I thought that I might have a dip in the ocean finally while I’m waiting for my Laos visa. I haven’t bathed in the ocean a single time since we set off for this journey. It is usually too much bother to change from the riding gear to swimmers and then having to watch over one’s shoulder if there are not some people peeking into your luggage in their search for anything valuable. I might also be spoiled by the beaches around my home in Australia as, with a single exception, none of the beaches I saw so far seemed good enough. I don’t even have Tanja with me anymore who would surely make me stop and go for a swim at least once a day if we had the chance. So now I decided to see the two Cambodian seaside towns that the guides mention in context of Cambodian beach resorts.

On Saturday I was first heading towards Kep (N10.48690 E104.28944)– a little town on a small peninsula-like projection of land into the ocean. I did not listen to Phillippe’s advice and took the dirt road leading there. I’m very happy I did so as the surroundings were again not short of stunning. I made about 80 pictures just on this about 90km stretch, while the total distance from Phnom Penh to Kep is about 200 kilometers.

Arriving to Kep in the middle of afternoon I had a seafood meal by the shore from one of the many seafood stalls at the market, standing there one next to another on a stretch of about 200 meters. I’m quite indifferent to seafood but I have to say that the squid done over hot coals there is absolutely beautiful. Just before I reached the town I actually bought a watermelon too and was gently pushed into buying another one with it J. There were piles of watermelons along the road the last few kilometers before Kep and so I stopped at one. This woman first wanted a dollar for it, eventually coming down to 1000 Riel, which is 25 cents. As she was packing it to a sack she added another, even bigger melon. I think that what she then gestured was that I might give her maybe just a little bit more money on the top of the 1000 Riel. I gave her another thousand and she was very happy and seemed bit surprised too. The melons were both very tasty and therefore worth the 50 cents I paid for them.

There seems to be not many places to stay in Kep, although one can see the money coming in and it might be a completely different story in 5 years time. The first guesthouse offered a 5 dollar room so I continued looking. On the other side of the peninsula, about 2 km from the first guesthouse I found a couple of others. They were basically just across the street from each other and strangely, both were named Krong Kep Guesthouse (N10.48252 E104.31732). The one on the left was a beaten up old French colonial villa and the other was set by the coast about 30 meters on a overgrown side road. I tried the second one first. The sign on the gate advertised 3 dollar rooms. However, I could not find any manager inside. Even the hut with a “Restaurant” sign was looking like it has been empty for quite some time. So I tried the villa nearby. They offered USD5 per night, coming down to 3 as I was prepared to leave. That gave me a reason to inspect the room. I guess that many people wouldn’t stay in this place as it was quite messy around the house and the room had some bad tiles on the floor and was looking old and beaten up the same as the whole house. However, the room was clean and it even had bathroom attached to it and two double beds. This was only the second guesthouse I tried so I just wanted to have a look around some more. When the guy showing me the room heard it he offered amazing 1 dollar for the room! I told him that that price was much better yet and that I would almost certainly return after I satisfied my need for proper exploration of the area for guesthouses and so I did.

A little trouble that I discovered later was the absence of tiny little electrons moving in the wires. Yes, I mean a thing called electricity. This was, however, only a temporary state of things as they obviously run on a generator in this town and that was turned on as soon as almost complete darkness cloaked the town. They must have shut it down around midnight though as when I wanted to go to the toilet in the middle of the night there was no electricity again.

The next day I woke up early to see the sunrise but it was very cloudy. Still I took a few photos. Later I had another of the great squids grilled on coals together with a couple of other types of fish before I set off for another day's trip. It was a lot of food for a dollar.

Riding along the coast I passed a turnoff (N10.56711 E104.12683), which, as I instantly realized was a turnoff to an eerie place with big abandoned and bombed out buildings on the top of a 1-kilometer high mountain that is a national park - the Bokor hill (N10.62996 E104.02190). It was again Phillippe who told me about this place. He mentioned that it costs USD5 to get there so he wasn’t sure if I could spare such amount, but he assured me it was worth the money so I went.

Not even a kilometer after the turnoff I saw the ranger’s station. I was not sure though that that was it and so as I was looking to the left whether there are any people in the little booth where one would expect somebody would take the money of you I did not notice a chain across the road being there instead of a gate. I was doing about 60 clicks when I did notice it... Too late to do anything else than praying to my god…: “Oh shit!!!”. All my reflexes in my body were instantly preparing for a flight off the seat of the bike with a very hard landing. “Duh duh”… I turned my head in disbelief that I was indeed still riding my Kawa, checking the chain that I just left behind me. Yup, it was still positively there, only resonating a bit. I was happy to realize that my luck in critical situations still hasn’t left me. The luckiest part of this chain encounter was in the fact that I was fortunately riding in the middle of the road where the sag of the chain was the biggest. At that point it was only about 20 centimeters above the ground, giving my bike the opportunity to cross over it without any damage.

Being behind the gate it took only a second for my brain to decide that now I was not stopping. If the people are “so stupid” that they can’t even put a stop sign or any other sign there and/or mark the chain with some visible ribbons or something like that than I was not giving them my 5 dollars. I could have seriously injured myself and destroy the bike if it was not for my luck. In my eyes these people certainly didn’t deserve any payment for that.

