Archive for July, 2008
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
Just a little crazy
95km Sihanoukville to Chamkar Luong
“Don’t you want to take the bus?”
The receptionist at the hotel couldn’t quite understand why we would want to go to Phnom Penh by bicycle. Neither could the customers at the small restaurant where we ate breakfast.
“Where you go?” asked one woman in broken English when we rolled up our bicycles and sat down for a morning meal of sliced pork over rice and iced coffee. When we replied that we were going to the capital, a little over 200km away, everyone sitting at the outdoor tables shook their heads in surprise and some tutted and whispered to the people next to them.
In most countries of the world it seems the locals think us at least a little crazy for wanting to travel long distances by bicycle. Some clearly think we’re certifiable, ready to be hauled off by the men in white coats. We’re used to it now and find it amusing that this very simple concept is so foreign to so many people.
After breakfast we tackled the hills leading out of Sihanoukville – the only real climbs we’ve seen so far in Cambodia – and soon we were heading north on Route 4, a road built by the Americans that’s in fantastic shape. We were a bit nervous about this stretch of the trip because we’d heard that traffic was terrible with plenty of careless driving but maybe the rainy season has kept the vehicles away. We had the road largely to ourselves and the few vehicles that did pass us slowed down and gave us plenty of room as they went by.
We were warmly welcomed in the gambling den of a small town, where we ate a repeat meal of breakfast and watched as the men and women at the packed tables around us bet money over cards.
With lunch finished and our worries about traffic soothed, the next question in our minds was where to sleep. Unlike most roads in Cambodia, this one was strangely lacking in towns and we weren’t sure of finding a guesthouse within a day’s ride. We didn’t even know if the empty landscape would contain a temple where we could ask the monks for a place for the night. We were tempted by a deserted rest stop with covered picnic areas and toilets but decided it left us a bit more exposed than we like. And then, just a few kilometers on, we were surprised to see signs for bungalows. For $10 U.S. we were soon installed in our own mini house with a large bed and a balcony overlooking the surrounding countryside.
When we examined the menu in the attached restaurant we were glad we’d bothered to carry our stove and a few basic foods like noodles and sauce packets around with us because the prices were outrageous and then, just as we were staring in disbelief at prices of $5 U.S. for a basic dish, the waiter came and replaced the menu we were holding with another one. The new menu had all the same foods as the old one but now main dishes were going for $6.50 U.S. each. When you think that we ate an a nice Sihanoukville restaurant for just $13 U.S. including three beers, two main courses and two banana splits for desert and we can usually eat a filling street meal for maybe $4 U.S. total for two including beer you’ll see why these prices were way out of line. No matter for us. We slipped across the street, bought some eggs and fresh herbs and managed to cover supper and breakfast for just a couple dollars.
1 Comment » - Posted in Cambodia, Cycling Trips, Journal Entries by friedel
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Video Fiesta
As usual, we find ourselves woefully behind in uploading and posting videos to the site. So, here goes with another bunch of movies from the road. First in the list is a cooking video. We had an idea in Central Asia that it would be fun to do a series of shows about the food we cook on the road so this video is the first attempt. With so much good and cheap street food in Southeast Asia we’re unlikely to do another one in the near future but let us know if you like it and if we should continue the series in Australia and New Zealand.
The second video is a rather funny one about what we found when we tried to seek shade in a bus shelter in Kazakhstan and we also have a video about our first day rolling in Kazakhstan. Happy viewing!
(For some reason the cooking video doesn’t want to show up in the embedded player. You can also see it by clicking on this link)
2 Comments » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Kazakhstan, Video by friedel
Monday, July 28th, 2008
Cyclists on the move in Canada
A little public service announcement here 
We have two sets of friends, both couples, who are currently cycling through Canada. One couple - Son & Ali - have been on the road for a while and are going down the west coast and through the U.S. towards South America. The other couple - Scott & Becky - are just starting on their world tour and are currently in Newfoundland, heading for Nova Scotia and the eastern side of the United States before they catch a freighter ship to Italy. Life on the road can be a bit trying at times, made much more fun by the people you meet along the way, and we know we have a lot of readers in these areas. Maybe you’d like to offer a tip on the terrain ahead to our friends, meet them for coffee or even let them pitch their tent in your backyard for a night? We’re sure they’d appreciate it. Or maybe you’d just like to follow their blogs. More inspiration for your future cycling trips!
