So what did I know about Cambodia before we entered the country? Very little as usual - "The Killing Fields" film about Khmer Rouge atrocities; my favourite Oxfam T-shirt during the 80s bore one of its former names of Kampuchea; Gary Glitter the 70s glam rock "leader of the gang" had just been deported from there because of his child pornography conviction in England; and Kim Wilde had a UK number 12 hit with "Cambodia" in 1982. We both crossed the border whistling her tune. What we didn't realise pop pickers was that by the end of three and a half weeks Cambodia would make a surprise entry in at number 3 in our favourite country hit list - up there with Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan.Naively I thought that all south east Asian nations would be the same, but could not believe the economic differences between the power house of Thailand and the poor relative of Cambodia. The border town of Poipet was a nightmare. The no-mans land area catered to the gambling needs of the Thais for whom it was illegal to bet in their own land. This would be one of the few areas in Cambodia where you could see any signs of opulence since the place was trying to reinvent itself as a Khmer Las Vegas. Leading out of town was the bumpiest road imaginable, it was being resurfaced by hand. Dozens of workers were carefully selecting rocks and putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Curiously a smooth track the width of a car tyre had been left to allow bikes to play chicken with each other. Although we were obviously the King of the Jungle we tended to give way with more to lose than the locals.

The customs officer must have been joking with us when he said the 150km to Siem Reap (home to the Angkor temples) would take just 1.5 hours. In his dreams, or maybe a jet plane. He was right though when he told us to ask directions at each major town. We had planned to use road signs but discovered to our horror that there were literally none, even though we were travelling to Cambodia's top tourist destination. We had been forewarned of the state of the roads but they did defy belief. Asphalt riddled with deep potholes, peppered with a thick layer of red dust that seeped its way surrepticiously into your lungs. The dust didn't seem to affect Simon luckily, but I coughed and spluttered throughout most of the country despited investing in a surgical-style face mask to wear over my mouth and nose - not very comfortable or cool, but when in Rome ...

The 150km to Siem Reap was both an eye opener and closer. By the time we had crossed the border we only had 2 hours left of sunlight - what a great gadget the GPS is, it can tell you the exact time of sunrise and sunset anywhere in the world on any date past, present or future. There was obviously nowhere to stay en route so we rode the rollercoaster of the road at an uncomfortable pace avoiding the bumper cars whizzing past us. Pick-up trucks laden with produce, machinery, mopeds, furniture and Laurence of Arabia figures, faces protected by towels or even crash helmets, held tightly on in anticipation of the next chasm.

The sunset was glorious behind us but could not be appreciated as it just arrived to soon for us. As the light faded we battled to detect the workers returning on their unlit bicycles from the fields to their homes - they travelled in clouds of dust created by other traffic.

A first "taste" of Cambodian dust

Their villages were unreal. Bamboo shacks on stilts hidden amongst palm trees. There was absolutely no electricity for 150km, not even from generators. As the light failed they lit fires, curiously sometimes just of straw which only hindered our progress, and my lungs, as smoke billowed. You could hear, but not see, people carrying on with their lives but found it difficult to imagine how they could exist in this basic environment. The smells reminded Simon of autumnal bonfires and for me I would not have been shocked if Jack The Ripper had appeared from the gloom. We simply loved it.

We knew that we were approaching civilisation when we spotted the landing lights of incoming planes carrying monied tourists who could afford to avoid the roads or the long boats on the Tonle Sap lake soon bound to suffer the same fate as Campbell's Bluebird whilst trying to break the speed record - we later heard so many backpackers stating "never again".

Siem Reap was one of a kind. We ignored the dozens of posh, tastefully styled hotels well out of our price range to find a guesthouse willing to accommodate 2 scruffy overlanders covered head to foot in red dust. "Welcome back" was their response at seeing us - I suppose all bikers look the same to them. Too tired to convince them otherwise I took advantage of the first hot water for days while Simon cruised round the streets studying the lay of the land. "It's like a war zone out there - land mine victim beggars on every corner. I've been offered drugs and plenty of young girls - oh and I've found a few restaurants."

