Thailand   (For travel and country facts: Cambodia)

MURRAY'S DIARY for the complete story.

"Looking in the future"

CAMBODIA

"the past and the present"

Eating Cambodia

 Entering Cambodia takes more time than leaving Thailand. It takes 30 minutes for the officials to write our passport and visa details in their notebook. In the meanwhile we watch the Thai day trippers crossing the border, heading directly to one of the enormous gambling resorts on either side of the road. We look back at the border crossing where the smooth (boring) Thai asphalt ends and the road with fine red gravel starts. On this side of the border tuk tuks and motors are waiting to bring the day trippers to the casino’s and to the border market 1km from here. Finally the officials are ready and hand us back our passports. "Can you give me 100 Baht ($2.5) per person, please?" the official asks. Actually we had expected this already 10 minutes ago, but I think since we have already our visa it is not the ''standard'' procedure for them. At the border crossing between Laos and Cambodia it seems that they won't even give back your passport without handing over $10,- . We both look back to the official, I have never seen a more sincere and serious begging look in anyone’s eyes. It’s just a question , not an aggressive thread at all. ''Why?" we both ask at the same time, just curious for his answer. "For the office" he says and points to three other officials and the simple room with empty walls, and to the big table with some paperwork. Their Thai colleagues 10 meters back have a nice office, air-conditioning, a nice uniform and some drink stalls around and a computer. We walk away as if we are not paying anything, of course it is nonsense to pay at the border. Because we had so much fun with them we finally donate 100Baht for their efforts with the remark to buy some nice posters for the office. 

"roads?"

One room fits all - Kralanh

Its 4 o’clock in the morning and the first rooster is apparently awake, trying to convince the others to wake up as well. Still one hour for us to go before the alarm clock, but we are both awake as ever. What a night, it has been very hot yesterday and so is the guesthouse room. The room hardly fits the bed that is placed in the corner of the room. At the end of the bed is just enough space for one bicycle, we only have to squeeze it a bit and in the end it is leaning on both the bed and the wall, not reaching the floor. The space at the other side of the bed must be used to open the door, but since the guesthouse owner has a daughter that very much want to touch every part of our bicycle, we are eager on putting the second bicycle in the room as well, blocking the door from the inside. We place our mosquito net, but even if the mosquito net would let the wind through from the fan, there is no reason for celebrating tonight. The electricity is turned off at 23:00. Here we are, in a hot and claustrophobic small room, with no fan to give us refreshment. We start laughing and light the candle that has probably been placed there for a reason. From 4 am the electricity starts running again and I understand why the Cambodian roosters are awake by this time. Luckily the French baguettes are already available at the market.

                           "bread with ice-cream"

"DUST?????"

After the border market the road turns into a kind of rain forest. The road is a made of fine gravel but with a good surface. The red dust makes sure that you can not see a thing when a car passes. Luckily, this road is not very busy expect for some scooters and pick-ups that function as tuk-tuk's (public transport) between the border and the nearest village. Whoever wants to cycle in Cambodia must be prepared and willing to eat Cambodia. Cambodia has one of the worst road network in the World together with Congo and you will be eating a lot of dust. The roads are bombed during the Vietnam and civil wars with carpet bombs and the first 100km we see a lot of de-mining activities next to the road.

Ice Cream baguette

The best thing about Cambodia is that it serves French breads on the markets. As a former French colony you can have French breads with various toppings: pate, sausages, vegetables. The next day we cycle still over a gravel road to Sisophon. We are cycling to Pnom Penh  via  Battambang (southern route) and are actually heading for some days at the beach. Half way the morning we meet a food stall that supplies French breads. We order two, but before we can tell the man that we don’t want any toppings it’s already on there. This looks strange, what is it? After the first bite we know… coconut ice cream!! Actually it tastes quite well, bread with ice-cream. We pay with the Cambodian Riel and receive a combination of dollars and baht and riel as our change. After Sisophon the road gets better, it's almost asphalted till Pnom Penh, except for some 55km that is still under construction. The road is actually rather busy, every couple of minutes a long heavy truck with rice bags or a speeding tuk-tuk passes us. The long lorries don’t drive that fast, but are the worst. The 8 wheels at the back of the truck passes us slowly while it generates a lot of dust on the not asphalted road parts. We have cut scarf's from our thin blankets which we bought in Uzbekistan. The pattern with roses doesn't show the dirt that well , but when we wash them in the evening the sink looks as red as the road. Raymond lost his bicycle glasses and is cycling behind me so he can watch the backside of my wheel where he needs to go when another couple of trucks is passing us. The accommodation in Cambodia is quite good to our surprise thanks to all the UN personnel that tries to help developing this country, almost every guesthouse has the option of hot shower, air-conditioning or TV. We stick to the fan + bed so we don't get spoiled too much before going back to Thailand.

