Cambodia Cycle Trip 2011

Wednesday 19th - Friday 21st Jan

Wednesday 19th 

Our final long ride of the holiday, as we head off to complete 70km of cycling, before reaching Beng Melea Temple to see the ruins.  Along the way Pier spots a man on a bicycle collecting Palm juice from the road side and asks us if we would like to try some.  We all agreed and made Mike go first, drinking from a dirty looking bamboo holder.   The palm juice was surprisingly good, tasting very sweet.   We noticed that the guys finger was wrapped in a dirty looking bandage, as he'd chopped it with a machete the day before.   We gave him some new plasters, together with some antiseptic wipes, which he was really grateful.    He then climbed to the top of a number of Palm trees to collect more juice for us.  (no safety harness or hard hat - just a bamboo ladder!).

After a further 10k, we came across a massive boiling cauldron, steaming away in somebodies front garden.  It was just like one of the pots that the kids had been using for boats the day before.   We cycled in to the garden to meet the chap that was boiling palm juice, so we chatted for a while, before being offered Palm sugar to try.  It was in a dirty looking plastic bucket and looked like industrial waste, but tasted really good, in fact it was just like fudge.      His Mother had really strange orange teeth and looked like she was in serious need of dental treatment, but we soon discovered that this was due to the fact that she regularly chews tobacco, wrapped in a palm leaf, mixed with snail paste and coconut berries.She claimed it was non addictive, but judging by the state of her, it didn't look like that to us. She had 9 children.

On route to the temple we met another cycling party, who joined our group, including a french lady from Mauritius, who had, had enough cycling and had blagged a lift in our van. 

We cycled on through numerous small villages and continued to whip up a frenzy with the local children as we traveled through.  We found that the cyclists at the back of our group were welcomed every 50 yds by groups of children, jumping and screaming as we approached - wanting high fives, as we cycled past.  We've had children hanging off our cycling shorts, running along with us and even a whole family chasing us down the road, wanting to say hello!

We visited the temple ruins after lunch, before heading back to watch the sunset over Angkor Wat - this was a bit of a shock to they system, as it was the first time in 10 days that we had encountered hundreds of tourists, bus loads of Japanese and Koreans.    

Thursday 20th Jan 

This was to be a full on day of Temple viewing, including the world famous Angkor Wat (a world heritage site). Our last cycle of the trip, setting off from our hotel for the short 35km, which took us through a real wilderness on a single sandy track, in a densely wooded area.  We have been pretty lucky with the dogs on this trip, with only four taking chase, as most were uninterested as we cycled past.   Today, we cycled through what seemed a very, very poor district with a couple of vicious dogs waiting to pounce as we cycled past. 

We have covered over 357 miles and seen some real sites and captured some great memories.

Tonight ,we have to bid fair well to Ham, our mechanic and trusty sweeper and Som our temple guide, who has joined us for the last couple of days.    Mr Tel has taken our luggage back to Phom Phen, this is sad as it feels like the end now. 

Friday 21st Jan

We have an early start again, up at 5:15am to catch the 7am boat, from Seim Reap back to Phon Phem, which takes 6 hrs.   After boarding, we soon noticed the lack of 'Health and Safety', as we had to balance along a narrow edge with no hand rail once aboard, to reach the entrance.   Fortunately, we were the first to board and we managed to bag the best seats on board.   This was an ideal position and kept us entertained for the next hr, as we watched many others struggle with their large cases, as they balanced along the side of the boat.  The look of horror on peoples faces, when they saw in side the vessel, with no allocated seating, its just like easy jet and made Network Rail look good, as an hour later we still hadn't set sail.   Some of the chunky tourists arrived and one poor lady, even got wedged in the door.    Mike decided to clean the windows by hanging over the side with the ships mop that  he'd found.   8:05 and we are finally underway, no safety briefing, no life jackets and the crew seemed quite happy to let people hang off the sides and sit on the roof outside drinking beer.    We've only been gone ten minutes, when the boat shoots forward and we come to an abrupt halt, having run aground on a sand bank - no worries, the man has a 10 foot long bamboo pole to push us away from the shore.

