T
his year’s wet season
had come earlier than
previous years: which
meant that the six day
trip we had coming up
in June was going to be entertaining.
Ian and brothers; Scott & Tim had
booked the date several months in
advance, but before we all knew it
the day had arrived. After a barbe-
cue welcome dinner and an early’ish
night we were soon heading to one
of our favourite parts of the country
to ride, the Cardamom Mountains;
remote, wild and full of amazing
riding, from fire trails and awesome
single-track to technical, rocky hill
climbs and descents, enough to keep
even the hard enduro crowd happy.
Ian & Scott’s weapon of choice was
the Yamaha WRF250 and Tim was on
a Honda CRF250X. They were all ac-
complished riders and had been in
training, to get bike fit for this tour.
We set off early with me up front,
La sweeping and Nuon was in the
support truck taking up the rear. We
were soon on windy, sandy trails
leaving Siem Reap. Today’s riding
was fairly easy, so everyone could get
used to their bikes and acclimatise.
[Even the Australians struggle a bit
with the humidity here.]
After a tight forest section, where
Tim had the first crash of the trip, we
were soon crossing the flood plains
of the northern part of the Tonle Sap
Lake passing through some scenic
villages on the way. This time of year
it is still doable but the surrounding
TRAVERSE
29
fields were filling up and it would
soon be a quagmire. Even so, we had
some fun in the ruts and Scott was the
first to get properly roosted [by Ian if
I remember correctly] we stopped
for quite a late lunch at a great local
restaurant we always use. By the time
we finished it was nearly 4pm, so the
guys opted to jump on the highway
for the last few km to the hotel. After
a tasty beef soup we were ready for
bed.
We had a good night’s sleep and
were raring to go. Today we entered
the first proper part of the Carda-
moms. The rain made the riding a
lot more challenging and we had to
tackle ruts and muddy bogs as we cut
through the surrounding grasslands
before the terrain got higher. After a