Fah Thai saddles up for two Cambodian cycling-for-a-cause multi-day itineraries. Then it’s off to Laos, where Luang Prabang is recommended for a two-wheel, 360-degree-windshield adventure
Along for the PEPY Ride
Peter Myers does Phnom Penh to Kep with team PEPY, joining a gang of fund-raising cyclists on the annual 22-day Siem Reap to Kep riding expedition
My panniers full of energy bars and the requisite hydration tablets, a camel pack on my back, and clad in tight padded shorts and a funky PEPY top, I was ready. It was 6am; I gazed drowsily around at my 17 new companions. They looked back at me, benignly. Their thighs looked steely; that’s what happens when you’ve cycled for 11 of the last 15 days, I presumed.
I had joined PEPY’s fifth annual ride for the last leg, from Phnom Penh to Kep. The others had been hard at it all the way from Siem Reap. Seven days later, they would have clocked up 1,000km. Tanned and swarthy, some had ominous bruises on their legs. I tried to disguise a shiver.
The PEPY Ride is about as far from a coach tour as it’s possible to get. Although a truck loaded with kitbags meets up with the group on a couple of occasions, the trip is largely unsupported. Emotional support is, however, ever ready. We had Lucky, a seven-time Cambodia road bike champion as our super-fit guide, spurring us on; aided by PEPY staffer Rithy, another strong cyclist and potent wit; Katy Vidler, English-Rose team leader; and infectiously enthusiastic PEPY founder, Daniela Papi.
I saddled up; it was a cruel irony that my first day happened to be the trip’s longest, an arduous 130km.
Soon we were whooshing away from the motorbike- and tuk-tuk-riddled suburbs of the capital, down muddy, water-hyacinth-bedecked towpaths. “There’s a killing field on the left,” Lucky shouted over to me, nonchalantly.
I thought back to the lunch we’d had in Phnom Penh the day before with Loung Ung, genocide activist and spokesperson for Campaign for a Landmine-Free World. Best known as the author of First They Killed My Father, Ung was five years old at the start of the Pol Pot regime.
At 10, she managed to escape to Vietnam, then America, where she now lives. She recited the statistics to me: 80 to 100 landmine victims a month; one in 65 Cambodians are amputees (compared to one in 22,000 in the US). For Ung, the most important thing is not to clear Cambodia of every mine, but to make sure there are none where people are. Cambodians need to feel safe to live their lives.
We traversed a rickety bridge and screeched to a stop; one of the group had a flat. The most go-faster cyclist in the group, Kip, 42, who hails from South Carolina, displayed an F1-style capacity for changing said tyre in under two minutes. A former pro cyclist, Kip is a veteran of cross-country-, 12-and 24-hour- and down-hill races. He has also owned and run bike shops. He emailed to tell me that his latest venture in his hometown of Greenville, selling used bikes and parts, is Lucky Cycles, named after our Cambodian guide.
I managed to stay in the first six that first morning, gulping down three heavenly glasses of sugarcane juice at the 70km mark. Cycling through rice paddies of the greenest green, we enjoyed a lazy lunch: a scrumptious Cambodian meal imbibed on hammocks at a riverside restaurant in the small town of Takeo.
Come afternoon, I had fallen behind – a pattern that was to be repeated over the coming days. Afternoons weren’t kind to the “seating components”, a term I picked up from our oldest teammate, Eli, 65, a Texan originally from Mexico City.
“The seating components are the worst thing about cycling,” he said sagely, noting my cowboy-style walk.
The pain was alleviated by the cacophony of children’s “hellos”, 1,000 a day at least. Sometimes the calls would emanate almost pleadingly from wooden houses hidden behind the tree line; other times euphorically, the kids holding out their hands along the roadside to be high-fived.
Conversation also raised the spirits. PEPY riders, I quickly ascertained, are wonderful people; eloquent, thoughtful, selfless. When questioned, they all said – from 17-year-old Lindsay (her father wanted her to have a character-building experience and signed her up; she didn’t let him down) to group elder Eli – that they wanted to have a great holiday, a new experience, while giving something back.
A running joke on the trip was couched in grades of fun; “Fun A”, “Fun B” and “Fun C” – a concept developed via experiences the group had shared. The first kind of fun is both enjoyable at the time and in retrospect; the second, only in retrospect; and the third is neither fun at the time nor in retrospect. It was emblematic that the group’s can-do attitude saw experience “C” still prefixed in such a way.