"Murray at work"

"Sihanoukville" 

Sihanoukville

Good thing to know that Cambodia has a beach. After 6000 kilometers cycling we say goodbye to our bicycles and leave them in Phnom Penh for a week. Here we go, in the bus, off to the beach! But what is there to do in Sihanoukville? It’s all about beach, beach and beach. Delicious pizzas for a change and the owner can make lasagna if you ask him a day in advance. There’s not so much snorkeling and so we donate our snorkel to the guesthouse owner, who will pass it on to a local school where a teacher spends his free hours before and after his working day to teach children who cannot afford to go to school. The guesthouse also has a donation pot for this school and the teacher passes by sometimes to collect the donations and to buy pens and paper. Our donation is the closure of our stay in Sihanoukville, back to dusty Cambodia.

Same, Same, but different – Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

It’s a restaurant in Sihanoukville, it’s as well a clothing brand, but above all, it’s probably the first English the Cambodian learn: “same same!”. Complete copies of Lonely Planet guidebooks, same same but for a different prize. Clothes from Adidas or Nike (imported from Vietnam), all same same but different colour and a brand of your choice. But also the original products are same same, all sorts of Fanta you can ever imagine are same same but different: Lemon, Orange, Pineapple, Lychee, Red apple, Fruit punch, Green apple and Blue. The only thing that is also same same but makes a real difference are Raymond’s new Ortlieb panniers. The new panniers are brought by René who will join us for the next four weeks. Together we will complete our circle around the Tao Sap Lake, this time exploring the northern route.  

"Same, Same, but different!"

The northern route Nr. 6 is dusty and red again, although sometimes tarred if you can find the tar between the potholes. A motorbike is a more common way to move around, including three people at a time, or more when children are included as well. Motorbikes are also used to transport chickens, bundled per 50 and hanging upside down almost getting stuck in the back wheel. Also pigs are very common things to ship on your motorbike. On the back of the bikes, legs tied together, upside down facing the sky. They are still alive when transported, which is our conclusion after one has demonstrated us by urinating in the air.

I stop to buy new bananas for a second banana-hotdog. The recipe is fairly simple, buy one of those delicious French baguettes you can only buy in Laos and Cambodia (and France), tear it in two, make a hole in the middle and push the banana in, ready. Pineapples make another healthy snack and we have become quite experienced chopping them everyday. It’s not your average day breakfast like at home, but same same.

Skuon Spiders - Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

In the late afternoon we arrive in Skuon, a small village at a road junction. It’s not the size that this village is known for, it’s the spiders! Not my favorite subject and especially not on my food plate. After we have taken a shower we are on the road to find the small animals. They are easy to find, they aren’t that small after all. At the junction the ‘spider ladies’ sell chili spiders, deep fried spiders as big as a hand with some chili sauce, according to Mr. Pumpy they taste like chicken (“doesn’t all the strange food taste like chicken?”). I am not such a spider lover and reject the offer of trying. Instead we leave the eating to the local villagers and we head to the guesthouse. At 23:00 the electricity is turned off again; we expect René, who sleeps next door, to make some refusing noises in a minute since he uses the fan to blow away the mosquitos. No fan between 23:00 and 4:00 am tonight.

The next day we continue in the direction of Siem Reap. The part we cycle in the early morning looks like it has been bombed yesterday, it’s tar between the potholes and my computer tells me we cycle twice the distance because of the circling around the potholes. 10 kilometers before we reach Siem Reap the road is a variety of asphalt, potholes, gravel and sand. At least nothing like the boring asphalt of northeast Thailand.

At what time will you have lunch today?

