Battambang, bricks, a bat cave and beyond

22nd December 2017

Royal Hotel, Battambang

A very pleasant 28c

The weather took a very chilly turn about a week ago, a bit of a shock to the system specially as we'd just got into the swing of setting off early, 0615/0630, in order to miss the heat of the day.  Suddenly we were plunged into coolness.  When I say cool, I mean 16-18c, so not VERY cool.  We have decided we quite like the early starts so we are continuing with them, cool or not.  It's made cycling and sleeping easier, that's for sure, but I don't have a fleece any more so I'm having to use my sarong as a 'wrap' in the evenings.  Don't worry though, it's heading back into the 30s this weekend.

Long shadows, early morning, heading north

We have spent a few dusty, days on the road in rural Cambodia since Phnom Penh, all in all easy riding.  Dead pan flat with the occasional lumpety bumpety, washboard surface, but nothing too awful.  I've been a bit remiss with the whole Wat thing, we don't visit them very often (Angkor Wat is obviously the exception but even then BW will get Wat'ed out very quickly I'm sure) but some of the temples we have passed have been quite interesting in the sense that many of them are very 'rustic' and often a bit dilapidated.  So I've taken a few photos lately:

Colourful ladies welcoming you to the temple

The houses, usually built on stilts, seem to have gotten higher and with more expansive roofs as we've moved towards Battambang.  Many of them have quite fancy staircases (metal as opposed to wood) and often there is the poor relation (the old house) falling down to the side of the new one.  A sign of prosperity perhaps? 

Huge, blue tiled roof extending around the house

Taming the serpent

A puncture on BW's bike drew a bit of a crowd on one of the days, luckily it wasn't too hot.  No pressure, just keep on looking for that elusive piece of wire ........

How many is that now Dave?

Trucks and vans are generally overloaded with all manner of things, including people.  At the moment it's wedding season so the transportation of wedding paraphernalia is common, not only are the chairs stacked well above the legal limit (if there is one) there are also people sitting ON TOP of the chairs, which from where I sit on my bicycle I can see them rocking and rolling with the camber of the road.  Sometimes, if there's room, they will string a hammock between items and have a little nap!  To circumvent the rocking and rolling problem, some trucks have huge wheels at the back of their vehicles, a bit like those jacked-up cars we sometimes see, except here this is an excuse to load even MORE 'stuff' on top and on the back of the vehicle.

The driver is having a nap in his hammock at the front.

Industries along this stretch of road, running south of the Tonle Sap, include pottery, brick-making, rice, pineapples and fishing.  The old kilns have been replaced by huge, modern buildings, presumably because they can fire more bricks at a time. 

Old kiln

In one of the villages we came across a house (Chinese) with a huge bat decorating its doorway.  When I went closer to photograph it I could see fairy lights strapped to the body and wings, and a huge light bulb in its mouth.  How amazingly scary would that look lit up at night, particularly as there's often no street lighting!

The bat cave!

Children feature quite highly in any cycle ride through Cambodia.  The constant 'hello' and 'bye bye' never fails to make me smile (except when my shoulder and neck have frozen and to turn my head and wave causes me so much pain all I can do is grimace); yesterday I even had an 'I love you'!  Today, while trying to find the old tram sheds at Battambang railway station (I thought it would be a good photo opportunity) led us into what I can only describe as a shanty town.  People living in semi-permanent structures that had been 'patched' with cardboard, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting, pretty much anything they could get their hands on I guess.  While walking away from the area we spotted 3 children, aged 3 or 4, playing in the dirt.  They began by shouting the usual 'hello' but then one of them ran towards Dave and another towards me, arms stretched and smiling, and hugged us (our legs, they were so small) like we were long lost friends.  We were both quite taken aback.  They hung on for a minute while the cynic in me waited for the hand out gesture, meaning give me money, but it didn't come.  They had a hug then went back to their game.  That was a lovely moment.

One of 4 brothers who greeted us on the road

Next stop Siem Reap.

Happy Christmas everyone, see you on the other side!

Laters

All the Ps in Phnom Penh

15th December 2017
Sassi Guesthouse, Phnom Penh
Hot, hot, hot

This post was going to be entitled Pol Pot, Pavement Parking and Prostitutes in Phnom Penh, but I decided it was too flippant to lump the Pol Pot regime in with the rest of the Ps.  More on that later.