What to do with the beggars? We knew that the country suffered greatly from the legacy of various factions planting mines during the 1970s, and later, but it was nonetheless a shock to see the results. An estimated 4 to 6 million mines are still out there making vast swathes of land unusable. 40,000 Cambodians have lost limbs, that's the equivalent of one in 275 of the population! Towns and villages have posters educating the people on mine awareness. Eventually the message has got across such that only very recently the number of incidents due to unexploded ordnance (UXO) from the American bombing campaign of the early 1970s is outnumbering those of land mines - still not exactly a statistic to be proud of. There seem to be rehabilitation centres dotted around, some people obviously have taken advantage of the re-education and we saw them back working the fields, driving cattle and riding mopeds with artificial limbs. Others though stood cap in hand, and knee on crutch, on street corners targeting the tourists. Even the bank employees limped and squinted at me when I went in to change money. To give or not to give? The same question we have asked ourselves in various countries since you just can't give to every charity case. Those that tried at least to do something in return, like play a "tune" or "sing", stood more of a chance - no pun intended.

We spent our first day recovering from the previous day's ride. In my study of Asian massage techniques I treated myself to a blind massage by the "Seeing Hands" organisation.

The reason for being in Siem Reap was to visit the ruined temples of Angkor. The one hundred or so temples built between 9th and 14th centuries are "a source of inspiration and national pride to all Khmers as they struggle to rebuild their lives after the years of terror and trauma". We bought a 7 day pass costing a staggering 60 USD each but we were not disappointed. The site was administered by a local oil company and apparently has been failing to re-invest any of the entrance fee in maintaining the temples. Soon though a Japanese company is rumoured to be taking over which is exciting the locals.

Biking round ancient Angkor Wat

The site used to be Asia's best kept secret and has only just returned to the mass tourist trail with the rest of the country deemed safe to travel in. Even though visitors numbers are doubling each year we managed to steer clear of the bus loads of tourists since we were luckily allowed to tour the site on our own bike . We had no plans to walk the well established "Grand Tour" - it's 26km long and doesn't even take in all the temples.

Most of the temples were in a reasonable state of repair and you were able to wander around them at will - fantastic for us but not necessarily for the greater good of their survival. The bas relief carvings were exquisitely detailed.

I couldn't have imagined a more perfect place to celebrate my 35th birthday, though I was pained to admit that Angkor outshone the Mayan ruins in Mexico and Guatemala that I had previously placed on an archeological pedestal.

In the evening we got togged up in our finest and I was treated to cocktails in the swankiest hotel in town - the Grand Hotel d'Angkor. Dinner was followed in the Foreign Correspondents Club and we didn't even have to show our fake press cards purchased in Bangkok to get in.

Nicely polished for Georgie's 35th birthday bash

Somehow we got cajoled into giving blood at the local children's hospital. I hadn't donated in years with the British National Blood Service always rejecting me due to recent vaccinations or having visited dodgey parts of the world. Simon, on the other hand, was eligible for his Blue Peter badge for services to the vampires. We even persuaded a French friend who had never given in her life to join us. You may think that Cambodia would be one of the last places to which you would entrust your immune system, but we were assured that all needles were new and hey you got a free can of coke, packet of biscuits and a T-shirt out of it.

We filled out a very basic form with questions about our medical history and current drug usage. We both genuinely forgot to mention the Happy Pizza we had consumed the previous night because it had had no effect - traditional Khmer cookery makes use of maruajana in its recipes!

I nervously volunteered to give first since Simon was still recovering from his laughing fit when noticing that our lab technician was called Mr Bun Sen. It was over and done with quite quickly to my relief, mainly due to the fact that they only extracted 350ml instead of 500ml since as a nation the Cambodians are much smaller and therefore have less blood!

