Phom Denh, Cambodia (Vietnam border) (Day 54, 7470km)

I'd heard nothing good about the particular Thai-Cambodian border I used, but the one of choice was way off my path to visit Angkor. So off I went - admittedly it was a holiday in Thailand, so maybe that contributed to the congestion. In any case, it took about an hour standing in a queue just to stamp my passport out of Thailand. Then I had to figure out how to do the same for my bike, and how to get a Cambodian visa without being ripped off too much. Unfortunately at this border the touts run wild, wanting money to help you fill out arrival forms, visa forms, and anything else they can think of - everywhere else in Thailand I had been so pleased by the lack of money-grabbing, and how the vendors would ask the right price up front, and not try to rip you off... well here it was unfortunately not the case. After filling out all sorts of motorcycle forms in duplicate (they didn't even look like relevant ones to me) the young guy photocopied my passport, and then when it was all done, tried to get money off me for "overtime" and for "photocopy charge". After a bit of discussion about this, the price started dropping suspiciously, so since I already had all the documents that I thought I needed, I left him standing, and went off towards the Cambodian border, my faith in humanity again taking a knock. The Cambodian side of the border, Poi Pet is, apart from being a grotty border town, also one huge casino - I assume aimed at the Thai market - I'm not sure if there are more stringent laws in Thailand. I met a couple of people who were doing their 3-monthly visa run from Bangkok - they have one year visas of some kind, but have to leave and re-enter every three months. Despite having no desire to visa Cambodia, off they went, got their visa, crossed the border, and returned as soon as possible!

It's common knowledge that at this border they overcharge you for the Cambodian visas, but that just seems to be the way it is (without a lot of effort at least), so I paid my money, and after about 10 minutes I had my visa - almost free of the slimy characters I went to stand in the Cambodian queue, which while slow, wasn't as bad as the Thai one had been. The even took my photo with a cute little webcam, but if I find out all the Cambodian borders have a networked database I'll be rather surprised... All the while I watched my bike, because, although all through Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand I had felt I could leave my bike and all my belongings if I had to wonder off for 15 minutes, here it suddenly felt all wrong. Eventually I was free to go, but I still wanted to get my bike documents stamped. After a few failed attempts at various windows and booths, I found that the place I needed was 50 metres down the road into Cambodia, so off I went.

Well, a couple of beeps on the horn later, and my motorcycle was converted to drive on the opposite side of the road - just like that, in less time than it took to import it! Somehow I had always invisaged at, for example, the Chunnel, that one lane would have an overbridge over the other, and the lane change would be a smooth and flowing thing, and maybe that is the case in Europe. But here, when one is done at customs, one just tootles off onto the opposite side of the road and keeps on going - something I've been doing now for almost two weeks as I write this, and it hasn't caused me any confusion - I guess riding on the opposite side of the road in this part of the world is not quite as much of an absolute, and thus isn't quite as different - one still has to pay just as much attention, whichever side one rides on.

Well, the Cambodian customs house seemed rather unpopulated - one guy eventually got off the phone and waved me upstairs, but all the offices were locked there - it was 1.15pm and supposedly lunchtime - for these customs guys who weren't on the front line and could afford the luxury. Well, the border crossing had so far taken about two hours, and I still had what was anticipated to be the worst road of the entire trip to navigate before nightfall, so I wasn't too keen on sticking around another 45 minutes until lunchtime ended. Somebody waved me towards a door at the back, which looked like somebody's home - when I knocked out came the customs man with nothing on but a sheet girded about his waist, and he didn't seem impressed at all. I politely asked for the stamp I needed, and he shook his head and pointed to his mouth and shouted "Eat!" This went on a few minutes, with me asking if I could just get the stamp, and him getting madder and madder, until eventually he yelled for somebody else to get the stamp and help me, and girding his sheet around his waist for the third time, stormed back to his lunch. I was reminded of the scripture about knocking on your neighbours' door until he gives you what you want just to make you shut up and go away... Besides, it wasn't my fault - I was _told_ to go knock on his door...

The guy who came and helped me didn't seem overly communicative or smily either, but after a couple of minutes I had my stamp and could continue on my way. I'm glad that I did this, because, although the road started out not too bad, it rapidly deteriorated. The first part would technically have been "sealed" but not only were there so many potholes that at times meant there wasn't even any seal at all, the seal that remained was bunched up and had dips in it - still, this wasn't so bad once I mastered the art of swerving around the worst holes, and I was able to go at 40-50kph. But shortly the road turned to gravelly red dirt, and for most of the way 30kph seemed about the limit. At least for me - the trucks, buses, and cars that passed would just go whatever speed they thought they could control, leaning on their horn to let you know they were coming, and leave behind nothing but clouds of dust.