Post-ride, Japan-based Anne Smith summed up the spirit: “It was a challenge that kind of broke me down and then made me stronger… it changed my perception of what I’m capable of. Now I want to go anywhere and everywhere, but I don’t think I can go back to doing it through typical means.”
The trip was certainly one of the most arduous I’ve done – forgotten reserves of energy and mind-over-matter propulsion frequently had to be engaged to get through those Fun B moments where, sweat and sunscreen blinding the eyes, hamstrings threatening to snap, one might well choose to simply lie down and expire by a dusty roadside ditch.
Since the trip, Eli, who counsels chronic-pain patients, has been using the video footage he took in Cambodia as part of his therapy sessions; he reports that the adventure and camaraderie that the videos portray is working as a “medicine from their pain and worries… it encourages them to seek and find strength in themselves instead of expecting it to come from outside sources.”
But Eli doesn’t really need props; his inner-strength is all-pervasive. At the time of writing he was off on a two-month, coast-to-coast bike ride across the US.
We slept the first night at Chhuk, in a far-from-salubrious roadside guesthouse. Next door, we took over an outdoor restaurant and a banquet appeared. I’ll always remember that meal, while any number of special-occasion treats at top-end restaurants have blended into one. Food tastes better of course when sprinkled with the smug feeling of being on an adventure that 99% of the upwardly mobile population wouldn’t dream of undergoing.
A serious camaraderie develops on this kind of trip. Songs are invented during the endless pedalling; we came to know 17 other people’s life stories. But, unlike most expedition-style holidays, evenings on the PEPY Ride were spent debating things like the “white man’s burden” and the newcolonisation of Cambodia by NGOs. How much help can and should outsiders give? Change has to come from within, we agreed; development work has to be sustainable.
Arriving at The Vine Retreat (turn to page 98 for more on this pepper-vine enshrouded eco-lodge) 16km from Kep, the group was elated. After 1,000km, everyone was ready for some beach time. I shared a small slice of their sense of achievement. Saltwater healed chafed limbs. Beachside hammocks rocked the riders to sleep.
But the cycling was not over. We went on to explore Kampot Province over the next few days. We visited a handicraft village named Chamcar Bei which makes astonishingly chichi jewellery from coconut husks, hand-woven kramas (traditional Khmer scarves) and “Funky Junk” – turning plastic bags into yarn, then into a range of zippy handicrafts (www.funkyjunkrecycled.com). We explored a 72ha mangrove forest at Kampong Sammaki, where a community works together to protect their land against illegal encroachment and commercial fishing. The villagers are trying to create community based mangrove tour options to raise money. PEPY is helping them to achieve this.
Of all the NGOs we visited, I was most impressed by the creativity of RDI Cambodia (www.rdic.org). Traipsing around their outdoor-indoor lab-cum-campus just outside the capital, we met arsenic-testing scientists, explored a studio where education videos are filmed, and a pottery, where a trademark ceramic filtration system is produced. RDI churns out 96 pots a day, which are then sold to villages for US$10 to help decontaminate their water supply.
Mention also has to go to Cambodian Living Arts (CLA; www.cambodianlivingarts.org), which “works to support the revival of traditional Khmer performing arts”. We joined an all-singing, all-dancing rehearsal in their basic Phnom Penh shophouse space. The kids demonstrated their yoga-like warm-up of sciatica-inducing poses. A boy began banging a drum and Khmer songs rang through the room like an exaltation, the dancers moving assuredly to the percussion. An elderly teacher looked on, she must have witnessed all her fellow artisans fall to the deadly regime. Afterwards, the children asked us if practising traditional dance was such an uphill struggle in other countries. It wasn’t, we had to reply.
“It’s not what you can do for the world,” said PEPY-founder Daniela – paraphrasing Harold Whitman – on our last evening together, “it’s what makes you come alive, because the world needs people who are alive.”
Before we all went our separate ways, we were each given a little notebook. In these, the rest of the group had written shared anecdotes and witticisms, along with some private thoughts. It’s my guess these notebooks will remain a treasured possession of the PEPY riders for a very long time.
“I’m often asked how we find riders to come on our trips,” Daniela told us. “But they find us. And this year was the best one yet.”
PEPY’s learning and cycling tours are set to increase, including Laos to Cambodia rides. No time for a full-on 22-day trip?
Custom trips or three- to nine-day rides are run depending on demand. The 6th Annual PEPY Ride begins in December 2010.
Visit http://pepytours.com to sign up; 2009 tour price: US$1,500 (plus bike rental of $200), minimum fundraising limit: US$1,500.