After a fantastic week around Angkor we set off to discover the real Cambodia making trips that the standard backpacker just couldn't undertake. We headed to the northern border with Thailand. I'd read about a magnificent temple of Prasat Preah Vihear high up in the jungle requiring several days of arduous travel.

En route I continued to marvel at the make-up of a normal Cambodian village. The standard of living was clearly linked to the state of the road surface next to it. The poorest shacks were made of bamboo frond walls and roofing and these were to be found lining the pothole ridden stretches that hadn't been maintained in years or decades. Once the bulldozers had moved in and laid a new smooth tarmac surface the shacks were upgraded to wooden plank walls, corrugated roofing and even rendering. All shacks were mounted on 3 or 4 metres high wooden or bamboo poles that created cooler living quarters and were meant to protect the shack from flooding in the rainy season. The space under the abode was not wasted, it was used for cooking, weaving and shelter for the menagerie of farm animals.

Without fail everyone had dug out a pond in their front garden. The water table was only a few metres deep so it didn't take too much work to fill them. Sometimes they would build many chambers used to section off fish. The most bizarre sight was to watch people fishing with nets in these TINY ponds. There could be no aspect of surprise by what they might catch since they would have put the fish in there in the first place and who knows if they had given them any time to grow.

Regular looks like cherryade, super like limeade, and the brown stuff is Pepsi

We reached the "base camp" town for the 3 day round trip to the temple. Two days would be spent on one of Cambodia's "Highways from Hell" which are up there among the contenders of worst roads in the world. Our guide book described our route as "an absolute howler: seas of sand, swamps of mud, bamboo groves and broken bridges. Don't do it." The masochist in me was secretly looking forward to this challenge, though of course Simon would have to bear most of the hardship keeping the bike upright. So for me it came as a slight disappointment when 2 different sources revealed that a new road had just been opened 5 days previously and would mean the temple could be visited in a single day trip. On the opening day 1000 vehicles made it to the top.

With this information we felt forced to change our plans. It was bound to end in disaster and ...

It was suggested that we set off early at 4am, we got out of bed at 8.30am, had breakfast ...

The road was unsealed but new and smooth for the first 30km and then it just deteriorated into pockets of sand. We were not convinced we were on the right road, wondering how 1000 vehicles made it and how the dignitories put up with the conditions (later we realised that they would have been flown in). Eventually we came across bulldozers ripping up the surface leaving behind cloggy mud and sand. The road had either never really been completed in the first place or it was ruined by opening ceremony vehicles.

Progress was slow and it became obvious that we would not achieve our goal in one day ...

We approached the escarpment and convinced ourselves we could see the temple on the top. We awoke the soldiers, busy swinging in their hammocks with their loaded rifles out of reach, to ask them the way. We started the long pull up the slope only to be defeated by the sand, gravel and gradient. Very relunctantly, frustrated and subdued we agreed to turn back.

Bogged down in dust and gravel halfway up a hill

Land mine clearance is an ongoing task in Cambodia. Various international charities are spending years trying to make the country safe again. I heard that it cost 5 USD to manufacture and lay a mine , but 500 USD to locate and make it safe. We met some interesting guys working for the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) which is based in Manchester. Please take a look at their website at www.mag.org.uk. We were fascinated by the demining process and equipment. We later saw other groups in action right in the middle of a village we were passing through. Not even one metre from the road they were meticulously digging down through mud looking for devices. The villagers would have been living over time bombs for 30 years or more.

No trip could be made to Cambodia without trying to understand a little about the history behind the Khmer Rouge. The country had obviously suffered greatly and no-one was untouched by their actions or legacy. Most Cambodians though are still so traumatised by events that they refuse to talk about them. They look to the future rather than reflect on the past. The Khmer Rouge "implemented one of the most radical and brutal restructurings of a society ever attempted; its goal was to transform Cambodia into a Maoist, peasant-dominated agrarian cooperative". This entailed murdering anyone considered to be influenced by the West, virtually all the intelligentsia - doctors, lawyers, teachers, even people with glasses. We learnt how one of our guesthouse owners got orphaned as a child as a result of this policy, then got route marched for over a year and was forced to work the land en route for 12-15 hours a day. The owner of a very interesting land mine museum in Siem Reap, also orphaned, was forced to lay mines for both the Khmer Rouge and their enemies the Vietnamese. He thought this was a normal childhood until the UN came in to "restore order" and he learnt otherwise.

