Motorbike Sir?

My bike hadn’t started for half an hour. We were sitting at the bottom of an enormous rut on the side of a mountain, drenched in sweat that a swarm of bees found attractive. At least 20 of them were on me, though I wasn’t too worried, as I was to tired to make any sudden movements that might cause them to sting.

“We need to get the bike to a place where we can push it and then pop the clutch,” I suggested. Having already driven up some hairy sections of the hill, turning the bike around and heading back down did not seem like the best option.

“There is a relatively smooth section up here,” Andrew said while gesturing 25 meters up the hill.

“Alright, lets give it a shot,” I said as we began the energy draining process of pushing my motorbike up the ‘road’, with scores of bees still sitting on our shirts and sweat dripping from my chin. We had gone a few meters when Andrew said that my back tire was a bit low of air.

Shit.

It was at that moment that I began to wonder what the hell I was doing in the middle of the jungle, hundreds of kilometers from civilization. Everything had been fine for the first four days of our trip. Gorgeous jungle covered mountains and fresh cool air were a welcome change from the dusty confines of Phnom Penh. But at that moment, things were looking a little bleak. We had no air pump and only basic motorbike repair knowledge. I thought we might be here for a while.

———–

A week before Khmer New Year, my housemate Andrew and I hatched a plan for a serious bike trip. I wanted to see a bit more of rural Cambodia before the coming rainy season would make bike travel in much of the country difficult.

Our plan was to cruise up to Battambong, Cambodia’s second largest city, then over to Pailin, one of the last vestigaes of the Khmer Rouge. From Pailin, we would take two days to traverse the Carderom Mountains until finally reaching Koh Kong and the Gulf of Thailand. Our ultimate destination was Sihanoukville, where a large number of our friends were heading to celebrate the Khmer New Year.

Late Saturday morning (festivities Friday night are to blame for our delayed departure) we took off for Battambong. The ride was pretty easy, national road 5 was in really good shape for most of the journey. We hit a freak thunderstorm that cooled us down for about five minutes. Aside from being run off the road a few times by large trucks, the trip was not too exciting.

According to our friends in Phnom Penh, the best pork ribs found anywhere in Southeast Asia are at a bar/resturant in Battambong called Cold Nights. While the only fellow customers were a middle aged westerner and a table full of drunk army officers (who soon after we arrived invited the woman to join them), the ribs were quite good, finger-licking good to be exact.

The next day we set out along the dusty road to Pailin. Pailin has a reputation as a shady border town and being home to the largest Ruby and Saphire mine in Southeast Asia. It was also a Khmer Rouge stronghold and former commanders hold positions of power in the local government. Being an area of the country where much fighting took place during Cambodia’s civil war, the entire region is still heavily infested with landmines. From talking to my students at CMAC (the Cambodian Mine Action Center) I knew that there were some major de-mining operations in the area. What surprised me most was that most of the minefields are right along the side of the road. A house (with occupants) would be situated in the middle of a taped off minefield with a small cleared path leading to the road. I wouldn’t want to stumble home drunk to that house…

Monday morning we woke up at dawn and set off into the mountains. As navagation tools we had a map (though we were skeptical of its accuracy) and a GPS unit. There were many small villages and roads for the first few hours, meaning we were stopping at every intersection and asking locals in rudimentary Khmer which road to take. We ended up taking a few wrong turns though eventually we got cruising on the right track. Our destination was a town called O Sam that was not even marked on our map. As we got closer to its supposed location though, locals knew it well and pointed us in the right direction.

The road varied from something resembling an ox-cart trail to muddy single track. Many of the bridges were simply logs spanning a ravine that would test my nerves and balance. In many instances, there were no bridges (in this case, someone had decided to burn the bridge), though the water was shallow enough to ford.

After leaving the town of Pramoy in the early afternoon, we really entered the jungle. Huge trees loomed above us and on either side of the trail was a solid wall of foliage. I was heading down a steep gully and about to cross a stream when the sky exploded above me. It sounded like a bolt of lightning had struck beside me. I looked up and noticed that a massive thunderstorm was approaching. More rain on the muddy trail would not be fun.

“How about we kick it on over to O Sam,” Andrew suggested. I agreed wholeheartedly as we picked up our pace a bit trying to outrun the rain.

We stopped for a rest at the top of a hill and saw the thundercloud obscure the area we had been shortly before. We were in quite an impressive area, and I was loving the views.

After about 10 hours of riding on the first day, we began to wonder where this town of O Sam was. We came across a family of villagers and asked how much farther the town was, they said only a few kilometers. This lightened our spirits and we soon entered the small hamlet just as it started to rain. All of a sudden we came across something I couldn’t believe, a sign that read “O Sam Guesthouse”. Here, in the middle of the jungle 45 km from the next town on a barely accessible road was an illuminated sign complete with telephone number, though we were far out of reach of cell phones.

