some of the mud from the bikes.
Packet noodles never tasted so good!
The next section you wouldn’t have
thought it was the wet season, as the
deep sand tossed us around on our
bikes. We were making good time
and arrived in Srey Ambel near the
coast around 2pm.
There was an option to follow the
coast for a bit and then cut through
the mangroves towards Kampot, but
the lads were exhausted and liked the
idea of getting to the beach for sun-
set. We gritted our teeth and endured
the highway route, arriving in Kep
around 5pm. Nuon was waiting for us
with ice cold beers which were a wel-
come end to the ride for today.
We all jumped in the pool that
overlooked the gulf of Thailand with
beers, buzzing and still not quite be-
lieving the fun we had had the last
few days. That evening we took a Tuk
Tuk and went to one of the many sea-
food restaurants on the sea front. We
had a wide variety of dishes cooked
up in the Khmer way including crab
with the famous Kampot pepper. A
good end to the day!
We had a fair amount of distance to
do on the last day, so after checking
out Kep’s famous salt plains, we were
back in the nearby hills as we entered
Phnom Voar Mountain.
Three backpackers were kid-
napped from the train and held here
before they were executed back in
1994. It was a Khmer Rouge strong-
hold in the earlier years of the war
and a frequent target of B52 bombers.
The routes we were on however were
safe and cleared of mines and UXO.
Phnom Voar, which means Vine
Mountain, is now famous for its pep-
per plantations and the world famous
organic Kampot pepper is grown
here. It is a very picturesque part of
the country especially at this time of
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year with the thriving rice fields and
pepper plantations, giving off differ-
ent shades of green.
As we neared the top of the hill
we stopped to take in the scenery,
with the pepper plantation spreading
away as far as the eye could see, with
the rice fields, salt flats and finally the
ocean in the distance. Ancient lime-
stone hills called Karst formations
were jutting up across the landscape,
making it a very unique landscape.
We carried on and dropped back
down to flat ground. The rest of the
day consisted of red dirt roads and a
little bit of single track. Prior to get-
ting in to Phnom Penh we stopped at
Choeung Ek: The Killing Fields, so
Ian & the boys could get more per-
spective on what happened during
the civil war. Over two million people
were killed during the civil war; near-
ly a quarter of the population, and
Choeung Ek was one of many Killing