Cambodia!

Finally one of my dreams has come true. For quite some time I have relished the thought of coming to Cambodia to see this beautiful country and experience most of the things it has to offer. I am sitting on a bed in a shared room at the Bamboo Bar and Guesthouse now and due to some unfortunate circumstances I have time to write this.
Before I get into Cambodia let me fill you in on the past few days:
As you know we were basically living on Koh Samet where the beaches were soft, the surf was relaxing and the idea most have of a “vacation” was at it's peak. All in all we ended up staying eight days and when you have no home or job it becomes too easy to say “just one more day”. I can see how eventually you might end up waiting for a wire transfer to get you home. The first time we intended to leave was postponed due to the island romance of one of our team members. This is awesome and absolutely understandable. “What's that? You wanna see your man one more night? I have to stay in paradise and avoid grueling heat and painful joints? Damn you! Alright fine you twisted my arm.” I think I speak for everyone of our team when I say go for it. Who could resist the temptation and charm of a tropical coast love-at-first-sight fire dancing/throwing beach boy? [unless of course you're straight (island girls don't really exist here, or throw fire) or have an amazingly beautiful woman waiting for you in Korea].
The second time we were postponed however doesn't have quite as much flare and novel allure to it. You see friends, I was the cause of this postponement. Did I fall in love with an island man? No. Did I need an extra day to get my open water certification? No. Did I just need more beach? Sadly, No. The cause of the situation was the onslaught of an intense fever and severe gastro-intestinal issues. Anderson likes to use more childish and colourful descriptions of my condition but for your honorable eyes and ears I will be polite and short. My issue left me wrenching in sweat and pain in what may very well be the worst location for such a problem on the planet. Let me describe our luxurious bungalow for you all. After a short walk up a hill from the beach, as you pass 1600 baht per night grand air conditioned honeymoon bungalows you come upon what is best described as a wrecking yard. Here lay the last few yet-to-be-demolished budget backpacker bungalows. As witnessed all over the place wherever I go and whatever I research, our world is quickly changing into a pretty polished luxury condo-esque environment. Out with the old and in with the new, seen here as smash down the dirty hippy houses and throw up some yuppie digs.
However, that is another issue altogether. Where was I... ok, here we go. Past the richies, behind the stumps, parallel to the trash/fire pit and in front of a few of the remaining gems is where we laid our heads for a week. A two room (bed/washroom) blueish bungalow sitting halfway up a hill on six-foot stilts with a pair of ultra chique and stylish white plastic patio chairs on the porch. Inside our home was a single king sized bed, a cold-water shower and a just add water toilet. We were however, for better or worse, granted the ultimate in psychedelic murals. A chap who goes by the pen name Enrico had what I can only imagine was way too much LSD and access to paint or crayons of some sort. The result was a wallpaper effect of multi-coloured palm filled beaches and flower filled prairies with roaring suns and bursting stars. Oh, we also had a fan.

I may be painting my own one-sided pessimistic image here but in defense I am still suffering from this unknown illness and am not the cheeriest of men at the moment. In defense of the bungalow, it only cost me 100 baht a night (300/3) and until those last two days served as solely a slightly more comfortable resting place than the beach. In hindsight puking my entrails into the ocean may have been more enjoyable. Let's hope I don't have to find out.
The next day I declared that we would promptly remove ourselves from Koh Samet before all my loving memories were replaced by fever-induced hallucinations.
We rode to the pier, bid adieu to Momma Dog and headed back to Ban Phe (Mainland).
I forgot to mention we had made a close friend while on Samet. A slightly mangy dog we dubbed Momma Dog. We found out later we had been calling her Dog Dog Dog in Thai, as 'ma' can be translated to 'dog'. So Momma dog seemed to have fallen in love with us, despite the fact that we literally fed her nothing but our own love. I will admit at times I was put off by her obvious fleas but thanks to the teachings of a special girl I quickly proceeded to love her and even go so far as to dance with her at the disco. Itch*itch*.

From the pier in Ban Phe we biked 61.5 km's to the nowhere intersection of Na Yai Am. Here we were directed roughly 5km to a remote motel where I paid the premium price of 400 baht for my own room to deal with my sickness alone and try to collect myself. The whole day was spent in the shadow of an ever present thunder head which came to a semi climax on our lunch break and finally an electrifying climactic display of sheer power later that night. This I can say was a way better form of entertainment than the 6 channels of Thai screaming TV that made Korean television look like HBO.

