7 - 9 January 2008

Thou shall return to dust

We invade our 36th country in five and a half years.
Checking out from Thailand is simple and fast, checking in at the Cambodian border town Poipet takes a little longer. Just before the border three men in civilian clothes await us at a rickety table, claiming to be immigration officers. For a reasonable amount, they say, we can fill in the immigration forms. In Peter's head three sets of alarm bells start ringing simultaneously. Cons.
"Let's get away from here," he says,  "these guys want to deceit us."
"But that German man over there says he has done business with them before!"
"Everyone is free to decide how often they want to be swindled. Forms are always for free, we've never paid for them, nowhere."
At an office a little further we fill in the free forms, pay for and get our visa and the real officers tell us to go to the next shed to get the visa stamped. We find a long queue of people, all of them waiting for a stamp. Two seconds before our arrival four bus loads of tourists were unloaded; our timing is bad.
After nearly three hours of hanging around, sitting, standing and waiting, it's finally our turn. They take our picture and we receive the stamp.

The border area looks poshy, dominated by luxurious casino buildings with uniformed staff. This is where rich Thai spend their surplus baht. The contrast with the hundreds of poor Cambodian traders pushing their carts by hand is enormous.
The transition from Thailand to Cambodia is marked by lots of contrasts: the tarmac ends, everything is dusty, fancy sidewalks make place for potholes and bumps, wealth turns into poverty. The cars in this area are mostly sedans, stuffed with everything a person can buy or sell. Even the roofs and boots are full of boxes, bags, bicycles, scooters and any other trading materials, tied with fraying ropes and old rubber straps.
The most obvious example of the lower grade of wealth are the sweating men, women and children, dressed in dirty and completely torn garments, who pull and push heavily loaded carts. Only one kilometre back, in Thailand , shining fourwheeldrives carried all the heavy stuff.
In the Poipet Pass Hotel miss Sophea teaches us our first Khmer words, a language that doesn't resemble Thai at all. We'll have to start from scratch again.

With only 47 kilometres to cover we depart late. Sophea donates two extra bottles of mineral water and buys us two mouth caps to protect us against the dust, from her own money. We are not allowed to refuse. She is so sweet.
Before we have a chance to start cycling, four obtrusive men are circling around us, telling us it's impossible to cycle to Siem Reap. The condition of the road is definitely too bad for cycling.
No, they will take us there by pickup or minibus, for a reasonable amount of course. Of course...
We wish them a happy day and start our journey.

From here to Siem Reap it's 153 kilometres , mostly unpaved. Too far for one day, so we head for the town of Sisophon, at less than fifty kilometres.
This will turn out to be more than enough though.
Completely covered in sunglasses, hats and mouth caps we start bumping along the road. Riding on the right side of the road only takes a little getting used to, but after the smooth Thai tarmac we really have to adjust to the bad road.
With our hands clenched to the handlebars and our feet stuck onto the pedals we evade the bog potholes, zigzag around sharp rocks, steer away from corrugated bumpy parts and try to avoid getting stuck in the sandy stretches.
The road is brimming with traders; buses, trucks and other old pieces of junk throw up hideous dust clouds.
After ten kilometres we have a short break and look at each other from head to toe.
"You look awful," Peter says to me.
"Did you have a look at yourself?"
"It can't be as bad as you, dirty woman."
"You should wash more often, you are completely grey and red with dust."
The dust sticks to our sweaty bodies and clothes. Indeed: we look like aliens.

It is strange that this 'highway' number five has not been tarred yet. This is one of the country's busiest roads and plans for surfacing have been made years ago but large parts are still no more than a broad dirt track.
The gas stations consist of wooden stalls, exposing booze bottles, most of them Red Label. Filled with petrol.
Once in a while we see a real petrol station, with exotic brands like Sotimex en Tela, but the pumps, which look brand new, don't seem to work. Next to every pump sits an old-fashioned barrel, from where the fuel is pumped by hand. This never fails.

In every village children welcome us with waving, hello's and goodbyes. There's no shortage of children in Cambodia : 40% of the population is fifteen years or younger. For us this means a lot of waving and shouting back the whole day. Anyway, that's bettter than getting suspicious looks.
The official currency is the riel (6000 riel is about one euro), but ten years ago the American dollar was introduced, for whatever reason.
In Sisophon we find a large room for seven dollars in a dilapidated building pretending to be a hotel. But we are glad they don't send us, scare crows, away. Showering takes a little longer than usual today.
During a stroll through the village Peter discovers Cambodia 's biggest attraction: Black Panther, strong dark beer for only half a dollar.
This will be a lovely country for him, watch it.

The second day is even more fun. That's to say, yes and no. Fun are the French breads, a heritage from the French colonial era. No fun is the fact that they don't sell anything like cheese, jam or peanut butter to put on the bread. The Khmer people eat the bread just like that, as a snack.

The scenery is dull: barren rice fields with some palm and mango trees. Wherever some forest is left, people burn it fanatically to provide the new generation with a piece of agricultural land.
The first 72 kilometres are unpaved and the fierce north-eastern wind blows all the dust straight into our faces. To avoid the dust we cycle some parts on the wrong side of the road, but mostly that's impossible, so after an hour we look just as uncivilised as the previous day.
We learn a lot about Cambodian agriculture: men, handling large nets and standing in cold water up to their chests, fish in natural and manmade ponds. Chickens and ducks are big trade; people transport them by hundreds on scooters and motorcycles. The powerless animals hang upside down, with their legs tied to metal racks, their heads and bodies dangling just above the ground. It's impossible to know whether they experience this as an exciting rollercoaster ride, or suffer.

In Cambodia the motorbike is good for transporting anything: bamboo baskets, tied sideways on the luggage carriers, contain adult pigs laying on their backs, legs pointing at the sky, heads dangling from left to right and drool coming out of their mouths. Some of them snore. Ecstaticly?
Actually these are the lucky ones, for other pigs lie tied down by a rubber strap on the back of the saddle without any support. When the bulky animals threaten to slide off the bike, a short stop is needed for another bondage-party. It's obvious that no Party for Animal  Rights is active here.
Like in Thailand , the traditional houses, either old or new, are built on stilts to keep unwanted animal life and monsoon water at bay. During the day the Cambodians live under their homes, enjoying the shade and cooling breeze; from here they observe the passing traffic, lounging in a hammock.
After a mere one hundred kilometres we arrive at Siem Reap, our temporary destination. All of a sudden we're back in the so-called civilisation of brick buildings, shops, hotels and even traffic lights. We are the dirtiest people by far in the city and we don't give a damn.
Nearby Siem Reap sits one of the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World, which dropped out of the top seven only recently. The poor Cambodian people have little access to the internet and thanks to the digital elections they lost their case rightaway.
In next days we will revalue the old world wonder, but first we go for that magical shower.