My last post ended with us arriving in Kampot.  What a lovely, chilled place that was.  We did very little, along with the rest of the population, except wander aimlessly, eat, drink, sleep, repeat.  Then we moved onto Kep, all of 24kms away, but with a completely different vibe.  Firstly, there was a beach and secondly the town is very spread out with no real 'centre' as such.

The first thing we did was meet up with Katy and Ed, friends of friends, who happen to be in Cambodia at the same time as us, also travelling on bicycles.  We chewed the cud over breakfast, all things bicycle touring, and then reunited in the evening for dinner and a few beers.  It just so happens we're more or less cycling the same route in Cambodia so while we all ended up in Phnom Penh together the next time we will get together is probably going to be Siem Reap over Christmas.  It's a small world!

We stayed at the very lovely Bacoma Gueshouse in one of the round bungalows.  The grounds of the guesthouse are jungle that's been tamed and act to keep everywhere feeling very cool.  In fact, we rarely used the fan in the bungalow and there was a point one evening when I almost reached for a 2nd layer, but resisted the temptation.  We rode around the National Park early in the morning and while we heard a lot of wildlife, we saw very little.  Even so, it was a lovely thing to do.  On our way back to the guesthouse we took a detour along the new road, that's so wide it really should be called a boulevard, where we found some of the old burned out Modernist buildings.

Mr Millipede

Signposting in Kep National Park

Kep National Park

Graffiti on a burned out building

Boats waiting to take passengers to Rabbit Island

Kep was once a playground for the French elite before the Khmer Rouge came to power, and although it's small and sleepy now it definitely has visions of grandeur.  The huge roundabout at the entrance to the town, plus the new 'boulevards' being built, all point to a bigger future.

Two long, dusty traffic-filled days later, we arrived in Phnom Penh.  If you arrived in Phnom Penh on a bicycle not having ridden into another Asian City before, you might have had at least one heart attack.  It's crazy but it works, somehow.  An expat in Kep, when asked about the number of Lexus cars in Cambodia, said (he was Irish) "ah, now in Cambodia you're either a Big Man, or you're nothing and Big Guys drive a Lexus".  It turns out they also drive anything that's huge and shiny, has air conditioning and ensures you sit higher than the rest of the traffic.  Today I even saw a Rolls Royce.  Pavement parking ensures that pedestrians have to walk in the road with the rest of the moving traffic, I have no idea what anyone in a wheelchair or with a pushchair would do.

On the way to Phnom Penh

And so to the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre) and The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, formerly a school that became the notorious S-21 Detention Centre.  I'm not sure I can add anything to what has already been said about what the Cambodian people went through during the Pol Pot years, I can only talk about how harrowing I found the experience.  Astonishing, is that The Khmer Rouge killed almost a quarter of the Cambodian population (nobody really knows how many) in the relatively short time (between April 1975 and January 1979) they were in power.  It happened in my lifetime but I'm ashamed to say I remember very little about it. 

What I saw and heard while visiting these two sites was indeed awful.  Very little is left to the imagination, and perhaps that's how it should be.  Personal testimonies of survivors, photographs, paintings and original torture implements, all paint a very dark picture.  There's no smiling or laughing in these places, it's very sombre.  It's not an easy place to be an observer, but observe and learn we must.  I urge you to do your own research on this subject.

We both came away with a new found respect for the lovely Cambodian people we have met on our travels.  It's staggering to think that survivors over the age of 40 will have some experience of this.  Equally stupefying is that all the older people we see in the villages we cycle through somehow managed to survive the terrible conditions, starvation and the murder of family members, yet they move on, with dignity. 

The Pagoda at The Killing Fields, to commemorate those who died

Another P - prostitutes.  There are some notorious bars and clubs in Phnom Penh and today, unknowingly, we had lunch at one of them.  BW fancied a felafal and it was only after we'd sat down and ordered we noticed the rest of the clientele.  The food was lovely, and it was an interesting lunch, not least because I managed to indulge one of my favourite pastimes of 'earwigging' but my lips are sealed - for the time being anyway!

Pavement parking, no room for pedestrians!

Laters

Koh Kong and the Cardamoms

7th December 2017
Aspara Kampot City Hotel, Kampot
Everything has stopped.  It's too hot.

The ride from Koh Kong took us along Highway 48, through the very beautiful Koh Kong Corridor, also known as the South Cardamom Forest.  It's probably the longest stretch of untouched (by palm oil production) jungle we've come across in SE Asia, apart from the East West highway in Malaysia, where for 100kms or so on the eastern side the jungle is (was, in 2009) pristine.