We awoke at the semi-early hour of 8:30-9, packed up and pedaled off into what would turn out to be our furthest day of biking yet, 90kms. This brought us to the welcoming almost border town of Pong Nam Ron. The last 7kms of this trip took us a painful, sweat soaked hour to climb the biggest bitch of an incline we have met so far. There were times when I cursed the very soul of the universe for creating a group of individuals crazy and stupid enough to decide to bike through South East Asia. We weren't even in the really hilly part yet. We were all feeling the burn when we rolled in at nightfall but luckily we ran into a British man who lived not too far away with his Thai wife. They told us where a small set of bungalows were where we could stay for the night and then came along to dinner with us. I learned a few things from him, my take on the conversation was punctuated by quick visits back to the room for obvious reasons though from all he said I will remember this loosely quoted recounting the most:

British Dude- “Yeah they snatched one of ours (dog) a while ago. Got him at night”
Mixed collection of inquisitive travelers- “Who snatched him?”
BD- “Bloody Cambodian fruit pickers”
MCIT- “They took your dog? For what?”
BD- “For what? To eat!”
MCIT- “Holy shit! Really?”

BD- “Yeah, now we got a Rottweiler ;)”

We dragged ourselves, sore knees and thighs alike back to the pavement Tuesday morning for the journey to the Cambodian border. We had high spirits as we were told several times that the border crossing was a mere 5 to 10 kms away. That's child's play to us right? As it turns out Thai's sense of distance is as lax as their sense of time. Our 5-10 km border trip turned out to be roughly 25 kilometers. Add to that the extra 6 we tacked on by missing the CLEARLY stated side road we were supposed to take. By clearly I mean as clear to you as: gfalduwjkbakdjgal. Plus an additional 2 more by me. I had the genius idea to overcome a hill by sneakily holding on to the back of a farmers wagon and hitching a ride, only to be eagerly informed by two girls on a scooter through hand signs that I had forgotten something involving a stamp and a shaking finger behind me. I took this to mean I was already in Cambodia and the security was so light or I was biking so fast that I had evaded the visa line. This turned out to be false. In reality we had just gone way too far. We passed through customs and immigration pretty quickly and once passed the security arm there was no doubt we were in Cambodia. The smooth rural roads of Thailand that would beat out Durhams any day had turned to dirt and rock quicker than you can say 'dammit'.

We rode the weaving paths passed banana trees and some of the most intense farming I have seen yet. Word of the two wheeled whitey retarded enough to bike here spread like wildfire. Whole families rushed out to watch the parade like suburbanites in Santa season. A high pitched “Hello! Buh Bye!” met us at nearly every hut we passed. As the sky darkened and forks of lightening pierced the ominous sky above we snailed by a sign reminiscent of an Oasis in the desert: Bamboo Bar & Guesthouse. This guesthouse is clean and relatively cheap, we are located just out side the town of Pailin, Cambodia. For anyone who knows anything about Cambodia and the terrors that occurred here, you might recall the news 2 years ago where Brother Number 2, Brother Number 3 as well as the Head of State of the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot was Brother Number 1) were arrested for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The location of the arrest? Pailin.

Tonight I am avoiding the industrial strength “traveler pills” my loving mother bestowed upon me to get a feel for where this illness is heading. Tomorrow morning we set out for Battambang, another grueling 80ish kms away.

Written August 19^th 2009.

We pounded out the 85 km's today in the scorching heat. When we left in the morning there was not a cloud in the sky and my left side is a burning collection of flesh right now despite the re-application of sunscreen every hour. The roads here are a pain in the ass but the riding was more or less flat. With more pot holes and rocks than a gravel pit the riding was bumpy and uncomfortable at best, butt-busting and chode chaffing at worse. The amount of dust and dirt the passing trucks would kick up was enough to choke a mule but between the passing traffic was the countryside. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous with fields upon fields running along the rolling hills, mountainous jungle spotted with random collections of inhabitants, eager as always to wave and scream hello. "The last long jaunt before Battambang"

We have touched down for the night at the Spring Park Hotel which is very cheap and quite nice. We'll be staying in Battambang for a few days to recoup and do some sight seeing, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. Miss you all, Much love,
Blaise

Previously written unposted Tuesday Aug 4th 2009

Hey Hey! It's now Tuesday night and I'm back at On Nut Guesthouse in Bangkok. But Lord have things happened! I left you guys just upon my arrival in Chiang Mai, which in hind sight was a glorious train ride in comparison to the return ride, but I'll get into that in a minute.
Our second day in Chiang Mai was spent ripping around the city on scooters. An activity I would recommend to anyone who has a feel for adrenaline pumping close calls and red-line washout mountain-side descents. We started off by bartering for a group discount -enter Liz- where we ultimately ended up getting the extra insurance for free. Not needed but eased the mind along the pristine chaos that is inner city scooting. We used our quick and rather cheap newly acquired form of transportation to pack in quite a few temples around the city; Wat Phra Singh, where I was able to have some time for inner-reflection in a very natural environment. There were also many Buddhist proverbs strewn about which to me really struck home on several occasions. Wat Chiang Man, where Anderson and I had made the observation that there were a lot, A LOT of Buddhas. We also found it interesting that Buddha has been said to have not wanted any worship of that sort...I would have to deduce at this point in my travels that Buddhists didn't care for such humbleness.