Landmines - deadly nuggets

Whilst the big towns and villages are regaining normality unfortunately the government is completely ignoring remote villages These are literally left to fend for themselves to rebuild a society. We met 2 Antipodeans who have created an NGO called Rural Aid Development which is providing real hands-on support to these villages. They primarily help them set up schools, provide an appropriate curriculum and then find a volunteer teacher amongst them. In return the teacher gets a vegetable garden planted to support him/her. Then all they have to do is to persuade parents to send the kids to school which is no mean feat.

The capital Phnom Penh has very little to write home about. We heeded the warnings of walking around after sunset. A fellow guest had been mugged on our street at 7pm. We avoided making eye contact with the traffic police like the plague. They were notorious for stopping foreigners on bikes, making up fines on the spot, then telling the perpertrator that it was a Sunday afternoon and the policemen needed some beer money. Simon nearly rode over a policeman's foot when "neither of us saw him" step onto the road in front of us, wave his arms and blow his whistle - honest guvner.

The only things worthy of note in Phnom Penh were the driving, Tuol Sleng museum and the Killing Fields. Like other Asian countries the proportion of mopeds to cars is extremely high. Being in the vicinity of a road junction is perilous yet calm. Driving in Cambodia is on the right, therefore a left hand turn at a junction requires you to cross traffic. Instead of waiting for a gap in the traffic, the Cambodians turn left onto the LEFT hand side of the road riding in the gutter area. Then when a gap appears they move over and slot themselves into the traffic on the correct side. This means that a normal one lane 2-way road ends up with 4 flows. What is amazing is that this anarchy is clearly accepted by all drivers and no horns are hooted at the culprits.

The Tuol Sleng museum was the Khmer Rouge's notorious prison of torture run by Pol Pot. Over a 3 year period 17,000 people passed through the detention centre then ended their lives in the Killing Fields if the torture hadn't killed them already. What was especially shocking was that the prison was a school in the middle of a suburban area before it was commandeered. "Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge was meticulous in keeping records of its barbarism. Each prisoner ... was photographed, sometimes before and after torture". These photos plastered on the museum's walls stared out at you as you walked past.

15km out of the city were the Killing Fields themselves. It was quite a peaceful area with grassed over mass graves, rags of clothes still visible. An "impressive" Memorial Stupa houses 8,000 skulls from some of the disinterred pits was the centre point.

Despite the apparent crime of the city Simon chose to park the bike outside the guesthouse. Every establishment has night security, though sometimes you have to wake them up from their hammocks and mosquito nets to let you in. The bike remained safe from malicious crime. The only thing Simon would have to do in the morning was readjust the mirrors which weren't the right height for the average Cambodian male to squeeze his spots into. Fortunately the bike could not be used for the other popular pasttime - that of nit picking. Like primates, couples spent hours looking through each others hair for lice. I'm not a health expert but I don't think the communal comb found in cafes and restaurants can help matters. This is often accompanied by a range of tatty toothbrushes.

We had been planning to cross directly into southern Laos from the north of Cambodia. We had heard of other bikers doing it in the opposite direction, but after further investigation discovered that it was in fact not an international border. In retrospect we probably could have done it but we decided to change our plans and exit through the south west of Cambodia into Thailand. Since we would only be a stone's throw away from Koh Chang we might have to force ourselves into slumming it out in a bungalow on another palm-fringed beach. A pity.

