Cycling Phnom Penh to Kompot
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Takeo, Cambodia
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Cycling from Phnom Penh to Kompot.
Just outside Takeo the road forks, there is a petrol station in the middle of the fork; I stop to ask directions armed with my very correct pronunciation. (I have now learned that you ask the hotelier of the last place how to say the name of the next place. You then practise in front of the mirror. Takeo is easy – it’s Takao like Portuguese.) Imagine my astonishment as I mumble and point in front of the petrol pump attendant and she replies in perfect English: “You can go either way, they both lead to the high street, but the one on the left is being dug up at the moment. It’s up to you.” I can only presume that the test in Takeo for petrol-pump attendants is fairly rigorous. I wonder if the guy sweeping the street over there has a degree in English Literature from Warwick. Better watch my step here.
There’s a section in the guidebook called ‘Things to see and do in Takeo’. There are some creative people aren’t there? I manage to find my $10 hotel overlooking the lake. It is hot and nothing stirs, the lake looks like a picture although I must say it is not one that I would ever hang in the house. I decide to get something to eat but cannot find anything that looks like a restaurant. I eventually find one of those places where you queue up with the flies and ask the patron to lift the lids on various pots before pointing to what you want. I am not a food-cissy but…
Pot 1 is brown sludge with chicken feet sticking up out of it. Pot 2 is white gunk with fish eyes floating in it – they are all staring at me, two of them wink at me, one slowly and deliberately, one with a flutter. Pot 3 is pork fat floating in grease with hints of meat stuck to it. Hmmm, tough one. This is to be served with cold rice and warm Sprite in a glass with a large block of ice in it.
“Pot 2 please (the wink worked, but which one?), and can I have the table where the big mangy dog with dangly balls licks your ankles whilst you are eating please?”
“Sorry, that one is reserved, you can have table No.14 facing our noisy, overweight kid playing Ninja-Zap-Box on the telly.”
“Oh please, I didn’t dare ask for that one.”
The family is really nice and gives encouraging nods as I sample the food, they have made a big effort and warmed it up on the setting marked ‘luke’. They have even given me their Uri Gellar collection of cutlery. I am honoured. It’s the sort of dining where, with your every move being watched, you have to craft that useful social skill of converting a retch into a smile. Quite hard to do when you gag and your cheeks involuntarily puff out. To save giving offence you have to take your time and pretend to be savouring each mouthful whilst trying to coax Comrade Fido over so that you can surreptitiously lob things under the table. If you are caught making a ‘kuk, kuk’ noise to attract the dog you have to turn it into a song: “K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy, you’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore…” For authenticity you have to clench your Uri Gellar fork and spoon and swing your fists in time with the song with the occasional syncopated double-rap on the table as accompaniment. Even fatboy turns round for this one and joins in the polite applause as you round off the fourth verse with suitably overambitious melismatic phrasing. The ordeal can only end when you push the plate forward and mime patting a full stomach whilst dabbing your mouth with two suspiciously bulging napkins which leak grains of rice as you wave cheerily from down the road.
Just outside Takeo the road forks, there is a petrol station in the middle of the fork; I stop to ask directions armed with my very correct pronunciation. (I have now learned that you ask the hotelier of the last place how to say the name of the next place. You then practise in front of the mirror. Takeo is easy – it’s Takao like Portuguese.) Imagine my astonishment as I mumble and point in front of the petrol pump attendant and she replies in perfect English: “You can go either way, they both lead to the high street, but the one on the left is being dug up at the moment. It’s up to you.” I can only presume that the test in Takeo for petrol-pump attendants is fairly rigorous. I wonder if the guy sweeping the street over there has a degree in English Literature from Warwick. Better watch my step here.
There’s a section in the guidebook called ‘Things to see and do in Takeo’. There are some creative people aren’t there? I manage to find my $10 hotel overlooking the lake. It is hot and nothing stirs, the lake looks like a picture although I must say it is not one that I would ever hang in the house. I decide to get something to eat but cannot find anything that looks like a restaurant. I eventually find one of those places where you queue up with the flies and ask the patron to lift the lids on various pots before pointing to what you want. I am not a food-cissy but…
Pot 1 is brown sludge with chicken feet sticking up out of it. Pot 2 is white gunk with fish eyes floating in it – they are all staring at me, two of them wink at me, one slowly and deliberately, one with a flutter. Pot 3 is pork fat floating in grease with hints of meat stuck to it. Hmmm, tough one. This is to be served with cold rice and warm Sprite in a glass with a large block of ice in it.