The journey back to Phon Phem was very pleasant and the 6 hr journey soon passed.   We witnessed along the way many fisherman and remote villages, some parts resembled the Amazon.   

Our final farewell meal this evening with Peir and Tel in a really nice restaurant along side the Mekon river.

We leave tomorrow to catch a flight back to Bangkok for a few days, before heading back the the UK.

It truly has been a remarkable journey and adventure !!!! 

Monday 17th & Tuesday 18th January 2011 - Children in cooking pots!

Monday 17th Jan
We started the day on fast dirt tracks for the first 20km with the wind behind us, mainly down hill  and made good progress, before our first fruit and drink stop.   On route we came across a line of monks, dressed in their bright orange robes walking peacefully along the dirt track, we stopped and talked to them for a while, before heading on our way.  After another 10km we met a Doctor on his bike, who gladly showed us his medicine bag, full of pills and potions!
We have been teaching our guide Peir jokes along the way. ''Doctor, Doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains'', ''dont worry'' said the Doctor, ''pull yourself together !!!! 

We soon joined up with a sealed tarmac road for the remaining 50km, in to a strong headwind, cycling through Banana and Rubber plantations.   The landscape and people have changed a lot, since we started off last week.   We are now in the north west part of Cambodia, moving away from the Vietnam border, heading towards Thailand.

Tuesday 18th Jan -(Rest Day)
Woke up early again, before setting off at 7am, heading towards Siam Reip (which means defeat of Thailand, imagine calling Birmingham, Germany defeated!). After checking in at our hotel, we headed off for a boat trip to the Floating Market on Lake Tonie Sap, the biggest lake in Asia, spanning 30 miles wide, by 100 miles long. We had all been warned to hang on to our bags, at which point a small child jumped aboard from a fast moving boat that came along side of us, offering cool drinks for sale. We just said no and he went on his way. A few moments later we were being pursued by two further boats offering a large python, which was wrapped round the young boys neck,  in which Kate shot forward towards the end of our boat, nearly landing on Andrew's lap!    We shooed them away and off they went.

We were then taken to a floating restaurant for lunch, where we found more snakes and at least 50 crocodiles on board, much to Kate's horror!!   As we approached the restaurant, we were aware of Vietnamese boat people approaching us, begging for dollars.  Two children managed to squeeze themselves in between our motor boat and our mooring, who were in huge tin cooking pots, paddling towards us with pythons aboard. Need we say any more!

After lunch, we headed for the floating school to meet the children. We were mobbed again by them and had as many as six children hanging off of us at one time.  While we were there an American lady had returned with pens, books and food for the children. We all felt very moved by the whole experience.   There are 80,000 Vietnamese people living on the lake, earning on average $500 a year. 12% of children don't live beyond 5yrs.

Tomorrow we are back in the saddle for another 70km and more adventures - who knows what to expect.

Sunday 16th Jan - Two Weddings and a Puncture!

Well, we have all had the most amazing day so far - Just returned from a Cambodian Wedding reception.  

Whilst having breakfast on the roof terrace this morning in Phomn Phen, we noticed an Elephant walking down the road with his trainer - not the sort of thing you see everyday!

We took our tour bus for the first 30km this morning, as the road taking us out of Phomn Phen was too busy and narrow to cycle.  We soon arrived at the start, which was a small village at the side of the Mekon river. We parked the bus outside the local temple for our bikes to be unloaded and a crowd soon gathered.  Whilst waiting for our bikes to be assembled, we took a short stroll to meet the monks and use the facilities.  We were soon mobbed again by the local street children, whilst talking to the monks.   We gave the street children a toy to play with, which we had purchased a few days before for 25 cents from a roadside market stall and they were thrilled to bits.

We set off following the Mekon river on a dusty road, which we followed for most of the day.  The track soon became very sandy and we found it difficult to make good progress.   Our average 12 miles an hour soon dropped and the pace slowed up, even more so when Mike got the first puncture of the trip and Jayne came off her bike in the sand. We found that every time a truck passed us, we couldn't see for a while and had to hold our breath.  We soon realised that reinforcements were needed, so we stopped to each purchase face masks with Tweetie Pie logo's, to prevent us breathing in the dust.  One of the ladies serving on the stall was concerned that we had no sleeves on our tops and thought that we would get cold!!   It was 30 degrees, but winter for the locals as they were all wearing trousers and long sleeved tops and even some of the children had jumpers on!!