THE PEPY STORY
PEPY (Protect Earth, Protect Yourself) was
born in 2005, soon after founder Daniela Papi and friends went on a bike ride in Cambodia to raise funds for a school.
An non-profit organisation, PEPY is funded in part through educational, volunteer and adventure-style tours. It exists to improve access to quality education in rural Cambodia.
“Our focus now is on building the capacity for community leaders and teachers to better solve their own problems,” explains Daniela. “Our tours are focused on exposing travellers to the issues surrounding development. We let them know what lessons we’ve learned to hopefully influence how they give, travel and live in the future.”
The annual PEPY Ride is its biggest tour fundraiser. PEPY commits to allocating 100% of donated money towards programme costs, not organisational overheads, which is covered by alternate funding.
Visit http://pepyride.org
Welcome to the jungle
Duncan Forgan spends three days negotiating the Cardamom Mountains to reach ecotourism gateway Chi Phat
The river appears without warning as we race through the jungle and emerge in a sandy meadow of swaying golden grass. Carving its way lazily through the foliage with the mid-afternoon sun sprinkling diamonds of light over its surface, the water would look seductive in any circumstance.
The fact that I have spent the last six hours negotiating the network of bumpy tracks that penetrate the Cardamom Mountains on a bike makes the idea of a soothing dip seem even more alluring. My legs are bearing up, but my battered haunches are in dire need of some attention after a day on a saddle with the dimensions of a small garden trowel.
As I prepare to envelop my aching muscles in the water’s cool embrace, my reverie is disturbed by my guide Lee: “You can’t swim there,” he shouts. “Too many crocodiles.”
Sinister undercurrents are never far from the idyllic surface in this part of the world. Nestled next to the Thailand border, the region is one of the last remaining wilderness areas in mainland South-East Asia – the Cardamoms shelter globally threatened species such as the Indochinese tiger, the Asian elephant and the Siamese crocodile.
More nefarious elements have also found solace amidst the virgin jungle. It was from these remote border areas that Khmer Rouge guerrillas kept alive Cambodia’s civil war while, in recent times, impoverished locals have plundered the protected forests to boost their meagre earnings.
Such activities have exacted an environmental toll on this wondrous landscape of emerald forest, wild flowers, rushing streams and meandering rivers, but the arrival of tourism in the area is at last providing an affirmative alternative.
My guide is testament to this fact. A rice farmer and
one-time hunter, Lee Heng is forging a new career for himself thanks to the community based eco-tourism project that is now attracting a steady trickle of intrepid adventures to his home commune of Chi Phat.
Comprised of four small villages on the banks of the Piphot River, the commune sits 20km north of the
N.48 highway between the southern beach resort of Sihanoukville and the border town of Koh Kong, and takes five hours to reach from the capital. So far and so obscure – but the village’s potential as a base for adventures in the Cardamoms was tapped in early ’07 when the US-based NGO Wildlife Alliance established a base there.
Villagers were trained in hospitality, English, sanitation, first-aid and waste management, and a handful of private operators were brought in to form the Friends of Chi Phat tour group which works with Wildlife Alliance to bring in visitors. Most of the proceeds go directly to villagers providing services such as lodging, cooking, guiding and bike maintenance, while the remainder goes towards daily operation costs as well as improving education and roads.
In short it’s all very worthy, but Chi Phat is a long way from being a sympathy stop for bleeding hearts, and the hardships are worth it for a heady swig of unadulterated Asia in breathtaking surrounds.
My first day is spent following the Burial Jar trail into the mountains. The 44km there-and-back route – one of two devised in consultation with former loggers – meanders over rolling grassland before forging deeper into the jungle.
A simple picnic lunch of rice and pork followed by small, sweet bananas is taken at the halfway point underneath a rock outcrop on which ancient burial jars sit. Only recently discovered, these jars are believed to date back 700 years to when the Khmer empire ruled the roost over much of South-East Asia. The journey back down to the village is less comfortable, but it is hard to complain too much when the only sound is that of a bike sluicing through a crystal-clear stream, and the nearest living things are impossibly hued butterflies and the occasional wild pig.
Back at HQ, an ice-cold Angkor beer and an enormous plate of thumb-sized shrimps awaits me. So too does Oran Shapira, a 33-year-old Israeli working in Chi Phat for Wildlife Alliance. I ask him about the progress of the project.
“The villagers have been dependent on the forest for their livelihoods for years and many don’t understand the concept of conservation too well,” he says. “That’s not going to change overnight, but as more tourists come, many are realising that there’s a viable alternative to what has gone before.”