South Cardamom Forest

The road undulates and then climbs up and back down to waterfalls at Tatai.  Directly out of the village there is a fairly steep climb, which everyone had warned us about, but it turned out not to be that steep at all and it's all of 3 kms.  Traffic was light at this point, mostly motorbikes and cars, a few trucks but perfectly doable.  We met 2 Dutch cyclists, brothers, on the road, and they had just come from Trapeung Rung, they recommended asking the police about homestays when we arrived at the checkpoint. 

Ooh, err ...... we weren't lucky enough to see any

We had found homestays on the web, several of which were on Booking.com or another site called Priceline, which I'd never heard of, and we found one we really liked the look of.  We asked around about the homestay but nobody knew where it was, and we simply couldn't work out it's whereabouts given the numerous alleyways and lack of roads.  So after lunch at a local hostelry we set off to ask at the police checkpoint.  Mistake number 1.  We showed the name of the homestay to the officer who could speak a little English, he explained to another officer what we wanted and he immediately got on the phone.  'Sit down' they said.  Fifteen minutes later, just at the point we were wondering what on earth was going on, a young man on a scooter turned up.  He is not, it turns out, from the homestay we asked for at all, but quite clearly a tout.  Of course he wanted to take us to somewhere that did eco tours, was 'only' $8 a night and very friendly.  When I said we wanted to go to THAT particular homestay they said 'no more'.  Oh yes, that old ruse.  So now we have a situation where the police have a tout working for them and no doubt everyone is getting some kind of kickback. 

It is now the hottest part of the day and the sun has decided to come out with a vengeance.  We are hot, tired and in desperate need of a shower and cold beer.  So we give in and go with the tout, not before telling him that a) we are not paying $8 (the going rate is $5) and b) if we don't like it we won't be staying at all.  The room was OK.  The bathroom had a squat loo and a mandi (you bathe by swishing cold water from a large receptacle).  It didn't look anywhere near as nice as the one we would have liked to go to, but hey ....... We got the room for $5 but I wonder how much the landlady received, given all the hassle and work that goes with renting a room to foreigners, after the police and tout had their cut. 

Sunset at Trapeung Rung

The next day we come down out of the jungle and reach Botum Sakor.  It was still early so we ate and then carried on to Sre Ambel.  About 10kms from our destination we happened upon 3 more cyclists, 2 French and 1 Dutch.  After a long chat and exchange of details, the French were going in the direction we had just come, but Jack was heading our way so we set off together.  We arrived in Sre Ambel just as school was finishing and suddenly we were engulfed by children on bicycles, or foot, all shouting 'hello'.  The next thing I was being taken by a young lady to 'her guesthouse' while Jack had been accosted by a gentleman who wanted to show him his place.  We ended up staying at different guesthouses (I think Jack's was better than ours but I couldn't bear to say 'no' to the girl who had escorted me through the village) but we met up later and ate at the restaurant also belonging to the young lady.

On the road to Sre Ambel

We said our goodbyes as Jack was heading towards Phnom Penh, while we were cutting off south to Kampot and Kep.  However, next morning, just as we're about to take the turning for Kampot, along comes Jack, so we stopped and took a farewell photograph.

By now Highway 48 is full of traffic, mostly trucks.  Sections of the road are being re-graded so the rain from the night before was by now quite muddy, bright red mud!  We mostly cycle on the asphalt lane to the side of the highway, sometimes being forced off by the trucks.  Twice more that day we bumped into cyclists, one from Switzerland and one from Russia.  In case you're counting, that's 7 in 2 days!

At Veal Renh we find a pleasant, new (in fact they are still building the top floor) Chinese-run hotel for $10, although the room has a distinct cabbage odour emanating from the bathroom.  So out comes my trusty disinfectant spray purchased in Germany as an antidote to smelly shoes but we have since discovered has a whole plethora of uses, and the cabbage smell miraculously disappears, for all of an hour.  That evening we are reminded of the trials and tribulations of shopping for half decent food when on the backroads of countries like Cambodia.  Snacks and whisky abound, but what we're looking for is something that will go with peanut butter or just some nice biscuits will do.  We find a little cake shop which has to suffice, and actually, the swissroll-like affair was quite nice.

Children playing and one of them being a 'cheeky chappy'

Whooah!

The traffic lessens and we are seeing rice paddies, water buffalo and freshly harvested rice is drying on mats in the intense heat.  As we get closer to Kampot there are more and more stalls selling food and other commodities.  It's the dry season and that means weddings, hence the competitions being run by beer companies to win a honeymoon and $3,000 spending money.  Wedding venues are popping up all along the side of the road.