“Pot 2 please (the wink worked, but which one?), and can I have the table where the big mangy dog with dangly balls licks your ankles whilst you are eating please?”
“Sorry, that one is reserved, you can have table No.14 facing our noisy, overweight kid playing Ninja-Zap-Box on the telly.”
“Oh please, I didn’t dare ask for that one.”
The family is really nice and gives encouraging nods as I sample the food, they have made a big effort and warmed it up on the setting marked ‘luke’. They have even given me their Uri Gellar collection of cutlery. I am honoured. It’s the sort of dining where, with your every move being watched, you have to craft that useful social skill of converting a retch into a smile. Quite hard to do when you gag and your cheeks involuntarily puff out. To save giving offence you have to take your time and pretend to be savouring each mouthful whilst trying to coax Comrade Fido over so that you can surreptitiously lob things under the table. If you are caught making a ‘kuk, kuk’ noise to attract the dog you have to turn it into a song: “K-K-K-Katy, beautiful Katy, you’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore…” For authenticity you have to clench your Uri Gellar fork and spoon and swing your fists in time with the song with the occasional syncopated double-rap on the table as accompaniment. Even fatboy turns round for this one and joins in the polite applause as you round off the fourth verse with suitably overambitious melismatic phrasing. The ordeal can only end when you push the plate forward and mime patting a full stomach whilst dabbing your mouth with two suspiciously bulging napkins which leak grains of rice as you wave cheerily from down the road.
Maybe I am being a bit harsh on Takeo, youth on bikes seemed to like cruising up and down the promenade in front of the lake and there is the grandly named British International School of Takeo which runs two school sessions back to back, “Rack ‘em up, move ‘em out”. It is hard to imagine that this sleepy backwater has seen its fair share of terrible crimes. Like when Lon Nol was railing against his enemies and ethnic Vietnamese were rounded up and slaughtered inside a school building. Ta Mok, Pol Pot’s principal enforcer was in charge of Takeo. A puritan and zealot, he ran the most doctrinaire interpretation of Angkar’s vision. When Pol called for the purification of the Eastern Zone cadres, it was Ta Mok who orchestrated the pogrom and it was cadres from Takeo Province who were sent in to smash existing KR strings as they were called. This is the same Mok who flew into a rage when Duch convinced Pol Pot to release Bizot some years earlier. Watching from my balcony as boys and girls flirt in the dusk it is nigh on impossible to conceive of anything other than these current carefree times. I sincerely wish Takeo, exactly as it is, upon them all for many years to come. So stop whining, me!
There is a 10 kms link road out of Takeo, it cuts across from Highway 2 to 3. It is clear as day on my map but finding it is hampered by a complete lack of signs. Any turning out of town could be a by-road to some remote village. I hazard a guess and plump for the only road with tarmac – it comes after a long stretch of road-works which see me weaving from one side of the road to the other, swerving either side of the cones and dodging oncoming cars.
I stare nervously at my paisley compass. The pointer jumps this way and that but the average reading looks west-ish which is what I want. This is painful on my rear end, it’s going to be a long day. When I reach Highway 3 I find that it is the best road surface so far. It has to cope with the traffic between Cambodia’s main port (Sihanoukville) and the capital. Big vehicles roar by as I get a buffeting in their wake.
Today’s ride is to Kompot though which is 65 kms away and ought to be easy. The scenery is changing, it is greener (Thinks. It rains more here!), the road is straight as a die, o’er hill and vale but bobbles are drilling into me and making me wince. It would have been no trouble on day one but it is now easier to cycle at the side of the road where a red-dirt track has developed. This is smooth and fine for miles on end but peters out sometimes or disappears down a ravine or an underpass. Trying not to end up in a canyon keeps me on amber alert in what would otherwise be a tedious stretch. I stop for a coconut and the lady nips into the back of the hut to bring some photos for me to look at. It is her daughter whose car, house, lifestyle in a Melbourne suburb would make any of her country-folk envious. What am I talking about, I am envious. I picture her friends riding the tram to university in cosmopolitan Melbourne, they will have no idea what she has come from, I wonder if she had any idea what she has come from. I wonder too how often she visits.
