Mondulkiri – The worst road in the world
Wednesday, July 5th, 2006On the morning I was due to leave Mondulkiri to head back to Phnom Penh, it looked as if there was a problem – quite apart from the rain that was turning everything to mud. The guesthouse had booked me a seat in a pickup (again, I wimped out and stiplulated inside) for $10. However, the allotted time came and went, and Sambol started to get a worried look on his face. Turns out something, somewhere had been lost in translation. One guy said he would take me for $20… too expensive. By this time, all of the pickups had left for Phnom Penh. My only choice, unless I wanted to stay another night in Sen Monorom (not especially, I was getting anxious being parted from my technology for too long), was to get a shared taxi. These are imported Toyota Camrys that have their suspension whacked right up (necessary on these here roads). I’d have preferred the pickup, with their big wheels, but it was that or another night in the sticks. I went for the Toyota (even though I was still ripped off at $17 for the whole front seat).
Anyway – I remember the road on my way to Mondulkiri, in a pickup, was pretty hairy. Imagine a freshly ploughed field, with up to two feet of mud deep, in the rain, on a hill, and…well, that’s it. Not much fun. We started out on the flat, which was bad enough, and then some downhill sections, where we were showing skills on a par with Eddie the Eagle Edwards. Slipsliding away, as Paul Simon might (and indeed, did) say. But that was nothing compared to the uphill section.
In a nutshell, there was no grip on the road whatsoever, and the car got stuck. We flagged down a passing 4×4, and persuaded them to tow us up the hill, but no dice. The rope snapped, and even the 4×4 got stuck. It was all rain, mud, whirring and smoking wheels, and skreeching. Suddenly, another night in Sen Monorom didn’t seem to bad compared to a night on the road out of Sen Monorom. With all of us out of the car, knee deep (and I’m not exaggerating) in mud, and pushing, there was a bit of movement… and a bit more… and, miraculously, half an hour later, the car moved.
7 hours later, we limped into Phnom Penh dirty, sweaty, smelly, but glad to be there. I went and got a room in my now-usual Lakeside Inn, and headed out for a quiet dinner and then an early night. Or so I thought…
Suzanne