Road Trip

Mondulkiri here we come!

To celebrate Ingran's 30th birthday and the fact that I now have full medical clearance again (and never have to go back to Bangkok!), we jumped on our motos and headed the 200 and something kilometers east to Mondulkiri (which means something like the meeting of mountains (or hills to anyone outside of Cambodia)).

The road to Mondulkiri (this is not what normal roads in Cambodia look like! This one is very very new).

After a few false starts of me faffing too much and forgetting my trainers, then my raincoat, then the water, then my helmet, we were finally on the way, only to discover after 10 minutes of driving that I'd forgotten my rucksack!! By 6.45am (45 minutes later than planned) we were on our way.


The drive was pretty eventful in the sense that I nearly hit a dog, a big branch shattered my wing mirror and Ingran skidded in some mud and dropped the bike although he managed to stay standing (!!). The best bit, though, was in Snoul, which is normally a pretty unexciting place. We'd just finished breakfast, and were back on the bikes which happened to be facing opposite directions.

Me: Which way do you wanna go?
Ingran: I don't mind.
Me: Well, we can either go down that dirt road and then join onto the main road or go the opposite way and back onto the road. What we don't want to do is go straight up that cliff onto the road.
Ingran: yeah ok

He then promptly revved the bike and headed straight up the cliff at alarming speed. I was pretty sure he'd just agreed we weren't doing that. The look on his face once he managed to reach the top indicated that he definitely had not done that on purpose. I laughed so hard I cried and it still makes me laugh out loud when I think about it.

Birthday boy!

Mondulkiri is beautiful but much colder than Kratie. It's in the hills and despite raining constantly, it was an amazing weekend.

Paul and Tak were the perfect hosts.

We even managed a swim in a waterfall.

And a party...

Which involved:

Drinking...

Dancing...

A bit of fighting...

and a bit of making up afterwards...

The next day we drank a lot of tea and nursed the hangovers before a break in the rain allowed us to venture out and enjoy the views.