Katie en Laurent bij de Khmer: You escape the crocodile...

When the alarm clock jingled at quarter to six on thursday morning we still had to :
1. finish packing
2. wash and dress
3. buy batteries for the torches
4. buy tools for the bikes
5. buy water for the trip.
6. have breakfast
With only three quarters of an hour we were in a hurry. Our driver mr Vong calls me to tell us that the planned pick-up at the hotel is a no go because... he can't find the hotel. I haven't met him but already start to doubt his capabilities. Katie insists on showering (with a day of sweat and dust ahead I don't bother). At the bike shop mr Vong awaits us on his scooter. He is a short but very fat cambodjan. Off we go!

Our first stop equals first disaster, filling up my camelbak katie is impressed with how much water it can hold until the shopkeeper points at the small puddle that is forming underneath. We quickly get all the stuff out (maps, money, camera, books) and discover that the papers are wet but nothing is broken. Lucky escape! I fix the tube on the bag again and we are ready to go. I want to go north to Angkor Wat and then east to Trach but the guide says it's better to go east first and north later. We end up doing 30km on the main road between PP and Siem Reab, but it's fast and as soon as we are northbound the road changes to a small red dusty country road/path in the shadows of palm trees. All along the way children come running up to the side of the road to say hello and wave. It's a magnificent feeling to slide through the country and being able to see it, feel it, smell it, hear it and occasionally even taste it (alot of insects in the air at times). We make excellent progress and by noon we arrive at Beng Melea. This temple ruin has a very authentic feel to it. We climb over the carved stones lying around like huge Lego blocks waiting to be rebuilt. At lunch our guide orders food and drink for himself at our table and disappears when the check arrives, I reluctantly pay and when he comes back afterwards and just says "thank you"my suspicion grows. From then on we would be very careful about this sort of thing. We leave the civilized world and continue to the village of Kvau. This little village of a 100 households at most is just in between Beng Melea and Preah Khan. The road is gravel and stones but in very good shape and we arrive before sunset. On the way there we cross a few tremendous Angkorian bridges in almost perfect state. Forgotten in the remote countryside and jungle they used to be part of a sophisticated road system connecting the major cities of the ancient cambodian civilization. They remind us of Roman roads and viaducts. In Kvau we fasten our hammocks under the farmhouse of our guides relatives. Food is prepared and soon it is dark. We climb aboard and attempt to catch a few winks. But my sleep is disrupted by the repetitive snoring of mr Vong. The palmwine knocked him out and he snores away peacefully in complete oblivion of my angry shouts aimed at waking him. Katie hands me a pair of earplugs which keep me happy until a loud bang and flashes of light wake me again. Katie and I realize that we are in the midst of a tropical thunderstorm. But we are dry under the house. Before I'm fully aware of it, the sky is lighting up and we start folding up the hammocks and soon we are on our way again...

The first kilometers are a walk in the park. The cool green wet countryside slips by under a grey sky and the warnings of endless sandy tracks are almost forgotten. But soon the road is interrupted every kilometer by an intersection of uneven terrain, with large holes, mud and so on... Fantastic fun! As the morning goes by however the road becomes unrecognizable. Muddier by the mile and the tracks we follow meander alongside through the bushes so for every kilometer on the map we have to do two! The landscape has changed from flat rice fields to hilly half-jungle. Every 5 to 10km we cross a river bed. The very few people we encounter stare at us in complete disbelief. Our guide tells us that many of the children have never seen "barang" in real life (litt "french" but used for "westerners" in general). After 3 hours of riding, slipping, falling and basically getting very wet we have made about 15 km. Our supplies are vanishing and we are no where near Prasat Preah Khan. The next stretch is even worse. By then we abandon every attempt to keep our socks dry and we happily walk trough pools of mud. There isn't a village, shop, house, farm or even person in sight for 30 km of jungle. The ants don't allow us to sit in peace for even half a second. But then just as Katie was ready to stop and camp in the middle of jungle, we see a little temple abandoned in the thick maquis. We must be close! And soon enough rice field appear again and farmers greet us on our way. We spot the outer perimeter wall of Prasat Preah Khan. This almost completely intact wall has a circumference of several kilometers. Being more than 1000 years old we greet it with the due respect. We were hoping to find food and drink at the temple but no such luck. There is nothing there. So we paddle through the next 5 km to the village of Ta Seng where a we discover a lovely guest house. The rooms are nice but dark and stuffy. Therefore we decide to once again sleep in the hammocks. The only other guest is a chinese-cambodian working in the tourist industry inspecting the construction of the new roads to the temple. Soon this temple too will be easily accessible by car and... crowded. He is very helpful and nice and when he tells us his name is "Wallet" I have to bite my lip not to laugh. I tell him about our noisy guide and he assures me that in this village everything is quiet as can be. A good night sleep is all we need. To our surprise at 20.00PM we can hear music coming from a nearby farm. To our even greater surprise it gets louder and louder. By midnight we have to scream from one hammock to the other to talk. And the worse thing is that they are playing the crappiest house and dance beats imaginable at a truly incredible volume. After some disturbingly loud final tunes peace returns to the village and we have a few hours of sleep until the nightly thunderstorm sets in to add a lightshow to the proceedings. I meet Wallet the next day and since we were so happy that our guide wasn't sleeping anywhere near us the day before he tells us about an old cambodian saying "You escape the crocodile, only to meet the tiger". How apt.