It is going to rain so I get out my mac. I like my mac and spent ages choosing it. I wanted one that would make me visible in murky conditions. It is bright yellow and lilac - what a stunner. I know you can’t imagine it because yellow and lilac is a completely unknown colour combination. It works though, not only can people see you coming, they stop and stare and go, “Yellow and lilac, how courageously post-modern, a metaphor for the quintessential lightness of being. Bravo Mr Cyclist, go man go, we’re with you all the way!” Not so much in Cambodia mind, here they frown and jut their chin out as they scratch their head theatrically whilst tilting forward with their other hand on their hip. I take this as an affirmative endorsement of my post-modern message. I am tired now and the pitter-patter on my mac is turning into a snare-drummer’s march. I will have to flag down a lift.
In Thailand, ‘baht buses’ are taxis, the regular fare is five Baht, hence the name. They are basically a pick-up truck (a ‘ute’ to my antipodean chums) with two rows of seating behind. They are open to the elements although they will have a plastic sheet which can be unfurled when it rains. In Thai they are called song-thaews which means two-rows in reference to the seats. Down here the equivalent is a motorbike, or the front half of a motor bike with a long trailer behind. The trailer has about 12 rows of seats, wooden slats which straddle the trailer’s sides. They look a bit rustic so I assumed at first that they were transport for farmers to their fields – they are always full of country folk and frequently draw alongside me or slowly go past me so that everyone gets the chance of a good look. No-one can resist my smile though which is well versed by now. There is always one who yells out something like, “Get off and milk it.” I am guessing here but everyone usually chortles away. I chortle back and shout, “Go-on with you,” and make that floppy hand sign, the one that collapses at the wrist, it goes with the exhortation to ‘Go on’ – they like it anyway. (When I got home I found out that these bike-trailer things are called remorque-motos and that they have a sister craft which uses a bicycle to pull the trailer instead - this one is called a remorque-kang - there’s not many people know that, I’ll bet.)
So, thumb out, a remorque-moto eases up to me, close up it looks like it was designed by Heath-Robinson, the trailer being held to the bike by a sturdy metal stirrup thing which is welded over the pillion part of the seat. The driver motions for me to get on the back with my bike. I do so with much huffing and puffing as there is a huge wooden door strapped across the middle of the seating, no-one helps as I balance precariously on the end plank, holding on to my bike. We are all very close and everyone wants to look at me but can’t be seen to do so. It’s the first time in their entire lives that they have been within five feet of a foreigner. You might just as well have plonked a spaceman aboard or an alien with green scales and three eyes suspended in a simmering gaseous face.
I decide to help them by looking away a lot, this allows them to stare at me completely free of risk. If I look round they all look the other way at the same time in a well synchronized move. I decide to test their reflexes with a double-bluff-look-away-move. Ker-chunk, ker-chunk goes everyone’s necks (noiselessly, just some visual colouring for your imagination) as they pass with full marks. For some time we look like the crowd at Wimbledon watching a long rally. If I spoke Khmer, I would say, “40-love, match-point. Erk-erk (alien talk).” I am tempted to suddenly put both hands up with spread out fingers and roar like a lion. They’d all fall backwards off the moving trailer and run into the forest without looking back. Eventually, our game, which I think we are all enjoying, is dampened rather by the rain which is now belting down. A woman up front has a new-born baby and all she has is a plastic Co-op bag on her head. I signal to swap my mac for her Co-op bag whilst trying to communicate the sub-clause that it is not a permanent swap. Whilst someone holds my bike I pad along on my hands and knees across the door and we do the swap which is fair, but I am now getting soaked and the driving rain is cold.
TBC
There is a 10 kms link road out of Takeo, it cuts across from Highway 2 to 3. It is clear as day on my map but finding it is hampered by a complete lack of signs. Any turning out of town could be a by-road to some remote village. I hazard a guess and plump for the only road with tarmac – it comes after a long stretch of road-works which see me weaving from one side of the road to the other, swerving either side of the cones and dodging oncoming cars.
I stare nervously at my paisley compass. The pointer jumps this way and that but the average reading looks west-ish which is what I want. This is painful on my rear end, it’s going to be a long day. When I reach Highway 3 I find that it is the best road surface so far. It has to cope with the traffic between Cambodia’s main port (Sihanoukville) and the capital. Big vehicles roar by as I get a buffeting in their wake.