When we weren't tearing up the streets and endangering pedestrians and drivers alike, we were eating and drinking. Pad thai, smoothies, pad thai, smoothies, water, water, repeat.

Next up was the Holy Grail of temples in Chiang Mai: Wat Phrthat Doi Suthep. To get to this Behemoth of a Temple we'd have to ascend some 16 km's into the jungle of Doi Suthep- Suthep Mountain. The trip up was incredibly fun, Brian and I had chosen to go single on our scooters while Luke was coupled with Christine and Anderson with Liz. This weight difference played to our advantage on the way up as we could accelerate quite quicker up this near 40% grade!

To put the ride modestly, it was freakin'-amazingly-wondrous. A constant left to right motion and S-ing upwards through lush jungle we were rewarded several times by a great view. Unfortunately today this view was of an impending tropical rainstorm coming our way.

At the top of the mountain the Temple was grand. It held a plethora of Buddha's, shrines, bells, gong's and statues of dozens of animals. It looked out over the city and at the storm a-la Armageddon which would be upon us in a matter of minutes.
Once the rain hit we waited it out as long as we could before deciding we should descend if we wanted to reach the mid-way waterfall we had spotted on the way up. After about 40 minutes of waiting for the torrential downpour to lighten up, we made a group decision that we had to face the rain or descend in darkness.

The ride down was slow going at best, blinding at worst but everyone arrived at the bottom safely. That is not to say arrived back at our guesthouse. Promptly upon hitting flat ground we divided, unintentionally, into three groups. Lost in the nighttime rainy city.
Anderson and I arrived home first of course because we are downright amazing, at the time this is being written there is no contention about this fact.

The following day was spent relaxing and preparing for the nigh time activity, one I was especially looking forward to: Muay Thai. The event was separated into two sections, Red-Blue and weight class. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the first class, 30kg, were little kids kicking the living shit out of each other. I know what you must be thinking “Blaise, that's not nice”. Let me tell you, you're right. It's not nice, but it's freaking hilarious! The heavyweights weighed in at 90kg's and it was quite impressive to watch these guys pummel each other. Anderson and I seemed to be the only two of our 6-person group who enjoyed the night at all. Demonstrated by the unconscious Liz laying on the bleachers and the others giving 100% just holding their heads up. To each their own I suppose.

We continued our time in Chiang Mai by going on a jungle trek tour to visit two tribal villages. As well as an elephant ride through the jungle which was followed by a visit to a waterfall jumping area where we cooled off in the river. After that we took a bamboo raft down the river. Our “driver/Boatman”?? was a 13 year old boy who insisted we throw nuts and pods at the our friends raft. Which started a jungle river rafting dodge-the-nut race. This was a really great, though touristy thing to do. We had a whole lot of fun and really got to see some of what Thai river living is like.
The next day the majority of our team had their hearts set on playing with tigers. There is a place quite close to Chiang Mai called “Tiger Kingdom”. At this wonderful place you pay a certain fee and go play with the tigers inside their pens. They have baby tigers at 4 months old for 520 baht, the 'medium' tigers at 15 months for 320 baht and the big ones who were quite a bit older. I don't know how much these guys cost but I correlated the descending price pattern with either a- awesomeness level or b- chance of being mauled to death by an orange killing machine. I opted for the medium guys, save a few baht and have a drink later. These tigers were great, we could lay down on them, play with them and then walk around and see all the other tigers and lions they had on the premises. Though I felt safe the whole time, the awesomeness of their power and grace was not lost on me. I would imagine I'd last about 5 seconds if one of these girls decided I might taste like chicken.

Written on Aug 10th 2009 on a beach in Ko Samet, Thailand.

I had a great time in Chiang Mai and saw a wonderful peaceful city with so much to offer it's citizens. I even go to try some local delicacy treats: crickets, grasshoppers and frogs^^
We hopped back onto the Chiang-Mai-->Bangkok train, though this time we didn't get any sleepers and had quite a time. The ride was more of the same: cockroaches, loud noises, cold sweats and a shitty breakfast.

