirirom National Park, so that was where we were heading. Turning off of the main road it was a joy to be able to relax both mind and pace. Whilst the frenetisism of the heavy traffic was fun there was certainly not a lot of time for sightseeing. Now, with the pace down to local speeds and very little traffic we could enjoy the ride up into the hills. At the entrance to the park we were charged $5 each with no receipt offered… but having come that far we thought we might as well pay up and push on. We started seeing loads of signs for a leisure park which never seemed to appear but we did find an incredibly beautiful temple complex where we took a brief stop, then it was onwards and upwards. Still more signs for the mysterious park. Right at the top of the road was a four way junction with more signs indicating that we should turn left. About 10km further on along the now dirt road we eventually found it. A most bizarre place, stuck just about as far from anywhere as you could get, with rooms and cabins starting at $75 per night and going right up to $236 per night… No wonder there appeared to be not a single sole in occupation. In fact I'm still not sure if the place was half built or half falling down, but needless to say we did a swift u-turn and headed out the way we had come in. Of all the odd places I have come across on my travels that must rate as one of the weirdest.

We hadn’t actually done that many miles so it was no great hardship to run back down to the main road and push on further; we were only about 60 miles from the coast so could easily do that over the rest of the day and still find a hotel way before dark. The traffic had quietened a bit as we had got further west so the riding was good, with ever more interesting scenery. As we hit the coast I turned north for Sre Amble a small coastal town on a bit in an inlet, guessing that there would be a few guest houses there. We passed two likely looking places on the way in but thinking it would be more convenient to actually be in the town we headed on. It was a funny little place with lots of bars and cafes but not a sign of another guest house or hotel, so we back tracked about a mile to the Happy Family Guest House and booked ourselves in for the night. It had been quite a long and very hot day so it was a rush for the nice cold shower as soon as got into our room.

Whilst they didn't serve food they offered a take away service (or should that be bring-it-in service) with a short but tasty looking menu at reception. So meals ordered we sat in the shade of the hotels canopy and watched the sun go down whilst enjoying our beef fried rice and chicken noodles all washed down with a couple of ice cold Cambodian beers. A perfect end to a perfect day!

Next morning we used the same system to order in our breakfasts, once more enjoyed in the open air with our packed and ready to roll bike alongside us. The days goal was Koh Kong as far north (give or take a couple of Kms) as you can go along the coast without entering Thailand. A leisurely days ride of about 80 miles running through the very edge of the Cardamom Mountains. We had the road almost to ourselves and once more the scenery excelled! With frequent photo stops and drink stops, it wasn’t the fastest of rides, but then that was never our aim anyway. It was wonderful to be back in the hills with lakes to pass and rivers to cross, I would certainly rate it as one of the best days riding we have had in Cambodia.

Even with all the stops, we still arrived in Koh Kong around lunch time and after a few more photo stops and a bit of a circumnavigation of the town we came to rest at Fat Sam’s café bar. We guessed the rather large gentleman just leaving on a Scoot as we arrived was the aptly named Fat Sam and we were right. We ordered a couple of drinks and a cheese and onion omelette baguette to share and sat and relaxed. As we sat chatting and a chilling, a European guy from a far table came across and said “Hi Alison, that was Sam just popping out, he won’t be long” as though we were supposed to know what he was talking about; we both looked at him blankly. It transpired that we had met him at a café in Kampong Cham and he had mentioned someone that he knew that was from Wales…We hadn’t taken in the name of town that he had mentioned so had no expectations of meeting up with him again.

 

Sam's wife Lin

Fat Sam

When Fat Sam returned he came over to talk, not only was his original home town Tregaron in Wales, he used to work at the same pub where Alison had worked many years before. Even more bizarrely, he was the brother-in-law a former boyfriend of Alison who had also been my next door neighbour when I ran the Black Lion Hotel in Pontrhydfendigaid…. Now that really is a small world! We returned later in the day for dinner and a few more beers and spent the evening reminiscing with Sam (aka Malcolm)  about all the people and places back home that we had in common. Whilst it isn't unusual to find odd coincidences cropping up whilst on the road, this one must rate way out on top!

Destination south!

