Discovering Cambodia, destination Battambang by Motorcycle

While, yes, the people look very much like Thais, the country does feel quite different. Once you cross the border, it's like stepping (riding) back in time, our first visit to Thailand more then 20 years ago. Then, there's the language, which doesn't sound a bit like Thai, that is, until you begin to listen closely. This is probably why a trip to Cambodia is different than visiting Laos – because we can still communicate, even if they speak Lao and we answer in Thai, like a Spaniard heading over to Portugal. So, the sense of adventure is less. In the Kingdom of Cambodia, we give up this advantage and when it comes to English, except from Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, you don't find many who can converse in English. So, it's back to non-verbal communication gestures and smiles.

This trip really began after parking in the guarded parking lot mostly for casino visitors at Aranyaprathet's border market. A quick walk and, as a foreigner, a short cue, and you're stamped out of Thailand. If Thai and it's a weekend, the wait can be long, but then there's no stamping in on the other side. Doing the paper work for our motorcycles was relatively easy, so easy that we where wondering if everything was correct, we double checked and all papers where correct. We need to say that we consulted with the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok before we got to the border.

We rode at a slow pace down the lane under the gaze of highrise hotels and entertainment-gambling complexes, here, where 15 years ago, the cards and dice were played under thatched roofs. Then, it's filling in forms offered by smiling officers and waiting for a Visa Upon Arrival – cost US$ 20 or 1000 Baht. At the end we found a less happy Cambodian clerk who checked us into Cambodia, after that the smooth ride was over, the pavement turns into the beginning of a cracked paved, dusty, muddy track. So we started shifting down, to be ready for anything what the mud could give us. Lucky it wasn't that bad.

We stopped a moment to try to orientate ourselves and ask for conformation that the road we wanted to take was heading to Siem Reap. It was the first time for our language disadvantage, the first person we asked was clearly not capable to read a map. We got our conformation from a van heading in the same direction.

“The road is flooded in at least seven places. You need a water buffalo to pull you through, you never make it” That was the story we kept hearing.

Our first destination was Sisophon, where the crossroads are for the ride east to Angkor Wat or south to Battambang and, if you want, on to Pailin, former capital of the Khnmer Rouge, and after Phnom Pehn, today's bustling national capital. Off we went on one of the roughest tracks I've experienced in my life, the road looked similar to a motocross dirt-track I challenged when I was young. The ride was terrible, the only thing on my mind was this is too bad, this cannot be the correct way... At moments I had lost complete traction my enduro style tyres where completely filled with red clay like mud. Fifty kilometers in more then two hours that felt like a day. At the crossroad we decided to turn south on a smooth paved road for an hour or so riding through sparkling golden green rice paddy just waiting to be harvested.

We did not understand how the mini-van we meet earlier could take the same road...

This was what we discussed over our wireless shortwave radio, as we traveled south through Battambang province to its capital of the same name, the country's second largest city with a approximately population of 100,000. Another few hundred thousand are spread across this very fertile green rice bowl, all so flat and right now rich in swaying paddy in the gentle breezes that bring some relief form the heat. We speed through small, dusty towns where the locals clearly not saw much larger motorcycles, any stop turns into a happening, with groups of children running toward us to see the bikes. After a few stops we swerve around a corner and are greeted by a great Hindu goddest at the top of sparse but wide avenue. WE follow this to the river, turn right and make our way along what appears a main thoroughfare on the west bank of the Sanker River, past the central market, quiet in the afternoon heat waves and the clock tower standing 5-stories tall, high above all buildings except maybe our riverfront Star Park Hotel, which is clean, comfortable has satellite TV and offers guarded parking for our bikes.