Drying rice, praying it doesn't rain

Could have done with a dip myself at this point!

We arrive in Kampot at 1130 and head straight for one of the 'traveller' cafes for breakfast.  BW has the full monty and I have fruit salad with yogurt; we both have a banana milkshake.  We find the hotel and after a cold can of Angkor beer each virtually pass out in the heat.  Around 4pm, when the sun has waned, we wander around this lovely old town.  I think we're going to like it here in Kampot.

Kampot

Laters

Borders and haircuts

2nd December 2017
Nathy Koh Kong Hotel, Koh Kong
35c

It was only during the last 2 or 3 days in Thailand that we saw women wearing traditional Thai dress.  A wrapped skirt, looking very much like a sarong, but in beautiful fabric.  During the day they wear plainer, printed cotton wraps, but in the evening they will often have woven golden thread, making the fabric look iridescent, like peacocks.  Highway 3 was it's usual busy self, although we slipped down onto the coast road to cover the last 20 kms to Khlong Yai, a town far enough away from the Cambodian border not to be called a border town.

Road-widening scheme for approx. 50kms to the border

Some borders are worse than others for scams, and sometimes you even get a nice surprise and there are none, like when crossing from Nicaragua into Honduras.  We were expecting the rip offs tto end all rip offs knowing the history of both these countries, we were absolutely gobsmacked when we were permitted to simply sail through. The Thailand to Cambodia crossing at Hat Lek has a certain reputation but Poipet (the one we will be taking on the way back) is apparently worse.  Great.  The Thai part of the crossing is easy.  The Cambodian side a different kettle of fish.  We dodged the "Quarantine" window, where we were supposed to complete a form, I think they might stick a thermometer in your ear, or similar, and then relieve you of 200 baht.  I think Dave mentioned something about being fit and healthy enough to get there on a bike, that should suffice.  We eventually found the right place to go for our visas, the office with the blacked out windows and "Staff Only" sign, oh of course!

It felt like we were going into the Lion's den.  At first there were only 3 men in uniform, all looking rather dour, but cool and collected, after all the air conditioning was on and it was about 8 degrees in there, which made us sweat even more profusely.  We handed over our passports, completed visa forms and passport photos, and I removed the $60 fee from the leg of my cycling shorts.  The conversation went something like this:

Main Man:  You pay in Baht
Me:  No, in USD
Main Man:  You pay in Baht
Me:  No, in USD  There you go, $60 for 2
Main Man:  **chats with two others in Khmer**

By now he has counted the USD and spread the notes on the table.

Main Man:  (pulls Press Release from his in-tray) $37, new price (pushes $ back towards me)
Me:  No, that's for the e-visa, $30 is the price (I push it back to him)
This happens two or three times.

Main man now inspecting the $ notes I have given him very closely

Nothing wrong with that!

Main Man:  This no good (pointing to the $5 note)
Me:  What's wrong with it?
Main Man:  No good for me (pointing to the crease in the note)
Me:  Oh, that's fine it's just a crease, no problem, the bank'll sort that out
Main Man: (getting a bit heated now)  No good for me.  Good for you, no good for me.  No visa.

It was then I spotted him running his nail along the crease.  This was a Mexican standoff.  You should also know that another 3 men in uniform have joined the party, making 6 officials in total.

BW decides to try and break the deadlock by being nice to the Main Man (something I would have found very difficult to do at this point) and suggesting that he may have some Baht, couldn't be certain, but he would check.  At which point I snatched the $5 from the table and gave the Main Man a big smile.  In comes Dave with his tool bag and proceeds to tip all the bike tools onto the table and 'miraculously' finds the Baht that was needed to cover the $5 note matey wouldn't accept.  I don't think it worked out quite as they expected as all they got was an extra $1 between the 6 of them and I begrudged them that!  Hah, life on the road.

The condition of the road straight away deteriorates, with trucks swerving to avoid what can only be described as a cavernous hole in the middle of the road, approximately a metre across.  The roads seem incredibly wide and there is a distinct lack of traffic.  Children we meet are waving and shouting 'hello' and 'what is your name?', many women and girls seem to be dressed in their pyjamas while others look as though they are expecting a bit of a cold snap, wearing hats and jumpers, despite the temperature being 34c.

We are in Cambodia. 

Fantastic!

Laters

The view from 'Fat Sams'

BW looking slightly Hitler-esque after his hairdresser had a go!