Kampong Cham to Phnom Penh the hard way

We spent the night in Kampong Cham and listened to the rain pour on the tin roof outside our one tiny window. The fact that it had rained for hours that we knew of and possibly all through the night didn't come into consideration in the morning as we set out to take the alternate route from Kampong Cham to Phnom Penh via route 151.The Lonely Planet cycling book had even warned prospective tourists away from taking this route during the rainy season, or even after a heavy shower, but we figured it's early in the rainy season and a lot has changed in Cambodia since that book was published back around 1999 I think it was. This route appeared on the map to fairly closely follow the Mekong river, winding through small villages and we hoped it would at least offer a change from the traffic on the highways we'd been traversing.


Heeding none of the warnings we started off the day well by taking the wrong road out of town and ended up caught in an early morning market traffic jam of sellers setting up stalls, people buying veggies, and tons of motos and kids on bicycles traversing through all on their way somewhere. We smiled a lot and finally got through and on the right road. The road was initially quiet and much narrower than the highways with lots of banana and palm trees shading the lane. The paving wasn't the best but the little houses that hugged the road with their lively families calling out hello's to us made up for it.

It wasn't long before the pavement gave way to a soupy muddy expanse of road that had no doubt resulted from the rain of the previous night. We dodged huge potholes and started packing sticky wet mud into all the crevices of the bikes. It would be 20kms before we'd see pavement again. We had a break for a breakfast of fried pork and rice with a great view of the Mekong in a little town called Kokor which gave the mud caking our legs and shoes a chance to dry a bit.

On the road again we encountered a few turns that we hadn't anticipated but we were always able to ask any number of the Cambodians congregated around their motorbikes at the crossroads which way was to Phnom Penh and they'd always smilingly point us in the right direction.

The road continued to deteriorate along the 70 kilometer route. Wet sloppy mud with man sized potholes led to sticky hard packed mud permeated with fist sized potholes which turned into thankfully dry but unfortunately rocky road that vibrated our brains, butts, and bikes almost into oblivion.

Along the way we got to see some great Wats seemingly in the middle of nowhere along with a smattering of Mosques and a few obviously Muslim families. We got to share the roads with pony drawn carts carrying all manner of building and farming supplies. Kids came to the roadside to say hello to us as usual but an added bonus today was that they also came out to give us high fives. This day proved to be quite a test for the both of us physically and mentally even though the great interactions with enthusiastic villagers and interesting obstacles helped keep our minds off the difficult riding.

20kms before we would reach the highway Z. discovered a slight problem, he could no longer pedal. His bottom bracket had almost completely seized up. The options for catching a ride were few and far between and instead we decided to push on at least to Highway 61 where it would be easier to pick up a share taxi or some kind of transport. After quite a few breaks and stops to pick up more water we were finally at the road.

We started down the already incredibly busy highway and came shortly upon another Barang that we'd seen walking along our route the day before. We stopped to chat which turned into us getting his incredible story of walking through Cambodia! He's been here 25 days and while we're a little unclear on this crazy Californians entire route we do know that he's walked almost the entire 700km route we've cycled and quite a bit more! The guy is only carrying a small plastic shopping bag with a couple bottles of water that he refills at wells and faucets along the way, and some snacks. He sleeps at these little bamboo roadside huts that line the roads and provide shade and an elevated place to sit to anyone that might need a break from whatever their form of travel is. He relayed his experiences with the incredible hospitality of the Cambodian people, being taken in by locals for a meal and often a place to bed down for the night too. He's got great stories and we're hoping to run into him again while we're in Phnom Penh or on our way to the southern reaches of Cambodia.

We cycled off after spending no less than an hour chatting away with our new acquaintance and spent the next 40km fighting a pretty decent headwind and some persistent traffic to our destination. When we cycled over the Japanese Friendship bridge and into the city our bikes and our selves were thickly coated in mud. As we were rolling around the streets looking for a guesthouse we discovered a carwash and the guys there were nice enough to spray down our bikes for a couple bucks so we'd be a bit more presentable.

We landed a nice A/C room at a French guesthouse in a decent part of town and got a couple much needed showers. We're sitting in bed watching a Governator action movie and snacking on Le Petit Ecolier cookies, both happy to be off the bikes for a few days as we explore the Capital City and sort out our Visas for our return to Thailand around early September.

Oh yeah that reminds us, we have some news about our ever evolving travel plans. E. has enrolled in a TEFL course that will be held in Chaing Mai, Thailand in September. The course runs for a month and gets rave reviews from a couple folks we met at the meditation retreat. Z. isn't sure of his plan for the same time but will certainly find something exciting to do for that month… like possibly riding overland to India with some crazy Canadian cycle tourists or Wwoofing in Northern Thailand, who knows!