Kep, Kampot and The Cardamom Mountains

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  Kampot, Cambodia
Sunday, December 19, 2010

When I got of the bus at Kep a Scotsman yelled that he had a tuk-tuk and a hotel for $5 so I joined him.  Tony and I were to spend quite a few days together.  We ended up at Tree Tops in Kep, a really chill place and we slept in palm tree huts backing onto the jungle and with a hammock in front of each room and the nighttime noises were amazing: cicadas and frogs and god know what else.  Kep itself is a pretty spread out place with no real centre and a couple of small beaches of sand imported from elsewhere but we had a swim anyway which was lovely.  This part of Cambodia was a real Khmer Rouge stronghold and is full of abandoned homes riddled with bullet holes and , you can't really ask about it as you are not sure who was on which side.  We spent a few days in Kep, walking round the mountain behind the guesthouse and swinging in the hammocks.  A nice place to relax but with very Little going on we headed for Kampot a short way along the coast.

Kampot is a really nice relaxed place that, in all likelihood will really take off in the next few years: hotels are being built and there is talk of a marina but at the moment remains a good place to relax.  The guest house, Blissful, is excellent with good clean and cheap rooms ($5) and really good food.  I asked around about a motorbike trip through The Cardamom Mountains and found someone willing to have a go.  My guide Jock had not been before but local word and Lonely Planet suggested that although challenging, it should be passable so we set off for a 4 day tour.

DAY 1.
The first day we went down the road to Koh Kong where we stayed the night.  A small is grubby town really but OK for all that with a large river running through it.  I bought some gloves as my hands had got a little sunburnt but nothing drastic.  A good run to get used to the bike, a 250 dirt bike, a little heavy but OK.

DAY 2.
This turned out to be the epic day!  We left the tarmac for the dirt road and made our way through various junctions by Jock asking for directions.  With hindsight I think that there are probably several ways through the mountains and we took a slightly obscure one, nothing like the track cars can get along according to people in Koh Kong!  After some pretty straightforward dirt tracks we started to hit more interesting terrain.  Rutted tracks, steepish hills up and down and rivers to cross.  I was taking it easy as I was not really experienced at this sort of thing but was getting on OK.  Jock is an excellent rider but not much of a teacher so I watched him carefully and manged to get along OK for a while.  The first problem came when we had to cross a widish but shallow river.  Jock went first and got stuck so I helped him across and then it was my turn.  Having seen Jock got stuck I did not really go at and consequently dropped my bike almost as soon as I hit the water!  Jock helped me across but I had managed to break the clutch lever.  We swapped bikes and Jock managed to keep going.  A little later we came across a passer by (!) who managed to fix the clutch lever with some inner tube and a piece of bamboo cut from the jungle!

Then we started coming across small bridges across some minor streams.  Logs and planks of thin wood were the way across drops of about 10-20 feet so we walked the bikes across, me in front.  At one of these Jock dropped the bike: we were both pretty tired as it was hot and hard work.  The bike was hanging upside down with Jock underneath holding it up and I was standing on a round log above it trying to pull it up.  We had just succeeded when someone came by. 

And then things got really difficult.  We had gone down tracks no wider than the bikes and were dodging low hanging bamboo and came across some steeper hills that were very deeply rutted.  Having to negotiate the bikes along here was difficult as the ruts were pretty deep and the ridges between them narrow - about 1 foot wide in places.  I dropped the bike a couple of times with no problem and managed to keep going for a while.  I was thinking to myself that I was getting the hang of this when I dropped it again, this time on me!  My leg was caught between the handlebar end and the ground as I went over without warning.  I yelled out and managed to get my leg out from under the bike.  Jock's first words were "is your leg broken?" which fortunately it wasn't.  Fortunately again, a couple of forest workers happened upon us and we decided that I would ride pillion to their village.  I had also broken the brake lever so Jock did the rest of the journey to Pursat (2 days) with no front brake - how he did this I'll never know as some of the track was very steep downhill and deeply rutted.  After some time in the village and some running repairs to the bikes we set off again: I was still riding pillion to one of the foresters who was going to be taken back by the chap following us on his small moped!  The next 20 km or so were the worst bit: very steep and deeply rutted and I could not have ridden this so perhaps it all worked out OK.  We crossed a river by raft complete with bikes before climbing up and down some more steeply rutted tracks and coming across another village.  From here I carried on riding for the rest of the day (3 hours or so) eventually coming into the main town, Promui.  We spent the evening with some rice whisky and a smoke or two before heading for bed, knackered and, in my case, some pain in my leg.  I was worried that I might not be able to ride the following day but tiger balm is amazing stuff!

DAY 3.
This was much easier than the previous day and was just 3 hours of flat dirt road, covered in red dust, as were we and everything we had!  Nothing eventful happened which was good, apart from passing an overturned truck that had not seen a corner.  We got to Pursat and got the bikes fixed.  We found a chap that took about an hour to fit 2 mirrors and tailor-make a clutch and brake lever and he only charged $4.50!  Then we rode for about 6 hours down tarmac road.  We arrived in the dark and I was really tired and my arse was aching from 3 days riding!  I phoned my guesthouse in Kampot to let them know I was alive and needed a room the next night.  They had a tote going round the bar as to how many bruises I'd return with!

DAY 4.
A nice short day of about 3 hours ride back to Kampot and we had made it!  Lots of beer and rice whisky followed before I headed for bed and slept for ages!  It was good to be back.

The next 3-4 days I spent doing very little.  My leg was causing me some grief but was slowly on the mend.  On my third day of rest I managed to get as far as the bookshop but did very little else.  Now I feel that my leg is probably OK to carry my pack but I think I'll wait another day before booking myself on a bus to Battambang, my next port of call.

So, a few thoughts about my trip to the mountains.

• we hardly stopped so I have very few photos
• the scenery was fantastic with mountains and rivers and jungle although all we could see much of the time was the jungle
• if someone suggests that you do the biking through the mountains make sure you go with someone like Jock
• I think the tour company were perhaps lucky that nothing serious happened or they would have been deeply in the do-do: I don't think they'd take someone there again
• what an amazing thing to have done!  Not many from outside Cambodia have been there so I feel very privileged and more than a little bit lucky to have been and survived with nothing more serious than a bruised leg.

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Sunset at Koh Kong	Rutted track	The beasts	Running repairs
Bike ferry

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