Chalenge craziness

Despite thinking that I may need therapy, I seem to have survived the experience of leading the Oxfam challenge. Our sizeable group forged its way from Thay Ninh in Vietnam to the border with Cambodia and d then across said border to Srey Veng and Prey Veng and eventually Kampong Cham. The minute you hit the Cambodian side, it is clear that you are nowhere near Kansas and most definitely not in Vietnam any more. The standard of living between the two countries is immediately noticeable. One of the differences is that there is a lot less traffic. The motor bikes are older and the children all ride bicycles to school. There are very few cars around, but those that pass us do so at a high speed , so it is important that the group keep to the side of the road.

The group have been very patient. The local operator has a really good system where we leave one lot of bikes at the border and pick up another lot on the other side of the border. This is possibly the worst thing that you can do, because the riders have just taken two days to get used to the bike that they are using and we now need to change them over. The situation is not helped by the fact that the bikes just have not been maintained.

We hit Kampong Cham in high spirits. It is a spectacular place to ride to due to the large Japanese friendship bridge that spans across the Mekong and lands in the middle of the town. At the end of the bridge there is a modern service station that sells ice cream, so I stop everyone here before we head to the hotel. There are gaps between the riders, I think largely due to the heat. Our resident funny man Virgillio comes flying in doing a superman impression on the bike wth his arms stuck out the front t and his legs stuck out the back. It looks impressive until he clips the plastic bag full of baguettes that the baguette lady has been trying to sell for the extent of the time that we are there. The crispy delicious bread goes flying all over the concourse and Virgillio is so shocked that almost eats the asphalt. He didn’t eat it though, and a good thing too, because he has just purchased ten dirty, oil spattered baguettes and will need the space in his belly.

The following day’s ride is a highlight. It starts off on nicely sealed road and then turns to nicely graded dirt. After about twenty kilometers it turns to not so nicely graded ballast and rubble. Despite the road being a really great and interesting ride, it also brings some bad memories . I rode this section on my own in March and it was a lot rougher then. At the time, my panniers broke (good quality deuter) and left me holding one five kilo one under my arm and another strapped wit ocky straps to the back. All the same, it is a great ride with a pass through a minority Cham muslim village and a stop over at a soccer field where everyone has a chance to pit themselves against the nimble Khmer kids who can make scissor kicks over the head look easy.

We arrive in Phnom Penh exhausted but satisfied. The group are in need of some civilization after being out bush for a few days. Some are busting to get the famous foreign correspondent’s club , some are busting to check out the infamous nightlife of the capital of the country that I call the wild west of Asia. It really is a different place. There are great little open air food stalls where you can eat a meal for less than a dollar, there are markets where you can get some great fruit or rip off brand-name merchandise, there is fast internet if you need to talk to someone on Skype. There are also a large supply of evils such as drugs, prostitutes, prostitutes, prostitutes and guns. A hell of lot of guns are getting around Phnom Penh. They are unfortunately used quite often too, usually only to hold someone up and not discharged, but after a few stories it is enough for us to warn our passengers and for us to be careful ourselves. This of course goes completely over the head of Shapelle Corby who is found walking around the city at four in the morning on her own. There is such a thing as outing your head in the lion’s mouth and this girl really doesn’t need any more help with her misfortune and mishaps. Much of the group including the other leader Mr. Eric are out til all hours at the Heart Of Darkness which is well known as the last stop on the venue map for a night out in Phnom Penh. Eric can do this though, because I have volunteered to take the optional ride to the Killing Fields and S21 Genocide museum.

I wrote about the killing fields and the genocide museum in the blog from my last adventure over this way. The museum especially is a really confronting and distressing experience. It was originally a school, but the Khmer Rouge turned it into one of their main interrogation facilities. There are thousands of pictures from those that were guests there and were then sent to the killing fields after providing the information that their interrogators wanted, normally the names of their families and colleagues’. This was their strategy for identifying those that they would then systematically catch, place under interrogation and then kill. In this manner, they killed educated people and former government workers by the hundreds of thousands. It is a must for anyone who visits Cambodia as it will in my opinion go a long way to helping one understand why things are the way they are around them even today.

From Phnom Penh we transport our hung over and tired passengers to Siem Reap by bus. We now only have one cycling day left which is out to a pre-Angkorian temple Batay Srei. There is by rumor (from the boss) a road that leads further out to a place called Phnom Kulan with such wonders as a waterfall and a temple that is not crawling with thousands of Korean and Japanese tourists (both seem to be unlikely given the flat nature of the country and the number of said tourists in this part of the country). Needing to find out though, I grab Shane who is the strongest cyclist in the group and Anna who is a strong cyclist also, but has been kindly sitting at the back lending her moral support to the stragglers. Sensing that she would actually like a decent ride, I suggest that she join us. We head out on rough dirt to a gatepost marking the entrance to the National Park. After failing to negotiate a discount in the expensive admission fee, we start a decent climb up into the hills. After about fifteen Kms of climbing and dropping, we reach a waterfall with an amazing Buddha image carved into the rock under the water. The water is fantastic, fresh and strong. There are two levels to the waterfall and there are no other foreign toursists to be seen anywhere. We then visit the temple which is still under use and has a great view from the upper level that houses a large rock carved reclining Buddha.

We are enjoying our time at the temple and falls so much that we miscalculate time and end up riding back in the fading daylight. To make it worse though, the heavens open on us and dump more rain than I think I have seen for a few years. We arrive back at the hotel soaked to the bone and running late for the final night celebratory dinner.

The final night is always the wildest for a charity group. They have reached the end of their massive ride and can make a mess of themselves without having to suffer the physical consequences of getting n a bike the next day. This group are no exception (unsurprisingly). They are out until four or five in the morning and my riding buddy from the day has to be carried back by three of his fellow challengers, while spewing all the way. It looks like he hasn’t worked out that you can’t go that hard after a 130KM ride finishing in a flood. I have learnt this however and despite a ribbing from all concerned, I leave and make an early line for bed at midnight.

There are all sorts of stories floating around the next morning about who spewed , who had to be carried home and who snogged who. It seems I am actually running some sort of Contiki tour! My group have earned the name the rabbits from the hotel staff who I am sure are completely horrified by the behavior.