The site can be found on the top of the 1 kilometer high mountain range. The road up the mountain is pretty rough. There are only scarce remains of tarmac on it, which actually create some serious sharp bumps, and the rest is a rocky surface, giving the rider the opportunity to show his level of concentration and to the rear tyre its ability to grip on a loose stone surface. You have lots of time to get used to this as the road up is 30 kilometers long.
Phillippe told me that this place was worth the money if there is good weather. Well, it was at the foot of the mountain and I even managed to catch one of the last sun appearances on the sky above when I reached the first couple of abandoned houses. The clouds however soon covered the sky and soon I found myself racing towards a church in the distance in my attempt to hide from the rain that started to soak my jacket.

After riding over some big rocks on the path leading to the church off the main road I was pleased to discover a perfect garage attached to the church into which I parked the bike and was waiting for the rain to stop. It did after about an hour and it was even looking like the sky might clear a bit. I really wanted to take a photo of  the church from the top of the hill behind it so I waited. Instead of clearing the sky closed and a big cloud crept in and covered the mountain. The visibility was about 10 meters and soon it started to rain again and it didn’t stop for the next two hours. By then I was out of time so I quickly circled the area to see the other buildings and quickly got on my way back down and to Sihanoukville.

On the way back I still wanted to see a waterfall that is 4km off the main road and which was supposed to be good as a trio of Yankee, English and Swedish travelers told me. When I got there there was so much water that I could not cross to the other side to see the whole height of the waterfall as they suggested so this waterfall visit become only an unnecessary detour on my way.

I raced down the mountain at about 40 to 60 km/h as the bumps while going down are not so sharp as in the opposite direction. I was quite interested to see what will happen when I reach the ranger station. Sure enough, as soon as they heard my bike approaching I saw three people racing towards the road and the chain gate. A woman waved me down madly while a young guy pulled the chain as high as he could. It was actually quite funny.  I could have managed to shoot across the chain before they pulled it up, but I didn’t want to be that cheeky. I stopped by the woman, showing her a “hello, how do you do and what do you need?” smiling innocent face. “You pay 5 dollar.” was the answer. “Why?” I asked playing like I didn’t know. “You crossed the chain in the morning…” “Oh, did I? I didn’t notice. I didn’t know that I had to pay here… So it’s 5 dollars, is it? Wow, I didn’t know that.”, I was still playing my part. I expected this situation and took away 7 of my 8 dollars in it, leaving there only 1 dollar and 300 Riel. “Oh, I only have one dollar left and ... uhm … 300 Riel.” I was sporting my apologetic face now… They looked at each other, exchanged a few words, then asked me where I was from and then, not accepting even the one dollar, gave me the “go ahead” nod and gesture and I was off the hook. “This has worked out quite well.” I thought to myself. But still, for the sake of others’ lives, or at least the sake of their health and their property, I would rather see some signs and a proper gate installed there. I was really lucky to had gone through the gate as easily as I did.

They seem to be re-building all bridges in Cambodia. All at the same time too. There is usually just a little detour around each bridge. Today, however, I encountered one that had lots of water flowing underneath it, so there was no easy detour. There  was only a narrow wooden plank footbridge preceded by lots of deep, mushy mud  and slippery clay. When I got to the footbridge through the mud I knew I couldn't drive over it as the fall would be certain. But there was really no other way! There were lots of people around, however, like if the building site was the most interesting thing happening in the whole district, so my bike got immediately swarmed by lots of young guys eager to take it over. One of the guys fell into the creek in the process, which amused the crowd, but fortunately he stayed alone and my Kawa reached the other bank safely. I tell you my stomach was shrinking as I really saw the bike falling into the river underneeth the gangplank any second. That is why I gladly paid 1 US dollar to one of the guys when he asked for it after the bike was safely over. Getting up the muddy hill to the road was surprisingly easy. Is the new rear tyre so good?

By the time I reached Sihanoukville it was dark and I did not have my clear helmet visor with me, which decided that I had to stay the night there. I managed to secure a visitors guide form a restaurant and found myself one of the cheap guesthouses and the biggest one in Sihanoukville - Mealy Chengda (N10.63331 E103.50391). Then I had a proper dinner, chatting to yet another Dutch traveler. This one was Will and he, as most of other people I usually meet, was on his way for already 3 months. It must be the budget accommodation that brings people of similar long-term travel plans together. The typical 2 or 3-week holidayers understandably stay in the higher-class hotels and resorts.

Half of the night I had bullfrogs quacking away behind my window. I got woken up by them and by rain beating to the pavement. It rained whole morning so I had a breakfast at the rooftop restaurant of the guesthouse again, talking to some more travelers of 3+ months.

In the afternoon I had a first quick ride in Cambodia back to 230 kilometers distant Phnom Penh. The road I took was the first here in Cambodia that felt like a road that I’m used to - nice and smooth and there were actual villages and little towns with noticeable beginnings and ends to them, as opposed to the rest of the country as I experienced it so far, where it is all one big, never-ending village. On this road there were quite long stretches with no civilization around allowed for speeds over 100km/h - for the first time during my stay in Cambodia.

(650km)