The crocodiles may remain but the coast seems to be getting clearer in this part of the Cardamoms by the day.
The three-day trip to Chi Phat costs from US$120. That includes transport to/from Phnom Penh, transfers, food, accommodation and guiding, and bike-hire costs. www.asia-adventures.com
Distant Dreams
Northern Laos offers some of Asia’s greatest cycling, writes Steve Thomas. Be it a day tour or a month-long epic, there’s no better way to discover this magical land than on two wheels.
It was getting towards that time of day, mid afternoon during the Laos rainy season. We were laden with exotic wares from remote hill tribe villages and had around half an hour of off-road cycling ahead of us until we reached Luang Prabang. Overhead lurked 15 minutes of potential rain-free ride time before an inevitable drenching.
Once you hit the remote dirt trails of northern Laos by bike, it’s all too easy to get drawn in and to just keep riding further into what is a cultural biking wonderland. But during the rainy season it’s advisable to limit your adventures with a mid-afternoon curfew (though the occasional drenching is all part of the fun).
Sensing the impending torrential downpour was almost upon us, I urged my ride partner to cut the haggling and to hit the trail – at full speed. The local kids had surrounded us, fascinated by the two-wheeled foreigners who had ventured away from the main strip and into their village.
It was getting harder to leave by the minute – they all wanted their picture taken, and a ride on my bike.
As the dark storm clouds rolled over the lush green mountains we made a dash for it, desperately trying to remember the way back to town. But it was already too late. The locals ran for cover and grinned in bewilderment as we splashed at full pelt along the murky trails.
Visibility was down to about three metres when we decide to run for shelter. But by then we were already soaked to the skin, and I could hear the slow hiss of a flattening tyre. Dripping and panting, we arrived back in town and at the bike hire shop – just 10 short minutes before the rains stopped again, typical.
Looking back, the rain had somehow turned a ride into an adventure, one that we’ll remember. The rest of the day was spent wrapped in hotel towels – that was the last of our dry clothes. But there can’t be too many better ways to discover this amazing land, at any time of the year.
You don’t have to be a racing snake or hardened adventurer to have a great cycling experience in or around Luang Prabang; there are several operators and agents around town who offer single and multi-day cycling tours. But if you’re feeling brave, just hire a bike and follow your nose.
THREE GREAT BIKING DAYTRIPS AROUND LUANG PRABANG
Bike around the city (7km easy circular route)
At one time bike rental was banned in Luang Prabang (LP), but now you can rent bikes of all standards in town. Discovering the city by bike is the best way to go, especially if you want to see the old market and follow the river road around town. This makes an ideal half-day introduction to the city, or a warm-up to something more epic.
Bikes, boats, baskets and whisky (easy to medium grade, for a full-day)
You can either do this alone, or you can take an organised tour. Using back roads and dirt roads, ride to Ban Phanom and Ban Pick Noi, where you can see local ethnic minorities and the region’s basket weavers. Next, hop on a local boat to cross the river (you can also visit local caves by boat), and then head back through Ban Xang Hai, where locals produce a near-lethal local whisky.
Kuang Si Waterfall
These spectacular falls are 32km to the south of LP. The recently paved road leading there makes for a great day trip. There are some good trekking and swimming options at the falls too.
THREE CLASSIC NORTHERN LAOS CYCLING ADVENTURES
Luang Prabang – Vientiane
The classic Laos cycling adventure; the spectacular old road linking the old and new capital cities is a tough 440km of riding, passing through some of the best mountain scenery in the whole region. Overnights are recommended at Muang Phu Khun, Kasi and Vang Vieng (to avoid the big climb take a bus ride from LP for the first 80km).
The Northern Loop
From LP the hilly old mountain road leads north to Oudom Xai and Luang Namtha. From here take in a three-day excursion to Muang Sing, and then on to Vieng Phoukha, Houei Xai, and then pick up the slow boat back to LP. This will take seven or more days – and it’s hilly.
Chiang Mai – Luang Prabang
An all time classic (and flexible) overland road bike tour. From Chiang Mai ride to Phayao, and then follow the back roads to Chiang Khong. From here either follow the northern route in reverse, or take the two-day slow boat to LP. It’s around three days to Chiang Khong, then take your pick.
The Lao rainy season is from June to September; it can get muddy off-road. Visit www.greendiscoverylaos.com or www.laos-adventures.com For the best Laos and Thai cycling maps, visit www.gt-rider.com
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