It''s the Wedding season here in Cambodia and over the last week or so, we have seen many Weddings taking place at the road side, with many actually on the road itself!!  The best one so far was on the first day at 7:55am, taking place on the inside lane of a roundabout.   The bride and groom were dressed in bright pink and looked magnificent.   A long queue formed, with people bearing gifts.

We were trundling through a village about half way through our cycle today, when we came across another wedding taking place in the road.  We could hear in the distance the very loud music, which grew louder as we approached.   We peeped through the side of the marquee and was soon spotted by the groom, who invited us in to see them.  The bride then asked if we could be in the photo's with her and Kate and Jayne reluctantly did, covered in dust and muck!

For lunch we stopped in the front garden of somebodies house, soon to be mobbed again by about 30 children.   We set up our pick nick and the owners soon appeared from their house, welcoming us to join them for a tour inside. We chatted for a while and was then presented with Coconuts falling out of the tree, which a young village boy had climbed bare foot to reach them.  The owners insisted that we all drank the coconut milk.

Towards the end of our day, we rode to a small island where our guide Pier lived to meet his family.  In order to reach the island we had to cycle across a bamboo bridge, which spans across the Mekon river.   We found this very scary, as it had no side supports.  The bridge was only just wide enough for three bikes and we had to overtake a slow moving moped with piglets on the back, only to find that a car was coming towards us!!  Kate got the shakes and didn't like the bridge very much!   Once we had crossed, we had to pay a dollar and found that the toll both owner had a Minor bird, which repeatedly said ''one dollar'', ''one dollar''.  nothing like the Dartford toll!

This evening, when walking back from our restaurant we came across another Cambodian wedding in full swing. Having stopped to admire the ladies beautiful dresses and make up, we were soon spotted and welcomed into join them by the Brides brother, who insisted on handing each one of us a piece of fruit. We were escorted through the wedding party to the dance floor and met various relatives on the way through.  We were presented with more fruit and tins of Anchor beer.  They were so pleased that we joined the party and wouldn't let us go!!   After much dancing and hilarity, we made our excuses and left as we have another 6am start in the morning.

Tomorrows town is famous for its cuisine - SPIDERS!!

       

Cambodia - Wednesday 12th - Friday 14th January

Wednesday 12th

We start the day with a short cycle to Kep, only 35km before reaching our beach resort hotel.  As we cycled down towards the coast, we saw our Colonial Hotel situated overlooking the sea. We arrived at 10:30am,  too early to check in to our rooms, so we all decided to change in to our swimwear at the hotel reception, before heading off in our tour bus to the harbour to catch a ferry to the stunning Rabbit Island for the day.  We were all surprised to find that our ferry was a mere rowing boat, with an outboard engine and not a car ferry to escort our tour bus on.   Fortunately, it wasn't too choppy and we made it across safely.      We soon found ourselves a couple of hammocks and sun chairs for the day to lounge on, before tucking in to another sumptuous lunch!!

Pier and Tel (our driver) played volleyball, while Kate and Jayne had a full body massage on the beach, on canopy four poster beds, while Don and Chris slept in their hammocks.   This certainly set the tone for the rest of the day, before we knew it the sun began to go down and we were back on our boat, heading back to our hotel. 

Upon returning to our hotel rooms, which were beautiful, Mike spent the next half an hour busy catching lizards with a newly invented lizard trap (AKA - wooden tissue box, with an ideal sliding lid).  We managed to round up all the lizards, so that Jayne could sleep soundly.

