Road Trip! Kampong Cham and baboon-butts

People hanging out the back of a minibus

Back to blogging... it's been a while since I've wrote on the blog, and keeping in the theme of travelling, here's a bit about our road trip on my magnificant(ish) new (29 year old) motorbike, and an introduction about rural roads in Cambodia.

Well, Cambodia as I've said before, is very different to Vietnam and perhaps most noticeably, when it comes to economic development.  Leaving the city and the scenery very quickly becomes very rural and subsistence based farming communities, and the roads (including the main highways) deteriorate.

Rural villages outside Phnom Penh

Pretty much only the main national routes (of which they're 7) are surfaced, the remainder either graded gravel or not much more than cart track... one does begin to wonder what exactly the tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure aid money has been spent on. 

Beers by the Mekong in Kampong Cham

Slow progress up the 70 miles following the river up to Kampong Cham... bumpy roads taking over four hours to reach the town.  The bike, though super-cool, probably isn't the best for these roads, even the surfaced roads are very bumpy and potholed, so an off-road machine would be best for this country (have a look at our Lao road trip way back and see my comments there).

The highway to Kratie

Kampong Cham is apparently the third largest city in Cambodia after PP and Battammbang, but feels very small, and not much going on, other than a quiet few beers by the river and a dodgy dinner in the market.  The town used to be much busier as it was a major ferry crossing over the Mekong before the bridge was built, now traffic up to Kratie and beyond just passes through the town.  As with many provincial towns in Cambodia, the central market area has a few decaying colonial era shop houses, various signs of NGO activities and are generally quiet places with not too much going on.



Our original plan was to head up to Kratie and Stung Treng, following the Mekong Discovery trail, but numerous factors, including sharing the only road with the ubiquitous speeding Lexus 4x4s, aching bottoms, a dodgy stomach (me) and a desire for the beach, we headed back to Phnom Penh... the north will have to wait until next time.  For more pictures, click here!