January 31, 2024
Day 4A Bike: To The Border
Battambang to Bavel
Research had been done about land borders to Thailand. The executive decision was to avoid Poipet like the plague. It is crowded and full of scams, thus greatly increasing the likelihood I would get robbed again. One of the best things about solo cycle tours is that I call the shots around here. I don't take orders from nobody. Even so, it pays to ask around and get as much information and advice as possible.
The border I had been considering was the Phnom Dei crossing, and while it recently changed to an international crossing before covid, there wasn't much information on what happened since. Presumably it had reopened, but instead of guessing, I could ask my Thai friends. Interestingly, they kept asking why I was in Cambodia and when I would be getting my ass over the border.
So naturally, they did the research on my behalf and even called immigration to confirm: yes I could cross there. Even so I was still hesitant because it was a 115km bike ride to the border. But I had to give myself a reality check: how much more confirmation could I want?
After a nice strength workout and swim I set off. Stocking up on food was a must but I wasn't going to do as much as yesterday. The problem is actually my stomach gets used to eating less and those buffet binges make me uncomfortable. On the other hand, not stocking up at all runs the risk of running out of food in the countryside.
It took ages to pack and get going but I was quite nervous to be honest: if I forgot one thing here, there was no turning back. It was a 115km one-way trip out of here. So I checked and checked and checked and made sure nothing was left behind.
Finally that done I got my stuff ready and said to the guy running the hotel, "Checkout, brother". He was super cool with everything. He asked where I was going and recommended the Pailin border but I wanted to bypass that for my chosen route. I guess we'll see how it goes.
The question is, would the food situation be better or worse towards the Thai border? The roads looked a lot more remote. As it turned out the first 10km was a more interesting rough road but the boring motorway came back again out of town. That road would eventually end at the Siem Reap junction but I was thankfully turning off well before that. Eventually I reached the turnoff.
The food situation was indeed not looking good. I blamed the Khmer Rouge for that. Even now, many decades later, the country is still in poverty. Things are recovering greatly, but the lasting effects are outside of the cities. It is a reminder how much these heartless communist monsters must have destroyed peoples' lives. It's only a minor inconvenience if food is hard to come by for me now in a bike trip, the people must have been literally starving under that so-called revolution.
After the turnoff there were all sorts of mobile phone shops in a random town. My headphone cables had been damaged earlier in the morning so I figured I had to get with the times and buy wireless headphones. Sensing this the guy said, "I can sell you a pair for $55". I stormed off and told him he was out of his mind. The price suddenly dropped to $15. I got him down to $10. Out of curiosity I spoke some Thai but he didn't understand so then I tried speaking Chinese. He actually was from China and doing business here, and well, it explains a lot. He was super cool though after this and explained how I could set the headphones up.
Next, change money. My new friend helped with that and of course, he "just happened" to know a guy across the street changing money. The mission was to get rid of as much Khmer Riel as possible and change it into baht. Most of it had already been spent earlier that morning on overpriced tourist food but more needed out of my system. The end goal was to try and leave Cambodia with zero amount of their currency.
That done, I set off down route 57B which was a smaller road and finally the kind of riding I wanted in Cambodia. While stopping off for drinks and not finding any food, they pulled up a chair and invited me to chill out. I checked the border information and realized the Cambodia side only opened from 9 to 5. This did not match what I read online about the Thailand side was open from 6am to 10pm. One of those details was not correct. There was still over 85km to get to the border and it was already 1:30pm. If I got there too late I was going to be fucked.
Racking my brain for options, I decided to ride to Bavel (the next town) and find a taxi to the border. At first I wanted to eat something and think it over but of course all the restaurants weren't serving food. One of them cheerfully opened the fridge and said, "We have beer!" To which I said, "Sorry I don't feel like drinking beer now, I would like food." Then off the cuff I asked, "What about a taxi to Sampov Lun (the border town)?"
They pounced on that and pointed across the street. There happened to be a share taxi nearly full of passengers and ready to leave right away. The timing couldn't have been anymore perfect. They helped direct me to the taxi where I folded up the bike and put the bags inside. The taxi driver put up his fingers for 'three' which I thought meant $30 but it was only 30,000 riel or about $7. This meant breaking another $20 and getting more riel change but it wasn't a big deal. This was going to save me the time and get to the border before it closed.
The driver then took off like a bat out of hell. Sure it was sad that I was missing out on cycling some of the best parts, but I was pretty much tired of the food situation and eager to get out of here.
They insisted on giving me the VIP seat. The driver even had his wife sit on his lap while driving. Of course, he had his seatbelt on as I did too. The woman at the gas station was very nice and smiling and couldn't believe a barang (in Cambodia it's barang not farang) was traveling this way. Hardly anyone goes this direction, as it is off the Poipet route.
As the ride went on, more and more passengers got off. The driver could let his wife sit more comfortably in the back, but insisted I keep the VIP seat. Once we got closer to the end with the beautiful scenery and rolling hills, I felt for sure there was a higher power guiding this trip and things were happening the way they were meant to.
Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 524 km (325 miles)
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