Just when I think of the conversations you sometimes have with locals while cycling, a 15-year-old boy on his bicycle adjusts his speed to mine; exhausted by the sprint he just took. “Hello!”, he says, and I respond with “hello”. Today doesn’t feel much like a social day, almost every day there are people who want to make a conversation but mostly they can’t go any further than Hello, Where you go, and What’s your name. Sometimes they don’t even know what they are asking and therefore they don’t wait for the answer. “Where you from?”, he asks. Oh no, not again. “That way”, and I point to the road behind us pretending I think he wants to know where we came from. “Aahhhh, where you go?”, “That way”, I point again to the road, this time to the road ahead of us. “What’s your name?”, he keeps trying. “Muriel”, and I keep refusing to provide more information to the same questions we get a hundred times a day. My fellow cyclist reduces speed and joins his friends who have cycled just behind us all the time. I feel sorry that I might have caused him loosing his face and I regret. Three minutes later, there he is again. “At what time will you have lunch today?” he now asks, in perfect English. Even Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t have pronounced it more British. In his left hand he holds a school notebook, hiding it for me.

The Angkor Temples – Siem Reap  

We arrive in Siem Reap. Just before lunchtime we decide to take advantage of the half a day that’s left. We drop our luggage in the guesthouse, cycle to the ticket office and buy a ticket for three days, including today, for $40 each. Luckily we have heard already that a picture is needed to get the ticket. Lunch for the rest of the world and a quick snack for us. We hurry to Angkor Wat, the main temple where everyone wants to go. By now it is hardly crowded; we are simply able to shoot pictures without other tourists on it. We wonder around, alone in the temple. In the later afternoon we visit The Bayon, the other main temple visited mostly. Again not so many tourists, good news for those who aren’t hungry at exactly lunchtime. When we cycle home we are again the only ones going home. The rest of the world seems to be in a great hurry. We take a look at the temple map. “I’ve been reading about this, they’re all going for the sunset on top of the hill”, Raymond says. We all laugh because apparently no one cared to look up: there will not be a nice sunset today, there has been a thick layer of clouds covering the sun for the past two hours. Many, many Tuk-tuks and motorcycles keep on moving towards the sunset hill, imagine hundreds of people on a hill watching clouds.  

Tomorrow we have a full temple day and the day after we will use half the day for templing around and the other half a day for cycling towards the Thai border. That will only be about 50 kilometer, back to the One Room Fits All experience. We visit the perfect selection of temple styles. Not one temple is the same if you just pick them carefully. Our third day is a visit to one of the temples a bit further away (30 kilometers) and we take a Tuk-tuk. It is the most impressive temple we visited, especially the stone carvings.

Siem Reap to the Thai border

Alike the surrounding roads to airports and cities, the road around the Siem Reap is smoothly tarred, but no more than 35 kilometer. Here the tar stops abruptly and we can’t do our average 22 kilometer/hour anymore. What is left is a red and dusty road we have warned Rene for. He brought a scarf as well and we continue with 15 km/h. There is some mountain bike technique necessary to maintain speed, and we reach Kralanh tired. The beer is kept cool especially for us.

In the morning it is hard to find anything for breakfast. I try the market that is said to be open at 5 AM, but no stalls that sell the delicious French baguettes. Last time we were luckier but this morning the first baguette appears in sight at 7:00 AM and so we start a little later than our average day. Our first legal stop will be after 25 kilometers, the second will be in Sisophon. From there it is only a short distance to cross the border into Thailand. Illegal stops are those for traffic lights (unlikely to appear on Cambodian roads), photo stops, halfway uphill, on top of hills etc. In Sisophon the owner of the Chinese restaurant recognizes us from our last visit. As usual during the delicious lunch and dinner we play roulette, we order three plates and eat a third of each, passing the plate on to the left for the next. This time its rice with chili and beef, fried vegetables and rice, and sweet and sour pork on rice. With a full stomach we cycle over a nicely tarred road to the border crossing.

The border crossing appears to be in the center of the village market. If you can’t see beyond the crowds you’ll never find it. Although, everyone seems to be moving to the same direction. On the Cambodian side we are trapped in a busload of tourist and so we must queue to get our exit stamp. After the Cambodian formalities we cycle in no-mans land where we must change from cycling on the right side to cycling on the left side, and where gambling is allowed. On either side of the one kilometer no-mans land there are enormous shiny gambling palaces. Towards the Thai side of the border we queue with the same amount of people but this time it takes four times longer before we get a stamp. Seven kilometers after the border we find a guesthouse in Aranya Prathet. From here on we will take the train to Bangkok, leaving tomorrow morning at 6:45.