Motorbike Madness – Koh Rong, Cambodia  (10.7° North, 103.2° East)

Putting the adventure in travel?

What happens when you land at a dock in the small island of Koh Rong in the middle of the Gulf of Cambodia at dusk, and you are far from where you need to be? Oh, and there are no roads and no boat to get you where you need to go?

We had taken our five-hour “VIP” minivan ride from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville thinking we would just hop on our 30 minute ferry ride to the finale hotel in our Asia adventure.  Then…from the bus station, we took a tuk tuk to the pier and Tanner was only a little head sticking out above the luggage.  The ferry takes off a little late and we land on the island of Koh Rong as the sun sets.

Topher is happy as we think we are just minutes away from our “splurge” hotel when we are approached by two locals who want to take us on motor bike.  Topher said “Ha ha ha, no thank you,” and proceeded to call our hotel.  The hotel said, “Our boat driver and crew have gone home for the day. It is monsoon season and the boat doesn’t even run every day.  Try to get here by any means you can,”

It turns out that “Ha ha ha, no thank you” is how you say  “yes”, as this was the one and only way to get to the Royal Sands at Long Beach.  We had to make a fast decision as the sun was going down. Either hop on three motorbikes to take a crazy circuitous trip to the resort or take a pass on our prepaid beach villa for one night, which is a rare treat we chose as the finale of the Asia leg of our trip.

The rolling suitcase went on first, then the driver and then me with my backpack. In procession, we set off with the three bikes – the second with Tanner and the last with Topher.  My driver said, “no problem 35 minutes.”  To be honest, I am definitely one for adventure, however, we are lucky to have gotten through this alive, and those words are absolutely no joke and not an exaggeration in any way!

We take off down the beach over uneven rocks through the wet sand at the water’s edge and then begin to climb a hill that is so steep we have to get off the bikes and walk a quarter-mile on foot.  It was now dark and Topher catches his foot, falls, lands hard and his head is bleeding a little. At this point I am ready to give up the hotel and go back to stay at Koh Touch. Topher wants to push on. If he knew what was coming, however, he would make a different choice. We are only 10 minutes in to what turns out to be a two hour journey.

Once we reach the top of the hill on foot, we get back on the motorbikes, only to have Topher and I dismount a short time later to walk across a broken wooden bridge. Tanner rides across on the back of a motorbike at 25 km per hour, bitting his tongue the whole time.   In one spot on the broken bridge, there is a two-foot gap between the boards.  I looked ahead scared, just to be certain that Tanner actually makes it across the bridge on the motorbike.  It is so dark now that we can barely see, even with the aid of my iPhone flashlight. My heart is pounding. Yes I’m a little frightened, and at that point we have no idea how far we still have to go.

We do finally reach a red dirt road and we can now go about 30 km/h. For a brief moment, I release my death grip on my driver and enjoy the wind blowing across my face and the stars in the sky. I can feel that my driver is sweating. He is working hard to carry myself, the weight of my suitcase, my backpack and him on the small motorbike.  I can only imagine the state of Topher’s driver and look back to make sure I can see the headlight from his motorbike behind me.

It briefly flashes in my mind that they could be taking us out to the middle of nowhere where we would never be seen from again.  There are no services here. We are going over bridges and alongside ravines and through mud and over rocks. This is extremely dangerous and, in a way, stupid. We could easily fly off the bike and hit our head on rocks and lose consciousness, but I have to let go of all of that fear and know that God and my guardian angels will keep my family safe.

The final hurdle.  We have been on the road for about an hour, hiking and motor biking in the darkness.  There are bright lights up ahead. It is a giant yellow backhoe, hooking up chains to a stuck truck.  There has been a mudslide, and there is no more wet and rocky mud dirt road.  There is only a hill of mud.  Our drivers on the bikes search to find a path to make. Tanner’s driver finds a small ledge of clay no wider than the front tire beside a pothole.  As they pass it, the ledge gives way and they fall to the left as the driver plants his foot in the mud hole, barely keeping the bike up as the tires slide in to the hole.  As Tanner hopped off into the mud the driver gunned the motor to recover, spraying Tanner with mud from the rear tire.

We have to dismount and attempt to climb up the muck.  It is a wet clay mountain and we are wearing flip-flops. We get off the motorbikes and give it our best shot. Immediately, my flip-flops sink into the slick mud and I have to try to go barefoot. I can barely move, and it takes us about 15 minutes to trek about 100 yards. One of the drivers actually has to come back to help me because I’m not making much progress in the dark, in the mud, carrying my backback with only a damn iPhone light in one hand and saturated, mud-covered flip-flops in the other. We come to the top covered in mud and remount the motorbikes. From here, they say it’s only 20 minutes further.

The red dirt road was pretty good from there forward. Again I release my grip on the driver and we stop once more where there is water on the road.  The road is slightly washed out by the river and we get off our bikes to wash off our mud-caked feet and shoes.

We are about an hour and 20 minutes into our agreed-upon 35-minute drive and my driver tells me “don’t worry madame. We are almost there.”

Two hours after we arrived at the main dock in Koh Rong, we find ourselves covered in mud but not too much worse for wear at the rear security gate near the employee housing of the Royal Sands at Long Beach.  I have prayed more in the last two hours then I had in the last two weeks.  I try to give thanks to God and my guardian angels every day for this blessed life that I live.  I try to pay forward in kind acts as often as I am given the opportunity, and I feel that I just traded in all of my karma points. In hindsight, knowing how dangerous that journey was, we would never put our family in that danger.

So, if any of you out there need any help from us, please let us know – as we have to earn back some karma points.  We used them all here in Koh Rong.