Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

 

Thursday-Friday November 14-15... Two days of riding - 320 km from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap with an overnight in Kampong Thom.

The first day was 170 km, nearly 8 hours of actual riding time, hot, humid, and blistering sun. First we had to get out of Phnom Penh, and even though we're on the road just after 0600, traffic is very much a factor. Before we were even out of town, road construction started and it continued the entire day. They're turning a two-lane road with no shoulder into a wide four lane road.

In some places, we had a narrow two lane rough hard surfaced old road going down the middle with two or three lanes worth of rocks and sand and aggregate on each side, some of it already level and compacted, elsewhere just piles of dirt. There was no new paving, so there was dust everywhere, probably the dirtiest day of the trip so far. Sometimes the new roadbed was better than the old, sometimes not, and you could find traffic passing on the right, the left, in between, using the full width which might allow six or eight vehicles abreast. It's also fairly common here for motorscooters, tuk-tuks, and even cars and vans, to drive on the left-hand side towards traffic if there is any sort of surface adjacent to the marked road.

The local folk of course take it all in stride and continue with their
routine, including taking meals to the field. This part of the road
is one of the really good, smooth sections, but you can see the dust.

Every few hundred metres, there would be really rough stuff that cars and busses were going over at walking pace - these places were really rough, but on the bike, we'd be easily overtaking the traffic. That Rae is a bit more aggressive became apparent at the end of the day when he noticed that his rear carrier was broken, one side fractured completely, the other cracked. It was brand new eight weeks ago when we started but it was aluminum - maybe okay for the city, but not up to a trip like this.

So the first day was long and hot and tough.. the second day at 150 km, better road, no construction would have seemed a lot easier if we weren't already wrung out from the day before. It's a real mental exercise to convince yourself that only seven hours in the heat is a short and easy day.

The land is flat and wet, suitable for growing rice.

 The lakes and marshes produce fish and other sea food.

Empty plastic bottles provide the flotation for their wicker
baskets as these guys scrape something from the bottom
of this pond...

...and a few metres away from is this admonition not to go into the swamp with your heavy excavation equipment... maybe that's a better indicator not to dig than some of the little text-only signs that we put beside our highways in Canada.

We're seeing more birds in this area... the fields provide a home for lots of egrets...

...and I hope my brother will help identify this falcon-size bird. We saw a couple of them on wires along the lakes - looks like it feeds on fish.

Back on the road, we continue to marvel at the loads that are carried. These minibuses provide a lot of transportation, it would appear, for non-tourist travel between towns. They're always packed with people and almost always have a motorcycle strapped on the back, usually big boxes and furniture also strapped on outside...

...and livestock... what can I say... the norms here are not what they are in Canada. We've seen live pigs strapped on their backs onto motorcycle luggage racks, we've seen piglets several at a time crammed into wicker cages that are carried by motorcycles and scooters. Here are about a dozen (that we can see) live pigs, on their backs on some sort of wooden frames in the back of a pickup truck. Who knows, maybe that is not as unkind a way of transporting them as we initially think it is.

We now have three days in Siem Reap to rest and take in Angkor Wat and other attractions of the area.

Phnom Penh

November 12 started with the sun rising over the Mekong and us on our bikes heading for a long hot day to Phnom Penh...

...and the scenes of people already on the water under that beautiful soft light of the first hour of the day...

For the first time we saw some horse-drawn carts... this horse looked better groomed than a mere beast of burden as it was being washed in water along the side of the highway.

Usually, it's oxen pulling the carts and ploughs, but here a school kid is simply riding one of three that his mother is leading home.

Every day we pass several Buddhist temples, but this one was unusual in having a pair of langoustine as gate guards rather than the usual tigers or elephants.

Finally into Phnom Penh. Thanks to a strong recommendation from Jacques and Myriam Guillon, we enjoyed superb French cuisine at the Bougainvillier Hotel on the bank of the Mekong near the centre of town. If we were to come back to Phnom Penh, we'd almost certainly dine there again. 

Today, 13 November, as a rest day, was a chance to play tourist, starting at the grim Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum on the site of Security Office 21 of "Democratic Kampuchea". S.21 previously housed a high school and an elementary school. Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime detained and tortured an estimated 20,000 men women and children here because they were seen to be a threat to the regime or related to someone who was. Only a handful came out alive. After being tortured into 'confessing' to something, they were taken to the killing fields, which we did not visit, and executed by a blow to the back of the skull.

the high school with barbed wire enclosure

The victims were all photographed on arrival at S.21.
Hundreds of the photos are on display - the faces
indicate that they know what their fate will be. 

If Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are a blot on the history of Cambodia, the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda show a different side... 


palace grounds

Silver Pagoda

...and then a couple of glimpses into everyday things here... electrical distribution system - this is on a main street in a well-heeled part of town...

Getting around town here is frequently by tuk-tuk, motorcycle-drawn 'taxi' for up to four people - indeed this is how we travelled around town. Note the ingenious fuel system on this one, the plastic can on the fram attached beside the rear wheel behind the driver, the plastic hose coming out of the cap, under the driver's leg, and somehow feeding fuel to the engine.

to Kampong Cham

Monday 11 November - The sun rises at around 0600, so we're now getting up half-an-hour earlier, having breakfast at 0530, and on the road around 0600. It's misty and very humid at that time in the morning. The sky was clear until about 0800 when some clouds appeared, so the early morning light was great for photos as we were mainly on small roads.

It's not just us who get up early - it's amazing how much is happening between 0600 and 0800...

The Mekong River...

0615 - rising sun reflecting on fishing nets on one of the
rivers flowing into the Mekong...



...while on the other side of the bridge, boats are already out.

 Views from other bridges closer to 0800...

  

Meantime in the fields, these are all taken before 0700...  



 

...and kids are in school before 0700...

...transportation is on the move...


there is always room for one more... we've seen people
riding like this on busses too.



Today's ride took us past many Buddhist temples... this one was hosting the local fair complete with ferris wheel...

...and kids, always ready to ham it up for the camera...

After lunch was the ferry ride to the west side of the Mekong...

...where we were on small roads down to Kampong Cham. There were electrical wires along most if not all of the route today, but many houses don't appear to be hooked up, relying on their own generators or batteries. Again we passed several battery-charging operations, all relying on a stationery engine to drive the generator rather than use power from the grid.

Kampong Cham is seat of the provincial government, the chambers being in the orange-tiled building in the centre of the photos. The flags line the riverfront - attractive to look at, but the walkway is still under construction.

You can see the dark clouds of a thunderstorm in the background of the photo which was taken a couple of hours after we got in... it was certainly raining back from where we had come, but the shower passed to the north with only a few raindrops getting on us.

For those of you wondering if typhoon Haiyana (that hit the Philippines) was affecting us, it is not. It made landfall near the Vietnam-China border and is heading north, much weaker than when it hit the Philippines. That said, earlier typhoons and heavy rains in Cambodia have washed out roads in many places, including some of our intended route tomorrow to Phnom Penh, resulting in some modifications to the plan... that means we have to ride a bit further than initially planned.

November 11 is not yet over... let us not forget the sacrifices of sailors, soldiers and airmen who answered their country's call.