Thursday 13th

We left our hotel early, as we had a full on day and many miles to cover. We headed away from the coast, which again took us through very remote villages and colourful fishing boats were seen along the way.  After some distance on the sealed roads, we then made our way on to a red and dusty dirt track for about 10 miles, before stopping for lunch at a local's house/ farm / shop???   They made us very welcome, offering us fresh chicken noddle soup and home made banana wine, as we had to wait for our pick nick to turn up.   We soon discovered that our bus and driver had been taken to the local police station, after being involved in a collision with a tuc tuc, towing a trailer full of bamboo.  There was some sort of 'blow out' to one of the tyre's and light damage, but we never found out what really happened or haven't seen our bus since! (although we do now have a replacement, with Mercedes seats, which is much nicer).

Our mechanic and sweeper - Ham, soon took off on one of the locals mopeds to fetch our pick nick and was gone for some time, but that didn't seem to bother us, as Don the elder was tucking in to the home made banana wine. The father of the family shared this with Don, as he had decided that he was the elder of the group and deserved such treatment. We now agreed that we were all Don's children.

After a short while, Ham soon returned with pick nick,  unrecognisable, covered in red dust with what seemed like ginger hair!!  We dusted him down and took him out the back to the well to wash him down. This was certainly a very memorable lunch stop, with chickens in baskets attached to the toilet wall, with pigs just beyond in a sty.

By the time we had finished our cycling for the day, we were all covered from head to toe in red dust, only to find cold showers were waiting for us at our hotel for the evening. 

In the evening, we were taken by bus to a local open air restaurant, where we drank beer in our hammocks and ate local Cambodian cuisine.

Friday 14th 

We started the day, cycling along a dirt road, in between lush green paddy fields on our right and a huge lake on our left, covered in glorious pink water lilies (lotus flowers). We stopped for food at a National Park and visited a 12th Century temple, before having lunch on a thatched house on stilts.   Here, we got really in to the local cuisine, by trying the local delicacy - 'Ants in soy sauce, with rice'  yummy!!!  We then spent the afternoons cycle heading back in towards Phnom Penn on the main high way, which unfortunately brought us back in to the city in the rush hour - what an experience never to forget!   Tuc Tuc's, Bikes, Trucks, Cars and Ox's all heading towards us on the wrong side of the road, weaving in and out, taking up every inch of the road.   We all quickly realised,  that we had to rip up our high way code and do as the locals!

So far 327km completed, with only 413km to go!!

Saturday 15th

A rest day at last !!!

We were all up and out by 8am this morning, for a visit to the killing fields and the notorious S-21 prison.  This was a very sombre and sad day, as this was where the notorious Pol Pot regime carried out mass murder between 1975 - 1979.

We then headed to the 'Russian Market' to purchase a few items, including genuine Addidas shirts for $2, with a Lacoste logo on the back! 

Many thanks to Chris, Nick and Richard for the follow - if anybody else is looking in, please sign up, as its nice to know you are there.

More adventures coming soon - subject to internet connection in the jungle!!

Kate, Mike and Jayne

xxx

   

Tuesday 11th Jan 2011

All up bright and early, before the sunrise for our longest and hardest ride of the trip (and the first ride - 110km!). We set off cycling through colourful fishing villages, with many houses built on stilts over the sea.

We then headed away from the coast, climbing at a steady pace as it got more remote hoards of children started to emerge from their timber bambo houses, shouting ''Hello, Hello'', very excitedly.  This was to be repeated for the next 8 hrs!  We soon lost count how many times we said "hello' back, together with more waves than the queen gives on one of her state visits!! We soon started clearing schools, with the children rushing out  to greet us.

After 25km, we stopped for delicious fresh fruit snacks and top up of water, as the heat was reaching 32 degrees, before heading on in to the Mountains.

The views were spectacular and round every corner we found something different, with Oxon /Buffalo and dogs crossing our pathes and even three tons of rice laid out on the road, drying in the mid day sun, that we soon learned to weave around.

For lunch, our guide drove  ahead to negotiate a place for us to eat - The owner was out, so he asked his brother who lived next door, if we could dine there!  We were then asked to take off our shoes and climb on board a table to eat our lunch, which we had chosen 12km earlier- rice and steamed vegetables. We had day old chicks running underneath us. 