There is really only one road from Siem Reap down to Battambang, the RN 6 / RN5. It’s a fairly wide, 2 lane, single carriageway, which carries quite a lot of traffic as it ultimately runs into Phnom Penh. The biggest problem is that all the cars, trucks and busses seem to think that it’s actually at least four lanes wide (and sometimes five!). So if you don’t want to end up splattered all over the front end of a bus (definitely the worst offenders) you really have to keep on your mettle! It matters not what is coming towards them, if they catch up with a slower moving vehicle they WILL overtake. They show no mercy! So as you can imagine it wasn’t the most pleasant ride or the most relaxed. I’m pleased to say that I managed to avoid them all without recourse to the ditch or the fields. Additionally the landscape isn’t much to shout about either, not that I could afford the luxury of removing my eyes from the road to look at it. But hey, ho, sometimes you just have to knuckle down and get the miles clocked off.

I’d heard good reports form friends about Battambang so we were looking forward to spending a couple of nights there. First impressions however weren’t too good and it took a bit of riding around before we found the river front; certainly the nicest part of town. Our hotel the Seng Hout was up a little side road just a few hundred yards from the river and even less from the local market, at $15 per night it was good value with a swimming pool and roof terrace (although we used neither!) It also had a restaurant which we spurned in favour of the nearby market  for breakfast and a local training establishment for dinner, one of many in Cambodia which are set up to train youngsters in restaurant work. The food was good and the prices reasonable; to say nothing of the attraction of Happy Hour (which seemed to last all night, every night!). Breakfast as I said, was taken in the market at a stall frequented only by locals. Without them speaking a single word of English we managed to procure two very nice bowls of egg fried rice topped with a well cooked chicken leg washed down with as many cups of green tea as you could drink… not your average greasy spoon breakfast and all for well under a fiver!

The highlight of our stay in Battambang however, was, without a doubt our visit to and ride on the Bamboo Railway. I’ve never seen anything quite like it! Two railway boggies are topped by a light bamboo platform onto which is dropped a large lawnmower engine. They toss you a couple of cushions to sit on, hook up a rubber drive belt and off you go. 

Rattling along the wobbliest, bumpiest railtrack you have ever seen in your life. Stop and go are provided by a large stick which simply pulls the motor back thus tensioning or loosening said drive belt but the really fun part comes when you meet another truck coming in the opposite direction. The one carrying the least people stops and you clamber off. After which the driver, aided by the driver of the other “train”, dismantle your “train” putting it at the side of the track. That done, and “train” passed it is reassembled and off you all go again on your respective journeys… 

Needless to say I didn’t ask to see their risk assessment before boarding and I didn’t see a single florescent coated health and safety official in attendance, however in spite of this we managed the entire two way trip without loss of life or limb (as did the dozens of others we met at either end). Even stranger is the fact that it doesn’t actually go anywhere. It just sort of ends after a 20 minute ride in the middle of the jungle where the enterprising locals have set up a few gift and refreshment stalls. Yes, it’s a bit kitsch and rather touristy, bit I have to admit that at the same time it’s great fun and puts a bit of money into the local economy at the same time. Even the Tuk Tuk ride there and back was a nice relaxed affair after the stress of the highway and we discovered a few places on the edge of town to which we could walk later in the day including a park and the inevitable temple!

The following morning it was up early and back on the road after a rather pathetic (and expensive) breakfast in the hotel; we should have gone to the market again! I was hoping to find a way to cut into the Cardamom mountains from the town of Pursat on a road that looked promising, anything to get of this damned main road. The problem was that is was probably going to turn into a dirt track, and with Allie still far less than comfortable on the back of the little Honda, dirt roads are, unfortunately a bit of a no no! So we pushed on a bit further to Krakor and the floating villages of Kampong Luang which was reached by… yes, you’ve guessed it, a dirt road!

 I got to stand in the naughty corner for that one, but then it was at the end of what had turned into quite a long day and I was soon forgiven!!!

We had spotted two Guest Houses, one on the main road at Krakor and the other on the road down to Kampong Luang before we hit the dirt. Reasoning that the main road would be noisy we enquired at the second and were shown an acceptable room for just $5 per night but no air-con which we though  would be OK as the temperature had dropped substantially over the previous 24 hours. The room was fine and even came with a couple of pet Geckos!

However, the peace and quiet were not to be. If it wasn’t lorries and motorbikes flying up and down it was what sounded like a huge pack of dogs outside our window barking and howling all night, you would have though we were staying at Baskerville Hall!!! And so it was another early start, in fact our earliest yet at around 7.30am, as there was no breakfast to be had locally to delay us. 

