Wheels in motion

There's something about waking up in a new city. Your eyes peel to the sunlight with a stream of thoughts flowing through your mind things to do, places to see, food to eat.

There's something aboutwaking up in a new city.Your eyes peel to thesunlight with a stream ofthoughts flowing through yourmind things to do, places tosee, food to eat. As we steppedout of our nights' hide-out, wewere fully excited about takinga tour of Cambodia in ourbug-eyed Baja 250s (bike).

The tour's first stop was Kep,a coastal town in southernCambodia that seemed isolatedand unexploited by tourists.

First stop Kep
We, the group of bikers zoomedin our Bajas, which are quiteunlike anything available inIndia. Powered with 250 ccmotors and built to look like dirtbikes,these motorcycles arecapable of going anywhere andeverywhere you'd possibly wantto take them. Highway 3 leadsdown to Kep but with the annualreconstruction work on, we tooka detour. It is roads like thesethat give you a true perspectiveof Cambodia. It's far fromPhnom Penh's rap-star lookalikeKhmer boys in their ChevySuburbans and glass buildings.

It's the place of stilt bamboohouses and hammocks made oftorn fishing nets for furniture.Where a square meal consistsof rice and a broth of any kindof animal or insect that canadd flavour.

Kep arrived a few hours lateras we rumbled down a sea frontavenue with decrepit and ghostlyFrench bungalows. Once a popularbeach resort in the colonialtimes, the place is now stuck in atime warp with a couple of ecoresorts sprouting up just recently.There was a motocross riderwho led us through some tighttricky trails up the mountain inKep's forest reserve.

Cambodia's great lake
With Kep checked off the map,we were bound to circumnavigatethe great Tonle Sap lake.But before that, there was anight's halt back in the capitalcity and a mandatory visit to theGenocide museum which borewitness to Cambodia's dark past.As we entered the eerie gates ofChoeung Ek, an orchard that theKhmer Rouge used to systematicallyexecute 17,000 victims,bolts of lightning and deafeningthunder rumbled in the skies ona bright summer day.

Lake or playground?
Going around the Tonle Sap viaSiem Reap and Battambang wasthe plan. But who was to knowthat the Tonle Sap had now beenreduced to a stream and whatwas once the lake was now anopen playground for us TombRiders. We took a detour offthe highway and rode formiles on end in chase of theelusive waters of the lake butfound nothing.

Crickety snacks
En route to Siem Reap, westopped at a Stoung, a smalltown known for its deep-frieddelicacies tarantulas (hairyspiders) and crickets. While thelocals say the tarantulas act asan aphrodisiac, my take wasthat they tasted taste like, well,spiders and I passed.

Having visiting the Angkorruins before, visiting them wasn'ta priority for me. But an outingon National Road 66 is whatmade the road trip worth it.

National Road 66 skirtsaround the main Angkor complexbefore turning deep into theforest. The serenity of the placewas briefly interrupted by ourmotorcycles as we rumbled in.But as soon as the dust settled,the magical sight of the BengMealea temple draped in abeam of moon light emerged.The thought that I was so farfrom civilisation and yet so closeto its origins was an overwhelmingfeeling. And all it really takesto get you here is a motorcycle.Two wheels really move the soul.

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