We pulled in the driveway and the proprietor approached. “Would you like a room?” He said.

“Well, since it is starting to rain, and this is the first guesthouse we have seen since we left Pailin, sure.” We sat down and marveled at our good fortune.

A few minutes later, the owner asked us if we were hungry. “Sure, what do you have?”

“We have chicken”

“Chicken sounds good, we will have some chicken and rice”

A few minutes passed then the owner came back. “Oh, sorry, but we have to wait for the chicken to come back to the chicken house.” Appearantly they could not catch the chicken and had to wait until dark in order to cook it. We weren’t complaining, as we had a place to sleep in for the night. The night air was cool – I even used a blanket for the first time that I could remember.

The next day we decided to hang out in the area instead of pushing on to Koh Kong. We set out in search of an elusive freshwater crocodile that inhabits the area. The guesthouse owner’s son came with us as we drove around the swamps in the next valley. He was a student in Phnom Penh and didn’t know where to find them, but at least we got to see some gorgeous country. We came across households where the children would run and hide at the sight of two large Barangs (literally French, though it is the Khmer word for foreigner). That afternoon our neighbor and guide Peng pulled into the guesthouse with his client. He was doing the same trip but in the opposite direction. They told us about the upcoming section of road, and it didn’t sound too fun.

That night we watched a Khmer New Year celebration involving a sound system maxed-out playing the same 4 songs over and over while the village children danced in the street. They kept the party going deep into the night which made sleep a challenge as the floor I was laying on vibrated in tune with the bass.

In the morning we gassed up and set out. The ride was fairly pleasant at first, until we came to sections of road looking like this. If you got caught in one of the ruts, your bike was stuck, requiring serious effort to get it back on a good section.

We then came to a river crossing with only 2 wooden planks spanning the swift current. We helped each other push/guide the other persons bike across as falling over was not an option. Another few minutes and we came to the rutted out hill that Peng had warned us about – a steep uphill where the ruts came over your head. This was when my bike died and we noticed that my back tire was running low on air.

Throughout the morning we had hit some bad sections where we crashed a few times. Each time we got stuck, it was a severe energy draining process to lift our bikes around. When my bike wouldn’t start, I was starting to lose it. The temperature was in the 90s with high humidity and those bees were not helping matters.

After twenty minutes of struggle, we had pushed my bike up to a section of hill where Andrew had crashed his bike after making it through the “death rut” section of road that had dominated my bike. We rested for a few minutes and chugged some Royal-D, an electrolyte mix similar to Gatorade, and ate a package of “Chow-Chow” slang in these parts for instant noodles.

“Fuck it, lets do it,” I said as we turned my bike around and pointed it downhill. I started coasting down the rock-strewn road and popped the clutch. Success! My engine fired up and I stopped to turn around. I was ready to head back up the hill. I shifted into first… click.

Shit.

I had forgotten to put in the clutch before shifting, and again I was sitting on the side of some god-forsaken hill in the middle of the jungle with a bike that wouldn’t start. I still had some more of the smooth downhill section left, so I repeated the process, this time without inadvertently killing the engine.

I flew up the hill, not stopping until I reached the top, not wanting to be anywhere near those damn bees any longer. A few moments later, Andrew drove up, carrying my bag and helmet. My rear tire didn’t seem to be losing any more air, and my bike was running, so we set off again, hoping for no more difficulties. A short while later we came across a local who was doing the exact same route as us, though with a considerably smaller bike. I don’t know how he does it, but he deserves some serious respect.

The rest of the ride was a breeze compared to the early sections. The road opened up into an old, gravel, logging road which allowed us to cruise at a decent clip. A few of the rivers we crossed were clean, beautiful, and perfect for swimming. We could tell when we were getting close to Koh Kong as houses became more common and the forest was getting younger and younger. At last we saw the ocean, a beautiful sight considering the mess we were in a few hours before. We celebrated with a beer and some food on a wooden platform on the ocean, taking in the salty air.

Our final day of riding before Sihanoukville was gorgeous. The dirt road from Koh Kong out to National road 4 gave us spectacular views alternating between lush tropical jungle and coastline. The road crosses 5 rivers, each requiring a ferry crossing, usually done in contraptions like this. One wonders how they stay afloat and how often they sink (especially with those expensive Land Cruisers on top).

Sihanoukville was a blast as usual – Mama and the rest of her family at Chiva’s Shack showed us a good time. A few days of sun, booze, and late night swim sessions with good friends was the perfect end to a great trip.

So does a wild man shit in the woods? Usually yes. When you are travelling through landmine infested jungle full of ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers, it is best to stay on the road.

Tags: Cambodia

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