I passed through many villages (in fact, like many parts of Asia, it was more the areas without houses along the side of the road that were noteworthy) and was surprised that most of the faces I saw seemed, maybe not unfriendly, but definitely a little suspicious. I had heard how amazingly friendly the Cambodians are, but in this part of the trip there were few smiles that greeted me. However, at one village I stopped at, a few kids came out and smiled and waved at me. One of them had a plaster cast on, so I wrote "Hello!" on it, with a smily face. Another of them tied a thread bracelet on my arm - I protested but she said it was free - however, it felt after that that there was some unspoken agreement that I should have paid her anyway. They asked where I was from (suddenly in Cambodia the level of English reached amazing levels compared to Thailand) and showed me some coins from New Zealand. They each had a collection from many places, so it's clear that they interact with a wide range of tourists, most of whom presumably don't drive themselves down this road. Of course they wanted me to give them some New Zealand money, which I have none of, but I did have a bag of shrapnel collected from the countries I've been through. Through the white plastic they could still somehow see that I had Singapore Dollars, and cried out for those, but didn't seem to be too interested in the Indonesian Rupiah and Malaysian Ringits that I gave them, making me wonder how fiscally motivated their collections really are.

The first traffic tip I can give for Cambodia is that if your way is obstructed by a cow crossing the road, don't try to swerve behind it if it is followed by a second cow, because they are tied together... Thankfully I didn't find this out the hard way! In the parts of Cambodia that I saw, except in the towns, nobody has been foolish enough to try to paint a centre line on the road - even assuming the road was in sufficiently good condition, I think it would be a fairly whimsical concept - here, at last, I have entered a country where size has right of way, and the mandatory oncoming horn and flashing lights probably means "Yes, I know I'm in your lane, now get off the road and let me through!" They're pretty good about it, though - they almost always leave you a few inches of verge so you don't have to leave the road altogether. Eventually, after almost 5 hours, and after nightfall, I had covered the 160km to Siem Reap, where I stopped at the first place I could find, a rather colonial looking hotel for US$10 per night, but it would have been more for air-conditioning. Apparently around those parts one can get acceptable accomodation for US$3, but I after the past couple of days' stressful riding, I decided to let this one slide and relax in the luxury...

Yes, the currency in Cambodia is the almighty US dollar. Their own money, the Riel, is used for small things, like buying sugarcane drinks and bananas, and of course given as change for bigger purchases made in US dollars. I'm sure this applies more to tourists than locals, but it is still a big problem. The exchange rate is (at present) 4000R to the dollar. So you'll quite seamlessly make a purchase where they might ask for 6500R, and you'll pay US$2, and get 1500R back. The Thai Baht is also accepted. Quite an interesting experience, but I've no idea of the "Riel" implications for their economy.

The next day I paid my US$20 for a day's worth of traipsing through the famous ruined temples of Angkor Wat and the others - temples are not really my area of interest, but this particular collection supposedly ranks up there with the pyramids and Taj Mahal, and I can well believe it - although a day was fully enough for me, I could see how an interested person could spend many days wondering around the scores of temple sites in the area. Anyway, my day got off to a little bit of a bad start with kids trying to sell me things, or, when I said I didn't need a postcard/guidebook/water/cooldrink/etc, just beg. My logic is that I can see all these people and what they have for sale, and if I need them, I will walk over and ask. But of course their rationale is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and they don't care what the grease-giver feels about that, just that they do the greasing. But for me, who desires more to see a smile on somebody's face than to visit all of their temples, this put a bit of a damper on the morning while I tried to stop it getting to me. The other downer is the "tourguides" who wonder around and will underhandedly attach themselves to you and start following you around and starting to explain things, rather than be upfront and discuss their intentions and a price.

Thankfully, once I reached the third major site, I met up with a like-minded foreigner, Steve, from the US, and we spent the next few hours exploring the next few sites together, until we got separated somehow - he gave me a few tips on local pricing and attitudes, and the next few sites were also what I considered more interesting and less frequented by tourists, thus less predatory (although you still didn't want to hear the wail that went up whenever we pulled up to the next site - "Mister you buy postcaaard! Coca-colaa!" You get the idea). The ruins I'd most looked forward to, and did enjoy the most, were those that were being overgrown by tree roots - I am not sure whether this is on a simple aesthetic level, or on a deeper, more symbolic level of man's best efforts being reduced to ruin by the forces of nature (treasures stored up on earth where moth and rust destroy). There are continual restoration efforts underway with Japanese and other foreign involvement, but by and large the majority of these edifices have stood essentially undamaged for between 800 and 1200 years.