With that in mind we still headed north to make a short trip up the Mekong to Kratie, home of some Irrawaddy dolphins. The journey was relatively simple on the first day, fantastic metalled roads out of the capital and a short lunch break in Skuon. I just had to savour the town's "delicacy" of deep fried spiders. It didn't take long to find a tray full of the black hairy arachnoids. I selected my poison and asked the young girl how I should eat it. One advice was to eat it like a crab and remove the flesh from the legs.

Will she really do it?

I didn't fancy dwelling on the matter, so throwing all caution to the wind I shoved the front legs and body into my mouth and crunched hard. I tentatively chewed a little, inserted the rest and then swallowed. The taste? Well it had been heavily deep fried with garlic which masked any other flavour. I'll never do it again.

Guess she did!

For the second day the guide book recommended a route only viable to bikes in the dry season. We found the local ferry across the Mekong then startled hundreds of locals as we pottered through their riverside villages. Gaggles of women, young and old, rose from their bamboo lazing platforms to cheer us along. Kids screamed and shouted. I remained on waving duty all day.

We picked a quiet spot for lunch hoping in vain to be left in peace. Kids appeared from nowhere but kept a respectable distance. I, on the otherhand, decided to play them at their own game and went to check out what the women were sifting for in the water. From a distance it had looked like shell fish but turned out to be gravel. They motioned at me to join them in the water. Not a bad idea in the sweltering heat, but the water was actually amazingly warm and the bottom slimely with mud because they had removed all the bloody gravel. Up to my waist in water I attempted to follow their instructions by dredging the bottom with a huge sieve - yes you've guessed it made out of bamboo. I only succeeded in mining a few stones so I got slapped on the backside and sacked with immediate effect.

A geography lesson using the "map on the pannier"

More remote villages, some of which were Muslim, but still with the same warm welcome. We were constantly surprised at the state of dress of the school children. They cycle to and from school in hordes along dusty roads. They have 4 journeys a day since there is a morning session from 7am to 9.30am and then an afternoon one from 2pm until 5pm. But their white shirts were always spotless in defiance with nature. I am sure that school teachers bemoaned the day that we turned up in their village, since I can imagine the concentration levels of the kids dropping as they surrepticiously discussed the day the martians whizzed passed them.

The day the Martians landed

Bridges were still being constructed across tributaries into the Mekong so free ferry crossings were provided. One of these was a real push-me pull-you as the "skipper" manoeuvred the vessel by pulling on a cable straddling the waterway.

7 hours and just 119km later we reached Kratie to find another old French colonial town with crumbling facades. An unusually large proportion of pharmacies revealed another French legacy. There were 4 on our small street, some of them nursing kids on beds with intravenous drips. An English VSO nurse we met told us how the Cambodians always asked for injections rather than pills - seems they didn't adopt the French obsession for suppositories. She also told us that they were big gamblers and following England's victory over Argentina in the World Cup there were at least 8 known suicides. I didn't realise how much we were the underdogs.

I don't know how, but I managed to persuade Simon that we needed to have an early start to get the best view of the dolphins. So at 7am we were already on the banks of the Mekong watching from a long boat the freshwater Irrawaddys in their natural environment. We were the only souls there which made it quite special.

Many guesthouses surprisingly had cable TV which allowed us to keep up to date with the looming war and Man Utd progress in the Premiership - live matches shown on Saturday and Sunday evenings. We didn't however expect to hear on CNN that our travel plans out of Cambodia had been scuppered. The border with Thailand had been closed following riots in Phnom Penh and the burning down of the Thai Embassy along with Thai businesses! Cambodian students became enraged after a Thai soap opera actress announced that the Angkor temples rightfully belonged to Thailand! Well that was just red rag to a bull. It was a bit like Kylie Minogue claiming that the Tower of London was Australian. Thailand immediately closed the borders in disgust and started compiling the bill for damages.

We still had places to visit in the south so we decided to carry on as planned and hope that diplomatic relations would soon be resumed, although the coming Chinese New Year festivities would slow things down.

These celebrations seemed to go on for days. We were rudely awoken one morning to the noise of firecrackers and a Chinese dragon dancing outside our window. Kids were in their element with a free rein to light firecrackers and create as much mayhem as possible.