By 6.00 o clock I am up and enjoying the sunrise. Katie is not feeling very well so I set off to explore the temple on my own. As always I am fascinated by the hugeness of the surrounding moat and wall. I decide to go for a lap around before entering but after a mile the tracks disappear in to the thick bushy and thorny jungle. As always the minefield warnings are abundant. After more than a kilometer I have only managed to do half of one side of the square perimeter. It is truly huge. I enter the complex and I am struck by the beauty of the ruins and perplexed by the preserved state of some of the edifices. Later that afternoon we read that the collapsed towers are not just victims of the tooth of time but the work of looters. In the nineties there was a myth that underneath the biggest towers a priceless buddha was hidden, this was enough for some to start digging with pneumatic drills which inevitably caused the towers to collaps. The ruins suddenly change their aspect and have a depressing aura about them. To think that for centuries these buildings have resisted the elements only to be destroyed because of greed is hard to swallow.

After another night underneath the guest house we set off for the last day of riding. The sky is big and blue and the puddles soon dry and turn to sand. The morning coolness fades and a scorching sun has us consuming sunscreen and water by the gallon. Apart from one river crossing (knee-high) our feet are dry and at one point we are even happy to find a small pool to wade through for refreshment. The riding is hot but pleasant, the villages are pretty and the people happy to see us. In the afternoon I am amazed when suddenly our guide points us in a western direction (we were meant to keep going south). I question him but he seems very confident. So we leave the cool shady village roads and start on a flat straight road next to a dry canal. Cars and trucks blaze past us and with no wind, no shadow and no more water to drink the last 25km are not the most enjoyable. Our guide is far ahead of us and when we meet I get out my map and asked him what the f*%£ that was all about. He says he asked me whether it was okay to go to road 6 by the village of Goah. I reply that I have never heard of that village, that it isn't even on my detailed map and that he knew bloody well we were headed for Stuong since we left that morning. I was probably a bit dehydrated because although I think he had other motives (easier flat road for his motorbike) I'm might have been a little harsh on the guy. Anyway after another 5 km we get to road 6 and our guide has halted a van ready to take us back to Siem Reab for only 2.5$ per person. As soon as we are in the car and safely on our way to the land of milk shakes, air co, showers, etc the memory of the last grueling miles melts away. Reminiscing about our adventures we are repatriated to SR under the warm glow of the setting sun...

The van is headed for Poipet and drops us off a few kilometers from the hotel. So when we arrive there (with all our bags) in the dark with the Petzls on our heads, they are unsure whether to call the police or welcome us. We shower and change our outfits and are about to go out for dinner when madame Rithey introduces us to her daughter and her two sons (all medical students but younger than us). They invite us for dinner and we eat with dr Rithey and his family at the hotel. A very very nice evening that was.

We are enjoying every last minute in Siem Reab because soon we are leaving for PP. Looking for gifts and saying goodbye and in the meanwhile still lending a hand during the operations... We'll miss it here!

Here are a few pictures from the trip, most were taken with katies small nikon while my canon was safely hidden inside the big rucksack...