Cambodia Summary

Writing a summary of cycling through a country is always a challenge, as you want to be complete without overdoing it... In any case, Cambodia was great. It was very beautiful most of the time, and especially: we had a lot of great cycling. Sure, there were quite a few long, hot, bumpy, dusty stretches too - yet we often found good alternatives to the main roads, but not always. We had fantastic riding, and especially the Cardamoms were incredible. Very challenging, and probably almost impossible in the rainy season, but unforgettable. Whenever we found small roads away from the main roads, we mostly found ourselves on dirt roads, often very good to cycle on (a good dirt road is much better than a sealed road in bad condition), sometimes also very bumpy, and we even cycled on some single tracks too.

The first days, from Siem Reap to Battambang, we had some long stretches of straight, flat, hot, boring road - but at least with a decent hard shoulder to ride on.

When we found small roads, they were very beautiful - and often bumpy - dirt roads but that's fine

Road construction - all the way from Sisophon to Battambang it seems; again, luckily, we could do part of this day on small and beautiful dirt roads

Dirt roads of all sizes and shapes, this one being one of the smaller, rougher tracks

From Pursat to Pramaoy, all on a perfect new road

On a lot of the main roads we cycled on, there were road constructions works going on. Road construction means: worse traffic chaos - although that was usually not too bad, bad road surface, and most of all: more dust! The itinerary we chose was good, it was a bit of a zig zag going south, but it was beautiful; flat for the first part, hilly from the moment we entered the Cardamoms pretty much until we left Chi Phat. Except for a few stretches where I really had to use some navigation to find our directions, it was mostly easy to find our way (using Google Maps most of the time)

A very challenging yet magnificent ride, from Pramaoy to Osoam. Impossible in the rainy season!

We used quite several small ferries, like this one on the way to Osoam

Riding in the dessert?

Road construction, with a rocky surface as a result, and "clear" road signs

And dust, dust...

We loved the people in Cambodia. There were friendly without exception. Their friendliness felt very genuine, spontaneous, honest, peaceful. We did not get the over-enthusiastic hello's you sometimes get (typically from teenage boys showing off), it was never over the top - just nice and pleasant. We were welcomed with millions of hello's, wherever we cycled, especially from children but also adults. Cambodia is a poor country however, you notice this from the moment you leave the main tourist centers. Even as we left Siem Reap, we went through some small back roads and saw the poverty in this otherwise relatively wealthy town. You find mostly simple houses, but here and there you find small "castles" - an indication of the big existing difference between rich and poor. There are not that many cars, but from those on the road, a lot are expensive ones. You also just feel there is a lot of corruption in this country - and we heard quite a few shocking stories too. Someone, who had been a teacher at university, told us that some students even put money in their exam papers for example!!!

Fishing on a lake close to Tonle Sap

The villages were mostly charming and pleasant, with wooden, often colorful houses on stilts. Houses seem to be maintained OK, but along the roads there is a lot of rubbish everywhere. I had the impression Cambodia starts to work on it, and here and there we saw people cleaning up (mostly children! probably school related...), but there is still a long way to go... As in most countries, there are lots of dogs roaming around in the villages, but they were friendly - I guess it relates back to the people's friendliness. And a fun thing: in most villages, we saw groups of men in what looked like the local cafe, all watching TV. They were watching cock fights on TV!!! Seems to be a favorite pass time in Cambodia!

A village on the way to Osoam, in the Cardamom Mountains

Chi Phat village

And then practically. First of all, communication. It was not that easy to communicate. Khmer is very difficult to speak or understand, and impossible to read; also my knowledge of Thai did not help. The language barrier is quite big, although people often do big efforts to be able to talk. It meant that ordering food was often problematic, which is probably the reason we ate a lot of noodle soup. Often that was the only thing we could get ordered... We had some very nice food in Cambodia (papaya salad or bok lahong, khmer curry, banana flower salad, ...) whenever we could properly order, but also a lot of very simple, bland food. And then: fruit!!! So much fruit, so nice, and so cheap. It became a habit, a daily big portion of fruit, often during our morning breaks.

Lunch stop in a small village; the owner of the restaurant called another woman who spoke a bit of English...

Accommodation was mostly fine, sometimes really nice, sometimes a bit less. Less would be a smelly room, without aircon, with a bad mattress - but that did not happen much. There is a difference in Cambodia between hotels and guest houses - the latter is where we usually stayed. I'm not sure what the actual difference is, I guess hotels are bigger and usually more upmarket, more expensive. We usually paid 10 to 20 USD for a good room, sometimes even a bit less. Costs became clearly a bit more expensive from Chi Phat to Kampot, compared to where we traveled before that.
A small practical note for potential Cambodia travelers: we had both a Smart and a Metfone sim card; Smart was always the better one.

No, not our guest house in Battambang, but the only historical Khmer ruins we visited

Kampot pepper is grown throughout Cambodia, and in many places you'll find pepper left in the sun to dry

Although we liked Cambodia very much, and we had intended to stay for more than a month, we changed our plan. The idea was to ride up north from Kampot, and cross into Vietnam higher up. For that, we needed and additional 2 weeks and thus had to extend our visa, and that could have taken too much time. So we cut the trip short a little, and rode into Vietnam at the southernmost border crossing. No complaints though, Vietnam is very nice too!!! But so, Cambodia was marvelous, and the highlights for us would be: the Cardamom mountains (tough, but fantastic, probably not feasible in the rainy season), Chi Phat, and Kampot (where we had some very nice cycling days in the region). The absolute "lowlights": Sihanoukville and the N4.