Day 2: Koh Ker to Prasat Preah Vihear
The second day we rode to Prasat Preah Vihear, a temple-mountain on the Cambodia/Thai border. Obstacles encountered today include a suicidal cow and a notoriously steep and sketchy path up the mountain to the temple.
I started the morning off with two bowls of tasty noodle soup, making sure I had enough energy for the day ahead. We went to check out the local market before setting off for the day.
The first hour of riding was pretty boring: dirt/gravel roads at about 60-70 kph. (the top speed I did on this trip was around 80 kph.)
Most of the time there wasn’t much traffic to worry about, but as we entered one village there were a few people, bikes and small vehicles on either side of the road, and I was so fixated on passing them carefully that I didn’t notice Lis signal and turn at a curve in the road up ahead.
When I realized I wasn’t going to make the turn, I panicked, jammed on the brakes, forgot to gear down or clutch, stalled the engine and started skidding at around 40 kph. I felt the bike start to slip out from under me, put my right foot down to keep it up, skidded along on my tires and foot and braced myself for road rash; I didn’t think there was any way to avoid it at this point, I just hoped I could slow myself down a bit first.
Miraculously I came to a stop without wiping out, a few feet from the middle of the intersection, much to the amusement of the locals. I started the engine, caught up to Lis and stopped with him for a couple minutes to wait for my legs to stop shaking and for Sophal who had fallen behind due to trouble with his bike. I was disappointed that he wasn’t behind me to see my stunt riding, because it must have looked pretty sweet.
Later on I talked about it with Lis, and apparently using your feet once in a while to keep yourself up is fairly common and not a big deal, which surprised me since it’s not something you ever do when mountain biking except for an occasional stomp here and there.
Once I had regained my composure we were off again, and I chided myself for panicking and not remembering to gear down or brake lightly enough to avoid skidding.
Ten minutes later I had a chance to redeem myself, when a suicidal cow and her calf crossed the road right in front of me. This time I quickly geared down and applied light pressure on the brakes, skidding just a bit, but didn’t seem to be slowing quickly enough to avoid a collision. It seemed certain that I’d hit at least one of them, so I said to myself OK, this is no time for pity, aim for the calf, that way you’ll probably be able to walk away from it and the villagers will get to eat veal tonight.
I aimed for the few inches of space between the cow and calf, thinking it would be unlikely for the cow to start backing up, so in the best case I would squeeze between them somehow and in the worst case I’d hit the calf in the head and give it a quick death.
Somehow I managed to slow down enough that they both made it across in front of me, and I continued riding, making a note to pay closer attention to the sides of the roads for more livestock crossings. The rest of the morning was uneventful, but that was enough excitement for me for a while. I was glad that I managed to keep my wits about me and gear down the second time.
At lunch I met a 19 year old guy named John from Montreal who was also travelling by dirtbike; he had hired a private guide for two weeks and covered much more of Cambodia. His trip was much cheaper than mine but he wasn’t nearly as pampered as I was (when he did something stupid his guide would yell at him instead of running over to help), and probably nowhere near as safe. We talked about our trips, about Whistler and Montreal, skiing, snowboarding and mountain biking; both of us got a bit homesick after a while. I can’t wait until mountain biking season starts :)
They had just ridden down from Prasat Preah Vihear and from what I had read about it elsewhere (in Ellen’s weblog, and Lonely Planet) it sounded pretty scary, so I asked him how he did. He was a beginner dirtbiker too but had already been riding for about 10 days. He said it was crazy steep in places, he had a couple bails and had to stop a few times to turn around and take a run at the steep sections. Turning the heavy bike around on steep terrain didn’t sound very fun.
Lonely Planet says this about the ride up:
From the checkpoint below, there is a rollercoaster of a road up the mountain that is only suitable for highly experienced drivers or bikers, as there are gradients of 35% and loose stones everywhere — an unforgiving combination.
So I wasn’t looking forward to it very much.
After lunch we rode a bit more; a few minutes from the base of the mountain it started pouring, and that freaked me out even more. Slippery rocks and pavement, 35% incline… nice.
We stopped to take shelter and wait for the rain to pass, and I asked Lis about riding up in the rain, and he said it should be no problem because the pavement gives good traction even when it’s wet. I checked out my bike’s tires and complained that mine looked to have the least traction out of our three bikes :)
While we were waiting for the rain to die down I watched these kids wash their bike in a puddle; I was going to bring my dirtbike over to get it washed too but thought that would probably scare them, so I just went over and took pictures instead.
The rain passed quickly, and we set off to ride up the mountain. After all my worrying it turned out to be a piece of cake! I rode it non-stop, switching between 1st and 2nd gears depending on the grade and how much speed I had. I didn’t even use the clutch once. It was actually pretty fun, much more than the dirt roads we had spent most of the day on; I would have been happy to ride down and back up a few times.
We left our bikes and wet clothes with some guys at a camp; I made sure to hang my clothes under a tarp in case it rained again. We proceeded on foot to our guesthouse in a small market area just outside the temple grounds, run by the local police captain and his family.
Then we went to explore the temple, built in the 10th-12th centuries on the edge of a cliff, the most spectacular setting of all the Angkorian temples. Lis showed me around while I took pictures.
We walked back to the guesthouse, and planned to meet for dinner around 6:30. I had a couple hours to kill, so I unloaded most of the stuff from my pack (figuring it would be pretty safe at the police captain’s place), then went back up to the temple to take more pictures as the light continued to improve before sunset.
By this point the temple was almost completely empty: the only other people I saw there were a land mine victim hobbling around collecting bottles and cans, and an English couple I had seen at a few other sites, with their guide. They were travelling around in a white land rover, and it sounded like they were even more pampered than me, travelling with 2 guides and 2 guys to set up camp at each place they went, including a tent, generator, and shower. Their main guide had gone to school with Lis.
We were sitting together waiting for the sun to set when all of a sudden a huge dark cloud came up over the cliff out of nowhere, sending us scrambling for our respective shelters. After a couple minutes with no rain it seemed to be passing so I went back up to take a few more pictures.
Back at the guesthouse, Lis, Sophal and I had an excellent dinner cooked by the police captain’s wife, then I stayed up for a while chatting with Lis about life in Cambodia.
A generator gave us electricity from 6-10pm, and I thought it would just shut off at some point so I left my light on, set up my mosquito net and read in bed for a while; around 10:30 the lights were still on and I started to wonder if they were waiting for me to turn mine off, so I did and a minute later the generator was turned off. Oops.
Rain poured on the loud tin roof all night, and I laid awake thinking about the road down the mountain getting slipperier and slipperier with each drop…
See more photos of dirtbiking in Cambodia, or a chronological view of photos from today.