TravelStream™ news feed for member zachf on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/zachf en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:51:47 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/zachf/2/1201246440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/zachf/2/1201246440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/zachf/2/1201246440/tpod.html Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:51:47 -0500 Dirtbike riding in Cambodia

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I was hoping to keep on reporting my adventures here, but due to the bike needing some parts and my visa running out I am going to have to postpone things. I will be back though as I have definitely not made it to the more remote areas I planned to.

For now I am headed to Vietnam and will work my way up the coast from ho chi minh city to Hanoi. Once in Hanoi I am planning on buying an old Russian motorbike called a Minsk. Hoping to ride a loop along the Chinese and Vietnam border in the far north. I will definitely blog that so stay tuned.

Cheers

zach
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Kep, Cambodia

The last few days lazing around on the beach have left me relaxed but also slightly hungover. I set out with the best intentions to keep things quiet on the last night in the hopes I could get on the road nice and early, but somehow that plan never works for me....

After a very nice breakfast on the beach I slam down a litre of water and 2 x painkillers, 2 x anti-nausea and 2 x immodium tablets. I only have 400km or so to cover so what better way to start the day. I manage to get on the road at about 10:30am and fuel up and find the road out of Sihanoukville, fill up with fuel and overtake all the sightseeing barangs (tourists) on their step through 100cc scooters on the way out to highway 4 again. I have to ride about 30km and then turn off onto highway three which threads it's way across the coast and should provide some great views with the water on one side and the 1000m plus Bokor mountain range on the other. I am hoping to get off the road there and visit the ruins of a grand casino and villa complex built by the french but subsequently destroyed by the Khmer Rouge.

After travelling down the highway for a while I realise I have not seen the turn off yet and figure it might be a good idea to check my guidebook. Imagine the Lonely Planet guide written specifically for dirtbike riding and you have the excellent "Ädventure Cambodia". It is a few years old now but still has directions in the form of odometre readings such as - "zero odometre at the brewery in Sihanoukville, travel 32.5km and veer right onto highway 3 just after the railway line crosses the road". To say this is essential is an understatement. I have a road map and a compass as well, but this book is the one to have. I am guessing I have made the point that it is important now.

Well, I managed to lose my copy!!! Damn!
I left one of the top pockets on my backpack open and it has fallen out somewhere in the last 50km or so. I backtrack for a while but then give up as I have 400km to go and it could be all the way back at my hostel. I will just have to use my road map and hope for the best. The good news is that my dry bag containing my passport and other important stuff has not fallen out of the same pocket, although it was dangerously close.

Of course, I don't however bust the roadmap out at this point and assume that the turn off is just a bit further on. I guess it takes me another 50km before I realise I really have gone too far and I stop for fuel and a look at the map. It is huge and unfolding it is a lot more of an effort than simply opening up the guidebook. Thats my excuse anyways. After looking at the map it is clear I need to backtrack at least 40km or so if I want to take my intended scenic route. I look at my watch and decide to do it.

How I missed the turn off the first time I will never know. It is very obvious where to turn when I get back to the right spot and I guess I might of been busy trying not to run into a dog/cow/ox/water buffalo/chicken/car/tractor/bicycle/motorbike/truck/bus/kids /etc. It really doesn't pay to look away from whats ahead of you on these roads. Finally on the right track and also a less busier road I can open up the throttle and aim for the Bokor mountain range in the distance. There are heaps of cute little fishing villages along the way and I look forward to slowing down at each one to take a photo and observe every day life here.

The mountains just get more and more impressive as you get closer to them and I can see a couple of huge sheer rock faces that look like they would be sweet to basejump from. I am looking forward to riding to the top of the escarpment and looking at the ruins and ocean views. Luckily I remember a few details from the guidebook and know I will find the turnoff about 8km from the town of Kampot and after passing through more of the little fishing villages scattered at the waters edge I spot it. At the same time I arrive a scooter turns onto the dirt with a guy riding and his girlfriend on the back. They have probably just come from Kampot for the day and give me a dirty look as I rip down the dirt road past them. It is only 1km down the dirt to a closed gate where the park ranger is setup and I stop hoping to pay the entrance fee.