After lunch we set off in the soaring heat for the final 3rd part of our cycle, with only 35km to go.  Along the route we saw in the distance a couple that we had met earlier in the day, who turned out to be a French couple cycling round the world.   It was 4pm and they were looking for a safe place to pitch their tent for the night.   Our guide, showed them a safe field to stay for the night.   They had left France in June last year and had so far cycled 7,300 km, with 10,000 km to go.  Their bikes weighed half a ton, fully loaded front and rear, putting us to shame, so we couldn't really complain about the 110km we had to cycle.

We all arrived at the hotel, with much releif, covered in dust, grit and filth! How Kate and I were looking forward to that shower- which turned out to be a cold dribble, but it was nice to feel clean again!

We rounded off the evening with a nice dinner and a few beers at Rickitikitavey's restaurant.

So far no takers for the bus yet - with 630km to go !!

A nice easy day ahead of us tomorrow with only 35km, boat trip and snorkling.

Jayne, Kate& Mike 

xxx

 

Cambodia - Sunday 10th & Monday 10th Jan 2011

Sunday 9th Jan
After a short flight from Bangkok to Cambodia on Sunday, we arrived at what seemed a disused airstrip in the middle of nowhere,(Phnm Penh International) surrounded by paddie fields to be greeted by our guide', Mr Pier.   We all climbed in to the back of our mini bus, which was going to become very familiar for the next two weeks.  Inside, we found the single lone cyclist that we had all wondered and tried to work out who this mysterious man could be - Andrew Lindsey.  Andrew smiled and welcomed us aboard - we were all on the same short flight together, but went un-noticed as we didn't have a clue who he could be, although we were all looking at every westerner on board, wondering if that could be the Andrew Lindsey we'd be sharing our next two weeks with.

We set off from the airport to our hotel and couldn't believe the traffic, there were motor scooters taking up every inch of the road, some even coming towards us on the same side, weaving in and out, coming from all directions, with the traffic not seeming to give way at any junction.  It was certainly going to be a challenge cycling through this lot!  We soon had a sweep stake on who could see the most passengers and cargo on one single moped!  Kate is leading so far with six, (including a bag of potatoes and a baby).

We took a short ride in to the city of Phnomn Penh to find the Caste Hotel, which we'd be staying in for the night.  A group briefing was held at the hotel at 1pm and then we had a free afternoon to explore the city.   After walking to the bike shop to find our brand new 'Giant' bikes we decided to split up and Kate and Chris took a tuc tuc to the Russian Market, whilst Andrew, Mike, Don and Jayne decided to take a stroll round the city to take in the Temples and local museums, to see yet more Budhas!   

We all met up for our first evening meal together, which was spent along side the Mekon river in a very traditional Cambodian restaurant with live Camo dancing.

Monday 10th Jan
Up at 6:30am to watch the sunrise and breakfast on the roof terrace, before setting off on our four hr drive to Sihanoukville (south, west of Phnomn Phenh), After a short while in to the journey, Jayne decided to get the 'Revels' out and share them round - we could not believe the reaction of our driver and guide - they went crazy and kept asking for more chocolate!!  We then discovered later in the day that it was only the third time in their life that they had eaten chocolate, but never as good as these.

After unpacking, we all decided to head for the beach, just a short walk across the road to find white sandy beaches and many places to eat and drink along the coast.   After walking along the beach we finally found a good place for lunch.   We then got mobbed by the locals offering everything from beads, to BBQ squid, leg waxing and massage.  This was soon followed by many beggers with limbs missing from being victims to the horrendous land mines.  

 Kate and Jayne then spotted Dr Fish - only $3 including a beer.  (a foot massage carried out by hungry fish) This seemed too good an offer so off they went to put their feet in a pool of inquisitive baby piranhas!  nipping at their feet to clean off all their hard skin!!  Soon Don and Chris had to join in the fun after hearing Kate's screams and laughter.

We then met up again at 3pm after lunch to sort out our bikes and what was called a 'gentle ride' to stretch our legs.  At least we have christened them now for tomorrows big ride of 110 km.

Tune in again in a few days to hear all about how we get on with the huge distances / heat and mountain range ahead of us.  
  xxx