Over this period we were down on the south coast in Kampot, a relatively large town world famous for its peppercorns. I bought 1.5 kilos for 2.50 USD - I hope the family can help out. Of course the local cuisine incorporated the spice - we particularly enjoyed the 'Pork with Block Paper' we were ordered from a dodgy menu. I must say though that the real highlight and bargain were the delicious steamed crabs - forget Cromer.

Our final tourist destination was Bokor Hill Station, built by the French at the begining of the 1900s. The attraction was the abandoned buildings in remarkable structural condition - a grand colonial hotel, catholic church, post office amongst others. It had a real ghost town feel to it especially since it sat perched on the edge of a 1000m escarpment with clouds swirling below. The climb up there through the jungle on the bike was pretty hairy. I don't think the road had been maintained since being built in 1917. I performed my usual trick of head down by the cylinders to help Simon keep the bike's front wheel down as he battled against the rocks. 34km took 2.5 hours.

After a night spent in the ranger station we descended to Kampot and phoned the British embassy to get advice on the border situation. Well it was apparently still closed, but we decided to chance our luck and hope that by the time we reached Koh Krong the 2 parties would be speaking to each other again.

We were not shocked to find out that our embassy's information was incorrect, though the Cambodian border guards were twiddling their thumbs. "Not busy?" we asked. That was an understatement. They complained that the Thai authorities were dissuading tourists from visiting Cambodia telling them that it wasn't safe. Their claim proved to be true. Trying to play the tough guys the Thai border guards attempteed to intimidate us by keeping us locked out from their country whilst they decided whether they would let us in or not since we had just been in such "an unsavoury and uncouth" country. They could find no reason to refuse us so they relunctantly let us in. "We will do a full body search you know". "OK, whatever". They never laid a finger on us.

At the immigration post I made the unfortunate mistake of saying thank you in Khmer and not Thai, though I corrected myself immediately. The officer shouted back at me "Don't like Cambodia. Cambodia no good".

All in all our sympathies lay with Cambodia.

Back in Thailand our priority was to find another idyllic spot on an island to chill out on. Koh Chang proved to be far removed from the general sleaze of Koh Samui. The bungalow we chose was only seriously accessible by walking 1km along the beach. Simon though had to practice his off roading skills down an extremely steep and sandy track to get our gear to our accommodation.

We spent a week voraciously racing through books and catching up on suntans. Koh Chang, as an island, was much more sedate and our cup of tea - just as many sex tourists though but fewer semi naked arseholes on mopeds.

I popped into a typical tourist shop to ask about the music that was blaring out. We had heard this particular song for a couple of months, it was catchy and I wanted to know who the singer was. I found out it was the number one artist in Thailand, a kind of Robbie Williams? "This singer is very popular with the tourists. Many farangs (foreigners) by the CD. In fact once I was asked to post 10 ..." The man paused trying to think of the correct word in English. I helped him out "Copies?", the word I would use in such a situation. Slightly outraged he blurted out "Oh no madam, not copies, ORIGINALS. If we made copies and tried to sell them the police would visit and we would be in big trouble." He made me laugh. This is the voice of a nation only too willing to rip off every single other foreign artist by pirating their music. You could pick up copied CDs in Bangkok for under 2.5 USD.

On this occasion Thailand was only meant to be a transit country on our way to Laos. So we peeled ourselves away from the island life and headed on our way.

Our faith in the Thai people was restored in the last town we visited. We were chased down the street by a girl on a moped. She handed us a note saying the photo shop had overcharged us for some processing they had done for us and she wanted to give us back 30 USD! Now that I call honesty.

And now our thoughts turned to Laos, a country that so many people were raving about. Could it really be that good and surpass Cambodia???

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Number of weeks =3.5/2
Miles in country= 1,535/685
Kilometres in country = 2,455/1,095
Total miles so far = 20,230
Total kilometres so far = 32,371
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