After breakfast of - surprise - noodle soup, we departed our guesthouse and headed back down the mountain. Up was steep enough, but down always makes the ground look even further away. "No problem, slow, slow, first gear, no front brake," was Slim's advice when I hesitated at the top. "Tonight we go up a hill much steeper, slow, slow, first gear, no problem" nodded Lee. I was happy for the vote of confidence, but more that a little nervous about what "much steeper" might entail.
Once again at Anglon Veng, we make a brief pit stop while Lee and Slim tried to find a replacement for the bolt that attached my exhaust pipe to my vehicle. It seemed to have rattled lose somewhere in the previous day's journey. While my guides refueled and tended to the bikes, I wandered around the town taking photographs and collecting strange glances from the locals. Being a white woman in this area was strange enough, but a white woman in full motocross gear was grounds for lots of giggling. Lee and Slim had explained to me earlier that it was very rare for a woman to be seen riding such a "big" bike. Women here either rode on back or stuck to the 150cc Honda Spree step-thrus. A gas station in rural Cambodia was usually a small pump and a few soda bottles.
Once the bikes were back to satisfactory conditions, Lee and Slim suggested we make a quick stop by a nearby temple. Just a few kilometers outside of town on a narrow road were three small, collapsed buildings. I believe this was Trapeang Prasat, a small 8th century temple that had been mostly destroyed by landmines and looting. We stopped our bikes to admire the ruins but my guides warned me not to walk off the trail. I struggled to turn my bike around out of fear of either dropping it, or letting it lose over landmine infested jungle. Slim happily swung it around for me and began the habit of always flipping my bike around on narrow roads. Normally I'd balk at anyone helping me with my bike, but Slim did it with such a grin I was happy for the gesture. Nearby was a small monastary and school, adorned with the saffron robes of monks. I asked my guides if they'd ever been monks since it was common for young Cambodian men to take up the robe for a few weeks to a few months during their youth. Lee had served in the military instead, and Slim said he'd been a monk for five years.
We rode on for a few hours down mostly good roads. Funny how quickly my definition of "good road" had come to mean anything wider than an oxcart and with potholes less than two feet deep. We broke for lunch in the village of Choam Ksant, a small town mostly used as a trading post with Thailand. The restaurant had almost a dozen dogs, and a handful of chickens, but what caught my eye was a baby monkey chained to a nearby tree. Lee caught me looking at it with curiosity. "It's mother was killed for meat," he explained. Sadly, the chain was very short and the monkey looked very bored and my heart wanted to break. I could ask to buy the monkey, but then where would I take it? It was too young to survive on its own, even if I managed to find some suitable jungle. Plus I worried I'd give the locals the impression that foreigners wanted to buy monkeys, thus encouraging their capture. Few tourists passed this way, but it still seemed like too great of a risk. I worried that even giving the monkey any attention might encourage them to keep them as pets for foreigners to play with. In the end, the temptation of scratching an adorable baby monkey's tummy coupled with the thought of how bored it must be chained to a tree by itself won out and I grabbed my camera and ran over to say hello. The little guy immediately took to climbing all over my head, then swinging on my camera strap like a jungle gym. Any worries of being bitten quickly melted away as he let me pet his stomach and scratch behind his ears. I'm unsure of his species, but I'm guessing he was a type of Macaque. It took a good deal of convincing to return the monkey to his tree so I could sit down for lunch, far too aware of the health risks I was taking by inviting monkey cooties to the table.
I sadly wished my new friend farewell and promised myself not to think too hard about his fate. It was time to tackle the great steep mountain leading to Prasat Preah Vehar. The first 30 kilometers or so were easy going, though covered in lose gravel that made riding feel slippery. At the base of the mountain we made a quick stop for water where I was given a last chance to leave the bike behind. "First gear, slow, slow, no problem," nodded Slim. Slim explained that parts of the road were actually paved, but to not take them in anything other than first gear. I began to worry. Sure enough, a kilometer later the road narrowed considerably, began a sharp ascent and turned to cement. No problem, I thought. Then, the cement abruptly ended. Ended in a gaping pothole filled with lose gravel. The road narrowed more and tall grass began to overtake the sides. It got steeper, and the cement didn't seem to be making a comeback. Apparently the concept of switchbacks was foreign to Cambodia as we seemed to be taking the most direct path straight up the hill. Lonely Planet offers the following descriptions about this road: "a unique and challenging experience," "extremely difficult and shouldn't be attempted by anyone not willing to put up with misery along the way," and "only suitable for highly experienced bikers, and there are gradients of 35% and loose stones everywhere." Lonely Planet is far from the most reliable guide in remote Cambodia, but here it seemed to hit the nail on the head.
The road continued up the mountain, with pavement abruptly starting and ending in the least expected places. Sometimes it would logically appear in the most steep sections, other times it would disappear just as the road tilted at even a higher degree. Always it ended in a pothole filled with mud, pea gravel, sand or water. The sections in between were narrow and a chain of deep holes connected by a path hardly more wide than my bike's tires. Huge loose rocks littered the way, sending my front tire into the air and my stomach into my throat. One such section abruptly ended with a large bump the road, blocking the sight of a stream just beyond it. The only passable way over the stream was a "bridge" consisting of a single wood board hardly any more wide than my tire. In the split second between cresting the bump and seeing the "bridge" I focused on the far end of the board and held my breath. Amazingly, I made it over without my bike slipping off either side. At this point my heart was pounding so heavily I could feel it inside of my helmet. Even if I had needed to stop, there was simply no room and it was so steep I would have promptly fallen over. I had no choice but to press on. I kept thinking we had to be near the top, but the road never seemed to end, only get steeper. Slim rode up next to me, shouting "first gear, slow slow" and pointing at the road ahead. Luckily it was paved. Unluckily I could too easily imagine my bike simply falling over backwards it was so steep. I pushed down on the front wheel, my weight as far forward as I could manage, and remained steady on the gas. The XR is a solid bike and the ease it took this hill sold me on it completely. Finally we reached the top and I could see the bright Cambodian flag perched on top of a collection of stones ahead.
