[43kB 640x486] The Temples of Angkor, Cambodia

[64kB 480x640] The Temples of Angkor, Cambodia.

Cambodia

What a change. The immigration desks could have been market stalls. The bomb-cratered road (B52s I was told) had hardly been touched for 50 years. Now I know why I had to perform figure-of-eights and a slalom in my motorcycle training.

Up to this point I was feeling quite tired and was looking forward to hitting the beach for a week after a brief stop in Phnom Penh the nation's capitol. But that turned into a week. The smell of aid money hit me as soon as I entered the city. It's a big industry here with over reportedly 800 non-governmental organisations, agencies and so on.

[61kB 640x480] Temples of Angkor.

I made contact with Medicam a well-respected organisation that coordinates and informs 104 health and medical organisation members working here and was invited to their annual meeting last Friday. My plan was to bring to them the attention of the Riders for Health system. But I found that motorcycles are already being used in outreach health work here by at least four organisations: Medecins sans Frontieres ((Nl/B/Ch office) for their malaria treatment programme, Cambodian Health Educational Development’s seven bikes were donated in 1993 and needs two more now, the US-financed Reproductive And Child Health Alliance (RACHA) and the Cambodian Health Promotion And Primary Health Care Project which unsuccessfully tried a trailer-ambulance. RACHA is currently issuing local health centres with motorbikes with a plan to withdraw them if outreach targets are not met. I wish I had more time to look further into all this.

In the same way that small bikes are a part of everyone's life here (being cheap and economical), they play a role in rebuilding the country and people. It should be of no surprise. Without bikes whole economies in SE Asia would comes to a standstill I'm sure. In the west there are more cars than bikes. But here the proportion is reversed, and to see the problems created by the presence of just one four wheeler makes me think of gridlocked western cities. How miserable.

It is a shame that the European Parliament did not consider the effects of its recent unrealistic proposals on motorcycle emissions on poor regions of the world. Europe is not an island, bike standards are global now. Fat-waged Eurocrats can easily afford $200 for a cat, what are people to do where this represents the yearly wage? Can the EP really be that short-sighted?

[43kB 640x480] Toul Sleng torture centre of the Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh.

Cambodia's tale must surely be one of the saddest in the last 30 years. There were successive invasions by Communist Vietnam and then the USA (who were after the commies), extensive US bombing, and takeover by ultra Communist Khmer Rouge headed by Pol Pot in 1975. The evil policy included driving people out of the town cities and villages into large agricultural communes. Money, private property, Western medicine, education and religious practice were banned. One third of the population was tortured and killed by its own government. Children were trained to kill their own parents. There are 'killing fields' all over the country. In Phnom Penh I saw Toul Sleng school used a torture center for thousands of intellectuals. I saw mass graves at the Killing Fields site south of the city: a great pile of skulls in a glass case serving as a memorial, a tree against which babies' heads were smashed before they were thrown into the pit. What is there to say?

[58kB 480x640] Temples of Angkor.

Vietnam invaded again and ended the KR regime in 1979, yet Cambodians still were said to have preferred that to 'liberation' by its ancient enemy. Vietnam pulled out in 1985-89 when Russian support to them stopped. Then the United Nations in 1992 deployed a force of 6,000 officials and 16,000 troops to oversee elections that resulted in a big majority for the Royalists. However the people's wish was never actually followed and the main loser of that election is still the country's Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Hun Sen this week threatened to throw NGO World Witness out of the country because it make public information about illegal logging. I wonder who is on that particular payroll.

Several times I got the feeling that Cambodians are still traumatised. I was following the Cambodian rules of the road and found myself stationary in oncoming bike traffic. This one geezer wasn't looking where he was going and bent his forks and other bits on my highway peg. Oh no not again. About a hundred gathered around (all youngsters, there are no old people here, they were all exterminated). He was getting quite hysterical and demanded $50. We settled on $25 in the end. But the atmosphere was charged and a pretty student interpreting for me pleaded 'please make this problem go away'.

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[50kB 640x480] Free feed by Foreign Correspondents Club in Phnom Penh with Canadian. What a change to be able to invite a pretty girl out to a posh dinner. Plus it sure beats tinned sardines. Note clean-shaven face!

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia made a kind donation to the Millennium ride charities and fed me. Comin Khmere/Flying Bikes company gave $100 whilst offering free off-road safety training to Cambodia’s bike-using NGOs.) www.ANGKORDIRTBIKETOURS.com run hardcore dirt bike runs to Angklor Wat and elsewhere check them out - if you go the distance on their big 21 dayer you get your money back (see them on Channel 5 TV evening in UK on about 23 March.)

Bike - New cush drive rubbers were fitted in Ho Chi Minh City, and I've jacked the bike into the up position to handle the road to Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of this world. Tourists normally go by boat because in some places it is still bombed out.

Communications - since various agreements are not in place I am still on email.

There have been some relaxing moments here, but I still feel pretty worn out. Oh well, time to hit the road though.

Take care

Simon