January 4, 2008
Battambang - Moung Roessei - Pursat - Phnom Penh: National Highway 5
We are finally on the road again. When we set out it is still very cool but humid, 19 degrees centigrade and overcast. There is a fair amount of morning traffic leaving Battambang, but it isn't threatening. The shoulder is wide and there is always enough room for slow vehicles like us. After about 45 minutes we are again cycling between open, flat rice fields and we have a gentle tailwind. Many hello-hello's; ox carts; buses, the largest and fastest vehicles on the road; few cars; many full pick-ups taking people to work in the fields; many lightweight motorbikes or motos; pedestrians. It's not exciting but we're getting somewhere and we're cycling again. If we need rest in the shade the best places to stop are temples. They almost always have benches under the trees.
Of course every time we stop we're a tremendous curiosity for the people and they stare at us continuously. But we also stare, and take pictures to boot. Still, we're in the minority here and I do feel like some kind of freak sometimes. With helmet and sunglasses I am especialy freakish here. I see no one else protecting his eyes from the sun or dust and hardly anyone on a motorcycle wearing a helmet.
All the way to Moung Roessei we have our fingers crossed that there will be a guest house as I don't feel up to doing the 105 kilometers to Pursat. Moung Roessei is a highway town and stretches for kilometers along the road before you reach the center with bank (first sign we see in Roman letters), market, more shops on side streets and - yes - a guesthouse (second sign in Roman letters).
The guesthouse is new, spic and span, and our room resembles a large bathroom as it is tiled from floor to ceiling. After a cold - and very quick - shower we go in search of food. Next to the bus stop are the food stands. On a table out front are about ten pots. You can lift the lids and choose. We decide on four different dishes, vegetables with scraps of meat, all tasting very foreign, even after several weeks in Cambodia. I'm really not finicky but I found it hard to dig in. After our meal we look for some crackers to fill up on.
The NH 5 going through Moung Roessei is in top shape, but the minute you go onto a side street you have a red dust surface with deep deep ruts left from the wet season when the mud must be knee deep. The shops lining the road have chaotic jumbles of goods. There are many pharmacies and dentists. If you peek behind the screen separating the street and the dentist chair you can get a view of the basic set-up: a worn chair, one big lamp such as over a billiard table, and a very ancient-looking drill hanging overhead. Scary. We also see a clinic, a large room open to the road with the most primitive of cots lined up in rows with IV bottles hanging next to the beds.
Another hot 62 kilometers the next day takes us to Pursat, a larger town with several hotels. Again the road is straight and flat with rice fields, huts and simple houses, duck ponds, oxen, cows, small stands selling cold drinks and food.
The Hotel Phnom Pich in Pursat looks grand from the outside and the room is very decent, with hot water for 8 $. We are very surprised to discover six more cyclists there. A couple from Holland on a tandem, our age but very fit, and four New Zealanders, younger and very fit. They are doing 100 kilometers legs from Battambang to Phnom Penh.
I am not feeling very fit and in the morning we opt for a bus ride for the remaining 200 kilometers. I am feeling a little ashamed for not cycling it all but decide I don't have to prove anything to anyone. The ride is comfortable, our bikes are stowed away in the luggage hold below. We arrive in Phnom Penh at noon.
The traffic is heavier in Phnom Penh than we have seen elsewhere in Cambodia, but it's manageable, at least from the bus station to a hotel. We now have some experience in dealing with motos coming at you down the wrong side of the road and we know how to cross the lanes of on-coming traffic the way the locals do - you travel down the wrong side of the road against the traffic until there is an opening to cross over. But for our stay here we will leave our bikes at the guest house.
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