Participants in this ride were Tison, Luke, Dennis, Scott and Peter. The plan was to meet up with Jared and Cameron when we got to Bunlung, Ratanakiri and ride together to Jared’s place in Steung Trang.
Initial meeting point was at the Sokimex restaurant on the way out of Prek Pneau. So Dennis, Luke, Scott and Tison all met there and then the plan was to meet Peter down the road in K. Cham.
The group of 4 headed out and crossed the prek Tamnak bridge and turned left at the roundabout. Short way down turned right and got in some mud pretty quick. Early on we could see that this path was not viable for our travel so we doubled back. Soon after hitting this road Tison got bounced off and really struggled to get his bike up so he was a little winded. We rested a bit and then tried to get the moto going again. Electric was weak so we started kicking it. Got it going and turned around to get out of the mud. Tison fell again and came off over the handlebars and hurt his shoulder. After some kicking we got the bike going. I didn’t think Tison’s injury was too bad so we rode back to some shade to evaluate. Tison didn’t want to turn the bike off to charge the battery. He thought maybe he could go, but in the end conceded that he needed to go back home as he was not sure of the full extent of his injuries and did not want to hold up the group. We waited at the rest stop until we saw that he had made it back and was ok to travel the rest of the way home. He tried to ride with his backpack just on his “good” shoulder, but everything did not ride well and shifted positions making it difficult to ride with the bum shoulder. In retrospect I should have strapped his backpack on the back of his moto because of the shoulder injury, but he seemed to not be in much pain. I should have ridden with him as well at least for a bit to make sure he was able to travel on his own.
We then took off to meet Peter in Kampong Cham. We met up for lunch and headed out to Snoul. Hit lots of mud! lots of different kinds of mud . How many kinds are there? Got to Snoul at 4:30 and got checked in. I had a flat that I got repaired and then we met back at the hotel and ate supper. After supper I took the time to wash out all my clothes to have a fresh start the next day. It took a while as several kilos of dirt went down the bathroom drain.
Up the next morning, Sat, and we took off to Sen Monorom. Immediately hit some thick mud and Luke went down. It was a big struggle to free his machine from the clutches of the mud so he was tapped out physically pretty quick. So that was when we decided to turn around and find an easier path. We found a lot of plantations on these back roads. Casava and rubber plantations. When riding through rubber farms the ground is slicker than whale snot. You just maintain speed and don’t hit brakes and don’t hit the gas. I started sliding sideways so my normal reaction is to hit the gas. When I hit the gas, I had no traction up front and it shot me into a rubber tree. Twisted up my front fender and lost a bolt on my hand guard. We made it out to a shop in the village right as it started pouring rain. We had noodles and waited out the rain. We then were trying to find the fastest route to the Halls. Peter made a new tract and we made it out fairly quickly and then to Sen Monorom by 5.
We had a great visit with the Halls and they were very welcoming. Luke and Dennis stayed in a cabin and Peter and Scott hammocked in the building next door .
We toured the farm and had good visits over supper and afterwards. Mila, the husky, had been caught in a trap about 10 days ago but the wounds appear to be healing well. We had a great supper of loaded baked potatoes which was much appreciated having only noodles for lunch. Stomach bug hit me hard that night so took some Tinidizole and that helped.
This is my first trip using the Cardo units to communicate on the road and So far it is going well. We are able to alert each other of things on the road and other navigation. We are also able to point out interesting sites, pray and Luke even sings a bit.
PCC Oct 20-24 22nd
We gathered at the Halls house at 8 and had breakfast. Peter had an issue with his rear brakes and had to get that taken care of before we started riding today. We had good visits with Marc and Ann and they showed us more around the property and the lodging options they have available. They really want people to come and stay there!
We also checked on Mila, the husky, to see how her wound was healing. The Halls have done a good job of taking care of that injury that was caused by a snare. It was getting to be 11:45 so we decided to stay for lunch as well!