Well, that was not going to be the case unfortunately as the whole area had been closed so that the whole area could be rebuilt to it's former glory. I was informed that this would be at least a 2 year closure and no one would be allowed access. The temptation to bribe the guard/ranger was very strong, but as I have so much more dirt to ride I thought better of it and headed back to the main road. The scooter riders had stopped for a smoke so I gave them the bad news so they didn't need to head down the rough dirt unnecessarily.

A bit let down, I head for Kampot and then onwards to Kep where I am hoping to get some lunch and nice views of the beaches. As it turns out Kampot sits on a river and although some areas were picturesque there wasn't much to look at so I pushed on down a very busy but tiny road to Kep. Once again there really wasn't a lot there apart from some rocky beaches and a couple of expensive resorts. Apparently they used to ship the pure white sand from Sihanoukville in to cover the rocks and keep the beaches looking pretty. I grab some lunch at a very dodgy looking beachside place that looks like it is setup more for locals than foreigners. Chicken with ginger and a can of sprite hit the spot though and I am feeling a lot better.

I have to ride all the way back down the same road to Kampot as without my guidebook it is a bit dodgy relying on a large road map of the area. Boring...but essential....I stop in Kampot to fuel up and get back to Phnom Penh before it gets dark. It is about 3pm and there is still 170km or something left to travel and I would like to get back before having to deal with these traffic conditions in the dark. I am quickly finding out that what seems easyily achievable back home is not here and I am quickly battling through crowds of kids that pour out onto the roads as they have just left school. They cover literally half of what little road there is and make the already dangerous antics of the other drivers even worse. Cars seem to just slow down a little, and motorbikes weave in and out at 50-60km/h whilst the kids wrestle, chase and fight each other on and off the road. Some of them are riding motor bikes, whilst heaps are riding bikes that are invariably too big for them to pedal properly. One close call comes whilst I am riding along completely on the other side of the road thinking things are looking safe and two girls stack their bicycles into each other and end up lying face down on the road in a tangle of bikes and scared faces. I hit the brakes and the horn and watch their friends laugh at them. haha. very funny, but if I was another 40 meters closer to them when that happened it might of been a different story.

I slow down a little and eventually they begin to dissapear behind me as they all get home. There was probably a good 100km stretch where they were on the road and it has slowed down my progress so that it is starting to get dark and I am still 55km from Phnom Penh. The chain on the bike is getting really loose and it is slapping around as I change down gears all the time. I am guessing the sprockets have to be on the way out as it was adjusted last thing before I left Phnom Penh.

It's about 5:30pm and I have been riding since 11am or so with one lunch stop and some really quick camera stops. Dave's helmet is a bit too tight and it has been rubbing against a small spot on my forehead since lunch time. My ass, hands and legs are sore and my mind is getting a little burnt out from all of the concentration. Perfect time for it to start raining I guess. So, I am riding into the outskirts of Phnom Penh, my concentration fading, chain slapping loosely around, the light is failing fast, it is just starting to rain and my visor is covered with bug splatter and dust. There is also the everpresent crazy drivers and machinery all over the road. I pick a car out that is travelling a reasonable speed and just try and keep up. Luckily they are hitting the horn the whole way and most of the other traffic is getting out of the way (especially the animal variety). It is pretty sketchy at the end as visibility is not great and even tailgating a car they are occasionally run onto the verge by bigger traffic coming the other way.

I finally make it back into the city centre of Phnom Penh and work my way to the hostel that I had booked before I left. Very glad I made that choice too as trudging around in the dark and rain after today would be been a very bad idea indeed. After a quick shower I head down to Robbie's bar opening and bask in the airconditioning and lively atmosphere. After 441km of hard riding it is nice to just sit back and watch the rain come down outside.