Today’s ride is to Kompot though which is 65 kms away and ought to be easy. The scenery is changing, it is greener (Thinks. It rains more here!), the road is straight as a die, o’er hill and vale but bobbles are drilling into me and making me wince. It would have been no trouble on day one but it is now easier to cycle at the side of the road where a red-dirt track has developed. This is smooth and fine for miles on end but peters out sometimes or disappears down a ravine or an underpass. Trying not to end up in a canyon keeps me on amber alert in what would otherwise be a tedious stretch. I stop for a coconut and the lady nips into the back of the hut to bring some photos for me to look at. It is her daughter whose car, house, lifestyle in a Melbourne suburb would make any of her country-folk envious. What am I talking about, I am envious. I picture her friends riding the tram to university in cosmopolitan Melbourne, they will have no idea what she has come from, I wonder if she had any idea what she has come from. I wonder too how often she visits.
It is going to rain so I get out my mac. I like my mac and spent ages choosing it. I wanted one that would make me visible in murky conditions. It is bright yellow and lilac - what a stunner. I know you can’t imagine it because yellow and lilac is a completely unknown colour combination. It works though, not only can people see you coming, they stop and stare and go, “Yellow and lilac, how courageously post-modern, a metaphor for the quintessential lightness of being. Bravo Mr Cyclist, go man go, we’re with you all the way!” Not so much in Cambodia mind, here they frown and jut their chin out as they scratch their head theatrically whilst tilting forward with their other hand on their hip. I take this as an affirmative endorsement of my post-modern message. I am tired now and the pitter-patter on my mac is turning into a snare-drummer’s march. I will have to flag down a lift.
In Thailand, ‘baht buses’ are taxis, the regular fare is five Baht, hence the name. They are basically a pick-up truck (a ‘ute’ to my antipodean chums) with two rows of seating behind. They are open to the elements although they will have a plastic sheet which can be unfurled when it rains. In Thai they are called song-thaews which means two-rows in reference to the seats. Down here the equivalent is a motorbike, or the front half of a motor bike with a long trailer behind. The trailer has about 12 rows of seats, wooden slats which straddle the trailer’s sides. They look a bit rustic so I assumed at first that they were transport for farmers to their fields – they are always full of country folk and frequently draw alongside me or slowly go past me so that everyone gets the chance of a good look. No-one can resist my smile though which is well versed by now. There is always one who yells out something like, “Get off and milk it.” I am guessing here but everyone usually chortles away. I chortle back and shout, “Go-on with you,” and make that floppy hand sign, the one that collapses at the wrist, it goes with the exhortation to ‘Go on’ – they like it anyway. (When I got home I found out that these bike-trailer things are called remorque-motos and that they have a sister craft which uses a bicycle to pull the trailer instead - this one is called a remorque-kang - there’s not many people know that, I’ll bet.)
So, thumb out, a remorque-moto eases up to me, close up it looks like it was designed by Heath-Robinson, the trailer being held to the bike by a sturdy metal stirrup thing which is welded over the pillion part of the seat. The driver motions for me to get on the back with my bike. I do so with much huffing and puffing as there is a huge wooden door strapped across the middle of the seating, no-one helps as I balance precariously on the end plank, holding on to my bike. We are all very close and everyone wants to look at me but can’t be seen to do so. It’s the first time in their entire lives that they have been within five feet of a foreigner. You might just as well have plonked a spaceman aboard or an alien with green scales and three eyes suspended in a simmering gaseous face.
I decide to help them by looking away a lot, this allows them to stare at me completely free of risk. If I look round they all look the other way at the same time in a well synchronized move. I decide to test their reflexes with a double-bluff-look-away-move. Ker-chunk, ker-chunk goes everyone’s necks (noiselessly, just some visual colouring for your imagination) as they pass with full marks. For some time we look like the crowd at Wimbledon watching a long rally. If I spoke Khmer, I would say, “40-love, match-point. Erk-erk (alien talk).” I am tempted to suddenly put both hands up with spread out fingers and roar like a lion. They’d all fall backwards off the moving trailer and run into the forest without looking back. Eventually, our game, which I think we are all enjoying, is dampened rather by the rain which is now belting down. A woman up front has a new-born baby and all she has is a plastic Co-op bag on her head. I signal to swap my mac for her Co-op bag whilst trying to communicate the sub-clause that it is not a permanent swap. Whilst someone holds my bike I pad along on my hands and knees across the door and we do the swap which is fair, but I am now getting soaked and the driving rain is cold.
TBC