Wed 3rd Feb
Started the morning with a short stroll along the beach which our hotel overlooked, then on the road at 9am to tackle the border crossing to Cambodia, All went well on Thai exit side but then we met Cambodian customs & excise, their office was a small roadside hut. We gave them our paperwork to import the bikes..”we have a problem” they said you have the wrong form.. You must leave the bikes here.. Not what we wanted to hear! So we asked if we could “buy” the form, thinking they wanted a back hander… This didn’t work, they said rules had changed and should have got form from Phnom Penh before we came…this was looking serious! So I said to boss man that we had come all the way from London to see Cambodia and could only do that if we went by bike. For some reason he started to loosen up a bit, said his daughter was in Canterbury to learn English. After more wrangling he finally said he would give us the form but we would have to also exit Cambodia at this border crossing.. Yes we said, with no intention of actually doing so..just wanted to get on our way 🙂 he said we should pay his men 400 Thai baht (£8) to complete the paperwork..bargain! And so we were finally on our way wondering whether the paperwork rules have really changed, or was he just playing with us and wanted to make us sweat.. No doubt we will find out when we come to leave Cambodia in a few days….
We set off for Kompot, our stop for the night.. About 300 kms. The roads were good and we were happy.
Thurs 4th Feb.. The road to Phonm Penh
We started the morning with a blast up a nearby mountain road which was part of national park.. 25kms of fabulous smooth very twisty Tarmac…at the top we found an enormous female Buda statue.
Then we rode 360 kms to PP on the straightest, hottest and busiest piece of road I have ridden in a long time. Dusty, noisy, hot and horrible. .Surrounded by maniac drivers coming at us from all directions..and then we reached the outskirts of PP..total chaos! Cars, lorries, tuk tuks, motorbikes and scooters..millions of them all fighting for the same piece of road.. Go with the flow but stand your ground and somehow it all seems to work 🙂 motorbike is the family vehicle of choice here..small child in front, dad next then smaller child and finally mum on the back.. Sometimes mum is also holding a baby!…..to be continued and photos added when wifi is better
Sent from my iPhone