Back in Bangkok we spent the days doing some errands before hitting the town again. I picked up my panniers and they're plenty large, YAY! I can keep my extra TP and Muay Thai shorts I picked up. Little did I know I'd soon be picking up a 'souvenir' that would take up all my extra space and weigh me down another 5 lbs.
We picked up our bikes around 5pm on Wednesday the 5th. Locked and loaded we fit our packs on, did some last minute purchasing and checks on the bikes before bidding adieu to Fausto, the owner of Bike Zone who helped us out huge. We biked the 18.78 km's back to our guest house and thanks to Liz's electronic odometer we know it took 54 minutes. A little slow but it was definitely INTENSE riding through the scooters, taxis and bus's at night in busy Bangkok.
After a solid sleep, a hearty breakfast and some poor attempts at proper stretching on my part the team set out on the first official pedal strokes of our journey.

The biking from the city has so far been the worse riding I've done. Shoulder to shoulder with cars and 18-wheelers flying down a freeway was dirty, debris-strewn and at times filled with near fatal exhaust inhalation. We rode 50 kilometers out of Bangkok with Chon Buri as our destination before we stopped for some lunch. Upon eating some questionable Thai food and having a quick snooze to let the noon sun calm down a bit, we met a Thai man named Yan. Yan sells Kyocera Auto machines to mostly Japanese customers. Yan also speaks great English and happens to drive a truck. He insisted on driving us the remainder of our journey that day to Chon Buri, some 20 odd km's.

At first I thought that it was kind of cheating, if on our bike trip we took a lift in a truck. But looking up to the beating sun, the heat waves drifting off the asphalt, and my sweat sodden clothes I decided I was not on a bike trip, I was on a bike adventure.

While piled into Yan's Toyota we had some good conversation and I was given a real insight into the political turmoil that's been facing the Thai parliament over the past few years. I didn't even have to read a newspaper. As the conversation rolled by so did Chon Buri.
We pulled over to a gas station in what we now know as the sex-tourism capital of Asia, Pattaya. Pattaya is a beautiful city with gorgeous coconut trees, majestic palms and relaxing crash of the surf. Our time at Pattaya was spent swimming until there were too many jellyfish and beaching during the day with great food and drinks at night. The escorts were evident everywhere we went and the Go-Go bars nearly outnumbered the patrons but we had no idea that Pattaya was like this. After all, it's not even listed in the Lonely Planet's South-East Asia guide. We left Pattaya bright and early Saturday morning and took off for Rayong.

Our plan was to get to Rayong, 70 km's away and see if we could ride the additional 26 km's to Ban Phae. We had to reach Ban Phae in order to get a ferry across to Ko Samet Island where we were planning on spending a few days on the beach.
When we got to Rayong we decided to grab some food and find a hotel. We could bike to Ban Phae in the morning and roll into Ko Samet sometime around noon Sunday.
Rayong is a dull place with really only one sleeping option for budget backpackers which is Star Apartments. Most definitely not to be confused with Star Hotel at 3000 baht a night which is a gorgeous building with a valet service and swimming pool. At 400 baht/night, Star Apartments is...not quite the same.
The night was pretty tame with some Chang and Leo beer and an quick sleep.

We awoke Sunday morning, grabbed some food and rode to Ban Phae in roughly an hour and a half. After some confusion with the Pier service we bought our tickets, plus a questionable 'bike-carrying' fee of an additional 30 baht and began what is and probably will be the most intense boarding procedure of my life. We passed the bikes and gear across a five foot chasm of salty blue to the tarred top of a shanty boat that gurgled it's way across the water. As I was sitting on the roof holding the bikes and getting some sun Liz was having an intimate moment with her water bottle turned barf-bag at the bow.
We are now on Ko Samet and it's great. The beaches are so white and fine it's like a paradise. Our days here are filled with sunning and body-surfing along the coast. Our first night was spent at the local dance bar where Anderson found his dancing feet and tore up the beach. Everyone had a good time and I'm sure we will have a blast tonight as well.

The biking has been fun but not at all easy. We have been lucky with the terrain so far as it's mostly been flat with some minor hills and cherished declines along the way. The scenery over the past day has been of mostly jungle and forest so it has been good riding. I find the best way to bike is to be content. The happier I am and the more I realize that I'm just going for a bike ride and getting to see all these unique things puts a smile on my face and the bike gets a little lighter, my legs can go a little longer.

This is now up to date, I apologize for the lack of posts but internet has proven to evade even the most painfully addicted user (Anderson), at our last two guesthouses. I'll do my best to keep them frequent and hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy filling them.