Lee and Slim stopped their bikes and gave me a cheer and a round of applause. "Did you see that bridge?!" they asked punctuated with large hand gestures, "no bigger than our tires!" I was glad to hear I wasn't the only one troubled by that spot in the road. Slowly the thought passed over me that tomorrow I would have to do this route in reverse. This was not a pleasant thought, once I decided it was best to push to the back of my mind till morning.
We were at the top of the lower level of Prasat Preah Vehar, an enormous 9th century temple seated on a mountain top at the Thai border. Lee and Slim payed a local to watch our bikes for the night and we descended down the stone steps to the small village at the temple's base. The village was a series of densely packed stalls selling supplies and souvenirs to tourists. While the path I'd taken is one rarely experienced by visitors to Cambodia, there was a paved road almost to the temple's doorstep from Thailand. While it was a little frustrating to see Thai tourist who had simply arrived via bus and car, I felt I'd earned this temple and wasn't about to let anything detract from that. Our accommodations for the evening were in a guest house in the middle of the market. My room was a bed and mosquito net, with similar "showers" to the evening previous. The toilet was a glorified hole in the ground and toilet paper was a faded memory. I dumped a few buckets of water over my head and bought a beer for myself and Lee. Thai boxing was on the television, so we watched a few fights together and rested our sore bodies. I wandered around the village for a while, watching children playing soccer in a field, and finding a small shop with two pools tables nearby. The keeper of our guesthouse was 9 months pregnant and about to burst. It dawned on me that she was two days travel from even a shoddy hospital and that she'd be giving birth here in her village. No pain killers, no doctors. It's no wonder many women die during childbirth here. I suddenly felt bad for feeling scared about the ride down the mountain in the morning. Here I was in a culture that had dealt with 30 years of war, one that is still plagued with landmines and poverty. I had no right to complain. But, I was still scared. I sucked it in and fetched my camera to go explore the temple further.
Signs pointed out which areas had been de-mined and which called for extreme caution. I decided to stick to well worn paths regardless of which side of the street I was on. The bottom section of the temple was a vast series of stone steps lined with statues of lions and nagas (snakes). I was delighted to see a number of monks ascending the stairs, including a very old man who seemed to take the treacherous staircase with ease. Unlike many of the great sacred sites of the world, Cambodian temples are still in use by the local population as places of worship and treated with deep respect.
Prasat Preah Vehar is one of the largest temple complexes in Cambodia, and the most impressively located. It consists of four levels of buildings, connected by stone walkways and grand staircases. The lower level contains a large pool for collecting water. Many times the Thai border has been closed during times of political instability and the small village at the base of the temple has relied on this pool for their drinking water. At the center of the fourth level was an active shrine tended to by a woman monk in a white robe.
After the forth level temple was the edge of a breathtaking cliff, overlooking Cambodia below.
Exploring the forth level further I stopped to listen to a small group of local musicians playing tradition instruments. A young monk and his dog sat nearby. I was very cautious not to offend anyone by snapping my camera away in such as sacred setting, but it was too stunning of a scene to resist. I rested my camera on my lap and tried to inconspicuously steal a few frames.
This temple is famous for being the site of one of the last stands of the Khmer Rouge, who continued to fight there as late as 1998. A large gun still sits at the top of the third level, its barrel pointing towards Thailand below.
Lee and Slim caught up to me and gave an excellent account of the Hindu stories represented in the carvings of the temple. It was dedicated to Shiva and continues an early representation of the story of The Churning of the Milk. Cambodia made the switch from Buddhism to Hindu and back to Buddhism during the time of great temple buildings. It's not uncommon to find carvings that had been converted from one god to another, with the addition or removal of arms and a third eye as needed. The pathways were lined with small booths of locals selling postcards and food, their children playing among the ruins or selling postcards to tourists. I was impressed to see a young girl taking some of her first wobbly steps on the stone pathway in front of the temple and again reminded of the resilience of these people.
The sun began to fade behind the temple and I snapped photos as quickly as I could on my way back down to the village, conscious of how difficult it would be to navigate in the dark. Lee and I made a stop near the bottom at a both for fresh springrolls. I'd planned on only having one, but ended up stuffing myself with what was the best dish I'd have in Cambodia.
After the springrolls I decided to pass on dinner and get a good night's sleep. My guides were again back to watching Thai boxing and laughing with the villagers. Even though I was exhausted from riding and climbing the stone temples, sleep was difficult for me. For the first time I felt a bit lonely being surrounded by so few people who spoke my language. I was terrified of the next day's ride down the mountain, and felt even worse for worrying about something so trivial. My room was open at the top to the marketplace, so every crying child, noisy rooster and laugh from the nearby restaurant came directly into my room. I tried to visualize myself riding down the mountain effortlessly, but every vision ended in my bike toppling over my head. I consoled myself with the thought that was I was doing wasn't easy, as shown by the fact that I hadn't seen a single other non-asian foreigner since leaving Siem Reap. Finally my body won out over my head and I drifted to sleep.