Angkor Wat

We awoke bright and early from our slumbers at the Monica Angkor hotel, full of anticipation for the day ahead. We had thought of taking a Tuk-Tuk out to the temple complex but I reasoned that as it all seemed to be spread over quite a large area we would have far more flexibility if we took our little Honda. We were the first down for the inclusive breakfast at around 6.45am, which was quite fortunate as now sooner had we sat down with our food that hoards of Chinese school kids poured in like a plague of locusts! We’d eaten up and left before the last of the hoard had even sat down. In spite of the short distance we kitted up as usual. Due to the high volume of traffic in Siem Reap, it seemed to make sense, although it was getting to the point where the heat riding in our jackets was becoming intolerable. We had been expecting from everything we had read to be about 24 -26C, whereas in fact it was around 10C hotter and that is one very big difference! The route couldn’t have been easier as we simply turned right out of the hotel car park and just kept straight on until we picked up a sign for the ticket office on the right hand side of the road. It gave us a good indication of what to expect; think Severn Bridge on a sunny bank holiday weekend; although I must confess it was far more efficient even though they took a photo of you and printed it out on a rather nice full colour pass!!!

Less that a mile further on we turned left to follow the moat which surrounds the 3km square temple of Angkor Wat. I managed to park quite close to the main causeway and gate due to the fact by far the majority of visitors arrive by coach so there were not too many bikes. Even though it was barely 8am the tourist were there by the score, and we were anxious to join them, but not before our little Honda was safely locked up and our kit stowed. With the temperature already into the low 30s we had brought a couple of bottle of water from the hotel to start us off, so on with my little 20lt rucksack, camera primed, spare battery in pocket and off we went.

Just to stand at the end of the causeway and gaze in awe at the majesty of Angkor Wat was enough to make you break out in goose bumps (in spite of the heat!). Photographs can never convey the gravitas of a place such as this. The sheer immensity of it alone took your breath away; the moat enough to make an early Norman conqueror go weak at the knees; the walls at over 8 metres high appear as impregnable today as they must have back in the 12^th Century when it was built. To think that this vast complex just vanished into the jungle for more that 600 years until its rediscover in 1860 is just mind boggling; but then so are virtually all the statistics about the place! Walking across the huge causeway your jaw just drops involuntarily as you come ever closer to the main entrance. Even the words “main entrance” seem holey inadequate for such grandiose architecture. In all honesty I simply do not have the vocabulary to impart to you dear reader, the effect this staggeringly beautiful place had on me. Did it live up to expectations? Oh yes, and then some! Of course I’d seem photographs of it, but as I said earlier, photos just cannot adequately convey scale or gravitas.

We walked our little legs off round and around, up and down, in and out. Once across the causeway, due to the immensity of the place the crowds weren’t half as bad as we feared and we even found odd corners where we felt as though we had the place to ourselves; now wouldn’t that be something! In reality I really don’t think that could ever happen. At the rear of the complex a path led on through the woods which we though led to another temple Bayon. Whilst it led to another much smaller less visited building, this was still a part of the Angkor Wat complex. Back at the bike we paused to catch our breath and refresh ourselves with a couple of rather scrummy milkshakes cum ice creams!!!

and we saw load of these little fellas on the way round

Suitably refreshed, we jumped aboard our little steed and headed on around the perimeter road thinking that we had seen all we were going to see… Wrong! We hadn’t gone very far before another magnificent tower straddled the road in from of us. I still find it hard to believe that we actually got to ride through the centre of a 1000 year old temple gate which was hardly wide enough for a horse and cart to pass through. 

My overloaded sensory receptors were about to blow a fuse… but it was still not done with us. A mile or two further on I spotted some souvenir stalls on the left side of the road and an entrance on the right. I parked up in the shade of a big old tree and joined the few people walking along yet another ancient pathway at the end of which stood the temple of Preah Khan, covering over 5sq km it is even larger than the city of Angkor Wat but it is made even more special due the fact that rather than try to reconstruct the temple, it has simple been stabilised within the jungle setting that it was discovered. 

Once again the scale is mind-blowing, it took us the best part of an hour just to walk from front to back of the main temple building, but to see how the jungle has intertwined itself with the huge stone blocks and columns is just so spectacular, it has to be seen to be believed! I’m not sure that I will ever again witness anything that will shake me so profoundly.

So did Angkor Wat live up to our expectations? As I’m sure you have already realised, yes, yes and yes again! If you ever visit Cambodia and all you ever get to see if Preah Vinhear and Angkor Wat, In my honest opinion, ­you will have received full value for your money.