The bike will need looking at and I think I need to go and find a new helmet that fits a bit better. Once that is sorted I will hit the road and get into the more remote areas of the country.

cheers

Z
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/zachf/2/1201100580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/zachf/2/1201100580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/zachf/2/1201100580/tpod.html Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:22:37 -0500 Dirtbike riding in Cambodia

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Sihanoukville, Cambodia

As it was my birthday I decided it would be best if I spent a few days relaxing on the beach in Sihanoukville before continuing the ride around the southern most part of Cambodia. The beach was nice although I think Thailand probably has better beaches. The main beach where I was staying had a long stretch of bars and restaurants that extended 500+ metres down the sand. They all had heaps of chairs, and hammoks and seemed to be largely clones of each other with none of them really standing apart.

At night they were all lit up like a mini Las Vegas and it was very pleasant to lounge around drinking beer and eating seafood. Beers were 50 cents and king prawns or BBQ fish were only $5 or so. One particular bar called the Dolphin Shack was jumping every night and I ended up there three nights in a row. Cool bar staff, open til very late, 50 meters from my hostel and best of all they had a beer funnel. The night of my actual birthday on the 21st ended at around 5am and I had hung out with people from England, Ireland, Israel, Sweden, France and Australia. I broke up a fight between the punchy Irishman and the placid French guy and watched an old geezer get into a heated altercation with his Cambodian girlfriend. Very eclectic mix of people and a slightly weird night but that is sort of how it goes here.

I did manage to ride the bike around Sihanoukville and, well, there isn't a lot here really. The most charming spot is about 10km out of town past the port where there is a fishing village with hundreds of boats and houses on stilts built over the water. Unfortunately the sun was just at the wrong angle in the sky to get any decent photos but I snapped a few. The one of the road is a good one with water on both sides and dogs yapping at your heels as you ride down it. The locals all give you a smile as you go past, and I left some little kids in my dust yelling for "öne dollar mister"

This entry is short as I am really just lazing around on the beach, but after a few days of this I will be ready to ride back to Phnom Penh via Kampot, Kep, the Bokor mountains and Takeo. Should be interesting as it is almost 700km and I am hoping to get off the hellish tarmac roads and onto some actual dirt.

cheers

Z
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Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I was starting to think that this day was never going to arrive. Dave had graciously offered to let me ride his dirtbike around Cambodia and all I needed to do was pick it up off his mate Robbie in Phnom Penh and then get on the road. In the end I was in Cambodia for just over two weeks as I had to organise to meet Robbie, get the bike serviced, buy a decent map, do some research, and drink and go out a lot. I can tell you know it takes a few days finding sturdy size 13-14 boots (euro 48), a dirtbike jersy, and a compass in this town.

So the packing list for my adventure is as follows - Yamaha TTR 250 raid, clothes (duh), helmet, gloves, swiss army knife, electrical tape, first aid kit, gastro kit, half arsed toolkit, compass, map, Adventure Cambodia dirtbike book, lonely planet, $1 plastic poncho and a mosqito net.
It should also really include other things like spare inner tube, pump, chain links, tension tool, clutch and brake levers, zip ties and other spares.
I would of loved to find some real dirtbike boots and body armor but unfortunately that was impossible.

And the most important thing - a sense of adventure was all I really needed. some would say death wish I guess.

It is certainly an interesting experience riding a dirtbike for the first time in 10 years plus around Phnom Penh.
The traffic is a little hectic with no real rules. After a while it all starts coming back to me and I cut through the traffic with relative ease. The bike is running well. It's feels weird to be on a 4 stroke though and it has absolutely no power compared to the good old 250cc two strokes that we rode around as teenagers. I miss the feeling of hitting power band and hanging on, although that is probably not a good thing in the traffic here.

The ride from Phnom Penh is a very straightforward affair and a nice easy trip to get used to things before I really start hitting the more remote areas in the North in the next few weeks.
It is roughly 230km and is all tarmac and well signposted. Sounds like a walk in the park.
It takes a while to battle out of the traffic and get to the outskirts of town where you can start to pick up the pace.