1 Comment » - Posted in Cycling Trips, Random Ramblings by andrew
Monday, July 28th, 2008
Monsoon Cycling
105km Kampot to Sihanoukville
It rained in the morning as we were packing our bags. It rained as we dashed to the supermarket to buy a fetching yellow rain poncho (really just a plastic garbage bag with head and arm holes). It rained as we crossed the bridge out of Kampot and past the first fishing villages along the Cambodian coastline. And then, just like the hotel manager predicted, the storm seemed to rain itself out by the middle of the morning. “It’s going to stop by 11am,” he’d said confidently, looking at the sky as we were loading up our bikes. “Can we get a guarantee on that?” we asked before he launched into a complex explanation of cloud formations and wind direction.
What he forgot to tell us was that the rain would soon start up again and keep going through the afternoon and into the night. We got a brief reprieve when we stopped for lunch and then the dark clouds rolled back in, bringing with them a headwind that turned our plastic-bag ponchos into rattling wind-catchers. (more…)
No Comments » - Posted in Cambodia, Cycling Trips, Journal Entries by friedel
Sunday, July 27th, 2008
Learning how to slow down… the hard way
165km Phnom Penh to Kampot
One of our goals when we started this trip was learning how to slow down a bit and not be driven by schedules. Maybe we should have remembered that when we set off from Phnom Penh two days ago. Friedel wasn’t feeling entirely well – a small headache and a little nauseous – but decided to push on nonetheless. After three days in the capital, neither of us really wanted to linger any longer and we’d already mapped out a route towards Cambodia’s seaside. We wanted to get going and more to the point we’d made hotel reservations for our return to Phnom Penh (we have to come back to get our Thai visa and head north to Laos) and didn’t want to change our plans. This turned out to be the wrong decision. The ride to Takeo, the first town with guesthouses on our route, was just 80km but the toughest day we’ve had in a while. Less than halfway in, Friedel had lost all her appetite and was craving a bed to rest an increasingly aching body. With no hotels around, we took refuge instead in the tiny thatched wooden huts that often serve as restaurants or barber shops along the road. Their plain wooden slats never felt so good to Friedel, who took quite a few half hour naps, gathering up the energy to jump on the bike again. The gusty headwind that blew up in the afternoon just about finished us off altogether. Late in the day we finally reached Takeo and collapsed into the first guesthouse we found.
Happily a good night’s rest seemed to get rid of the bugs and we were off and running the next morning towards Kampot. Like so many of Cambodia’s roads, we found a flat landscape surrounded almost constantly by villages and a string of stalls selling everything from fresh sugar cane juice to motorbike parts. Mostly these villages all look very much alike but we noticed coming into one that the dress of the people had changed. Gone were the traditional krama scarves worn by many Cambodians, replaced by colourful headscarves for the women and white caps for the men. A few moments later a mosque confirmed our suspicions that we had entered a Muslim community. Because we’ve had such overwhelmingly good experiencies in Islamic countries, we felt instantly at home and enjoyed shouting ’salam alaykum’ to all the local children who cried ‘hello’ as we passed. This raised big smiles of surprise from the families before they returned our greeting with ‘alaykum salam’. After just a few kilometers we were back amongst Buddhist temples. We read somewhere that Muslims make up about 5 percent of the population in Cambodia. So far we’ve only seen two Muslim communities.
Now we’re in Kampot, enjoying a beer on the riverfront before heading out the next day to Sihanoukville, the most developed beach resort on Cambodia’s southern coast. Because it’s the rainy season, the whole area is a bit quiet, waiting for the tourists to start returning in a few months time.