We had a prayer and then Ann asked if we went by a certain village, for us to stop and visit with Hia. Hia is a man that was paralyzed in 2018 from a fall from a coconut 🌴 tree. He has struggled with his health and has ulcerated wounds/sores. Some are these are from the injury of 5 years ago and some are pressure sores that have been more recent. We found the house and met with Hia, his wife and four daughters. As I was taking off my boots to sit on the platform, I had a strong twinge in my lower back that stopped me from any movement for several minutes. I tried to move over to Hia so that we could talk, but it was extremely painful to move across the platform. I was able to slowly crawl in Hia’s direction and when I finally got close enough to talk to him, I asked a bit about his health and the chronic wounds he has that are just not healing. While talking he noticed that I was in severe pain and he suggested that I lay down and rub some tiger balm in my lower back. He then read me Eph 5:1-7. Be like God and do for others like Jesus has done for us. I went to encourage him but when we arrived, he was caring for me and giving me medicated ointment, blankets to lean on and encouraging me with scripture. He even called tonight while we were at supper to see how I was doing!
As I struggled to get my boots back on, the pain was a little better and I figured out that I could ride ok, so we took off for Banlung to meet Jared and Cameron. We met at the hotel and went to eat at the Green Carrot. After a good meal with good conversations we went back to the hotel to rest for the next day.
PCC Oct 20-24, 2024
Got up and went to breakfast at 7. We noticed Jared had a flat tire and so he had the tube replaced. Once all was reassembled, we launched into the new day…. for about two km. There was a tight corner and in retrospect it seems that the rear brake locked up in the turn (along with oily liquid on the road) and Jared layed the bike down and broke the brake lever. We tried several solutions but then I remembered that I had a spare clutch lever in my bag and it was a good fit for a replacement. Shortly after rolling again there was an issue with the back brakes. I’ll just list the issues here that Jared had with the bike during the day and won’t go into detail about each one. Changed the rear sprocket to have more speed on the top end (day before), rear tube replaced because the valve stem ripped, rear brakes locking up, H-kickstand loose/zip tied, front brake lever broke, Bent the frame, zip ties break so bungee kickstand, change brake pads at a moto shop while we eat lunch, mud was so thick it wedged between the tire and the wheel so that it wouldn’t rotate anymore and just became a skid, took off the front fender so this would not continue, muffler became dislodged so wired it up, swing arm pivot bolt worked out and looked like the back half of the bike was about to break off.
We did have a couple of good visits as I had heard about churches in the area of Van Sai. We asked around at the ferry crossing and were told of a church about 10 km down the road. After stopping and asking directions several times, we found the church . This was in Phnom Kok and the pastor was Leang Jan and he welcomed us to visit. The church had been there since 2003. He was Laotian as were many in his village, and he also spoke Thai and Khmer. He also rattled off 8 minority groups in the area and seemed to know about them and their languages. They also had orphans they cared for through this church. His prayer was that more neighbors would come to faith in his village. He says when he shares that people listen but they don’t accept the gospel. There is some persecution, but he says that comes when he shares and not just normally. He asked us to pray for his family (6 kids) and they would have the ability to start another church. We had a good discussion on spiritual matters and he used scripture repeatedly through our conversation. They would have fed us lunch but we said we needed to move on so we prayed with them for these requests and said good-byes.
The next village over was Team Krom and Tuet bye was the pastor. He is from a minority group called Lun. This village is about 95% Lun people with around 400 people there. He also mentioned other Lun villages in the area as well as other minority groups. He was very happy to see us and very welcoming. He has 5 children and one is presently studying in PP. this group was started by FOCP in 2004. FCOP does community development and church planting. I am pretty sure they are still supported by FOCP as they also have 9 orphans they are helping. He asked us to pray for his family and he also prayed that they could start a church. We prayed with them and headed back to the ferry crossing to get some lunch.