After travelling from temple to temple for the bulk of the day, I left the most famous (Angkor Wat) for sunset, and went back to town to change my remaining Thai Baht into US dollars. When I returned, I was pulled over by the "tourist police" (I think they're there to protect the tourists, actually...) - apparently (and I already knew this) tourists are not permitted to ride motorcycles around the temple area, because it reduces business for the motorcycle taxis, who have an easy US6-7 per day (a mighty fine wage here) ferrying a tourist from one site to another, and chilling out in a hammock for the entire time that they are sight-seeing. Anyway, I offered to leave the bike there, and walk the remaining 100m to my destination, but given the lateness of the hour I was permitted to continue, but they were most perplexed as to how I'd gotten away with it all day, and told me to hire a driver the next day, which I agreed to do, since I wasn't returning...

While in Siem Reap I visited a couple of restuarants, one of which served me my curry in a coconut shell and my rice in a hollowed out pineapple, while giving a performance of Cambodian shadow puppets. The other, the following night, had a display of traditional dancing. While at the temples I had a coconut - not the ones we are accustomed to, but a "young" coconut, full of milk, which given the size of the local coconuts, translates into a significant drink, followed by the option of eating the flesh too - personally I didn't enjoy either as much as the flesh of "old" coconut, but there you go.

The 320km to Phnom Penh was my most challenging ride yet - although the road surface was entirely sealed (except for a few hundred metres of dirt and a few detours around washed out or under-construction bridges) the traffic was heavy and the continual flow of speeding cars and trucks overtaking despite the other lane being full wears one out very quickly. But eventually I crossed a bridge over some tributary of the Mekong, and into Phnom Penh, where instead of roads, they have "Rue", and the big roads are called things like "Boulevard Charles de Gaulle". I dropped off my passport to get a Vietnamese visa stamped into it and got charged US$35 instead of the proper US$24-25... Grr! You live and learn - most rip-offs I find a little annoying, but this is a big price hike even in my currency, so I was quite peeved. These sorts of things are also one reason that next time I'll probably take some sort of guidebook - I've been very happy without one for the most part, but they do help protect unsuspecting people from the worst scams.

In Singapore and Malaysia, motorcycle number plates are required on the front as well as behind; in Thailand, just behind, like New Zealand - in Cambodia, the whole number plate idea seems to be optional, at least for private vehicles. Helmets are totally unheard of on pushbikes, as are lights at night, while I estimate about 10% of motorcyclists wear helmets, or at least carry them under their arm or on their luggage rack.

In Phnom Penh I was very surprised to be able to track down some new oil filters, not at the Honda dealer, of course, but some "big bike shop" - Lucky Motorcycles, I think it was. I had already arranged Wendy to buy one and courier it to me in Hanoi - sorry Wendy, and thank you anyway! So I was able to do an oil and filter change the next morning (outside my Lucky Guesthouse :-) which was much needed after all the nasties that had undoubtably been clogging up the system.

While sampling some of the local doughnuts, I met up with Tom, from Germany, and we had a happy evening's conversation - we turned out to be like-minded in a number of ways, so the few hours passed quickly. The next day it was off to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Set at the former Khmer Rouge prison in Phnom Penh, the museum is a record of the atrocities committed at similar institutions throughout the country. I left feeling as I usually do when I hear what perverted things people have done to one another.

I chose to skip a visit to the local "killing fields", as I felt I'd gotten a fairly good understanding from the museum, and chose instead to pick up my passport and ride for the Vietnamese border. In Phnom Penh I found the local attitudes a lot closer to the open, joyously smiling and welcoming image I'd been given about Cambodians, and this continued until the border, making that day's travelling a pleasant memory in the Cambodian chapter.

A specific highlight is when I finally got round to giving the local sugarcane drink a try - This is sold on the roadside, and the sugarcane is squeezed on the spot (sometimes with a piece of pineapple or some other such variation) and served over ice (the Cambodian ice is supposedly safe; a relic of the French influence). The drink itself was most refreshing (I had three) but I also became an instant village celebrity, with over 30 at one point standing around the bike, and looking at the various fittings. As I've come to expect in these situations, there was much debate and jocularity - the humour, unfortunately, is untranslatable... :-P In Phnom Penh and here were the first times I discovered the hands-on familiarity that comes with the joyous friendliness. My leather suit was most touch-worthy, particularly the knee-pads - I wasn't too uncomfortable with this through the thick leather, but I can understand how tourists with shirts and shorts (and external pockets!) must feel. Later on I started pinching and poking back, and, while I don't think they really mind, I think they start to get the idea.

The road to the border was mostly fairly good by Cambodian standards, with only a couple of dirt stretches and detours around washed out bridges until about 50km short of the border, where it was dirt road again, but nothing too strenuous. I reached the border about half an hour before closing and nightfall.