There is a lot of traffic of all sorts, trucks, buses, vans, heaps of landcruisers and lexus 4wds, motorbikes, tractors, ox carts, bicycles and more.
I quickly learn that any vehcile with blue and red number plates are government vehicles and as such drive wherever the hell they want and at warp speed.
You really have to ride defensively but assertively so that people really know what you are going to do even if they have no idea what they are doing.

I figure the best way to avoid most of the traffic is to be almost the quickest vehicle on the road. It sounds a bit silly I guess, but you don't have to worry about traffic appearing from behind you without warning. It's also not hard to be quicker than most as there are a lot of trucks, buses and clapped out 100cc motorbikes. The only vehciles really going faster than about 70km/h are cars and 4wds.
On-coming traffic has absolutely no concept of you having a side of the road to yourself and they will overtake at any time forcing you off the road and onto the dirt verge.
I found a good tactic was to wait until a government car overtook me and then hang about 100 meters back from it. It offered a bit of protection as oncoming traffic wouldn't pull out as frequently. Although sometimes they do it anyways. Check the photo of the trucks that are 3 abreast coming straight down the wrong side.
This tactic works until you hit a long straight clear section and the car usually speeds up to 160km/h or so and leaves you behind. The bike doesn't feel that great over about 120km/h and I get a massive fright at one point as a lexus blasts past me when I didn't realise he had caught up.

There are a few other scares along the way involving various things coming out onto the road.
I even see guys sitting on the edge of the road having a smoke as if it was an extension of their living room. There are a lot of houses built right up to the edge of the road and the scariest moments comes when a dog runs out in front of me when I am doing 100km/h or so. I hit the brakes and lock the rear up and miss it by a foot or so. That would of been messy. Damn, I wish I had that body armor and full boots, but all you can do is laugh it off and keep yourself looking a long way down the road. The same thing happens about 10km later on, but this time its a puppy. I see it run out, start to brake and hit the horn to make sure it runs off nice and fast. This back fires and it turns back and runs in front of me again as I get closer. I wonder what a dogs life expectancy is in this country.

There are plenty of cows crossing the road and also just grazing for grass all along the edges.
Water buffalo, oxen and ox carts, chickens, dogs, motorbikes with trailers, kids on bicycles, kids on motorbikes, strange agricultural machines, earth moving equipment, people walking and more are everywhere down the road, which certainly makes the journey a lesson in concentration.

I was probably forced off the road onto the verge more than ten times. You are riding along at 100km/h or so and the oncoming traffic just takes both the lanes (and more sometimes) and you are expected to give way. You hit the brakes to slow down to say 60km/h or so and aim for the verge. The dirt makes the bike float around a bit and once the traffic has passed you get back onto the tarmac and speed up. The dirt is a slightly different surface each time and the lip where it meets the tarmac is as tall as 20cm or so in places. I also do a fair amount of overtaking on the dirt verge as it is safer at times than using the tarmac. It's fun to blast down the dirt on the inside past 3-4 trucks that are holding up 10 cars and whole bunch of other traffic. The cars invariably catch you as soon as they get past though.

The journey takes me around 3 or 3.5 hours with one fuel stop and a lot of quick stops to snap photos. The odometer is showing a distance of 251km and I am dying for a beer or two.
I snap a picture of the first beach I come to just as the sun is setting before heading through town to try and find a place I can sleep and store the bike with some safety. Having the bike means you really need to find somewhere you can park it off the street. Plus Dave would kill me if it got nicked.

I am just going to hang around on the beach for a few days before heading back to Phnom Penh via Kampot, Kep and the Bokor mountains. After that I will be riding for a couple of weeks in a huge loop around Cambodia and will get to visit some much more remote areas in the North. The adventure really begins in earnest then and I will put up new posts as I can get to some decent internet cafes.

cheers

Z
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