Border Town - The Wild West

Poipet border town, facilities largely disproportionate to needs. In excess: casinos, hotels, massage parlours, brothels, bars, karaoke and parties. Where are the markets, schools, hospitals, butchers, tailors, hardware shops, and mechanics? A transient border town population, people come to partake of activities illegal elsewhere. Here, it’s the next regional economic boom, concrete and brick building going up amongst dirt roads. Following the afternoon showers mud drags everywhere, including onto the single strip tarmac road down the centre of town, a vector between the border crossing from Thailand to the National Highway 5. Some turn-off roads are impassable by bike with clay mud churned up like butter by foot traffic, motorcycles, and hand pulled carts.

Poipet, recognized for its sleaze factor, has stickers on some buildings to advocate whistle-blowing on child sex tourism by reporting suspicious activity, “Protect our National Treasures”. The Hotel rules of our establishment request patrons do not bring alcohol, fire-arms or opium into the hotel. Last night a thumping bass line to Cambodian karaoke serenaded us into the late night. If it wasn’t for my 24 hour stint of mild food poisoning, origin undetermined, we would have moved on by now. Instead, Tom and I have holed up in our hotel room to rest after the last 5 days ride from Bangkok, and so I may lay wretchedly on the bed till my food poisoning; which feels reminiscent of a terrible hang-over only more feverish, passes. Earlier, we wandered out onto the street to find food, for the first time in 1 and half years I find myself lost for basic language skills and local know-how in a fresh and unfamiliar culture. I am thrilled at this prospect but momentarily a little dismayed too, as another wave of nausea rises I’m unsure of where to find some plain and odorless soup to soothe my empty stomach.

Goodbye Bangkok

Gingerly pedaling the heavily loaded bicycle the first hour east out of Bangkok, my Surly Long Haul Tucker, my touring bicycle, my ‘Beatrice’ and I are at the start of long relationship. Tom, my boyfriend and I look ready for anything and I weighing in at 120kg and Tom at 170kg we certainly could be carrying anything we could need. My flute, yoga mats, Tom’s mandolin and tennis racket, drawing pads, some artists supplies, a shamefully large collection of adaptors, chargers, devices and plugs are the less practical culprits. But as we keep telling ourselves and others, ‘This isn’t just a holiday, this is life!”

At 8:30am we set off for the Cambodian border or ‘Kam-poh-CHEE-a’ as the Thais call it, from Sukhumvit road with 6 days before my Visa expires. It’s a leisurely ride over 6 days, that’s for sure. About 220 km, 4 hours by bus or depending how many kilometers you can cover in one day by bike, between 3-5 days. But Tom and I are novices so we’ll be taking it slow.

All the novelties of ‘slow-travel’ creep into awareness. The seasonal fruit in road side stalls, stops for dried and fresh mango, fresh coconuts and coconut ice-cream. Unfortunate strays as leathery roadkill. The smells of anaerobic garbage rotting in monsoon ditches plunges into the nostrils, the assaults are random and frequent just beyond the outer Bangkok area.

For a stretch of the ride I began peering at different property’s monsoon ditches to see how they would use it. Monsoon ditches are the highway equivalent of the nature strips and front gardens of suburbia. Some are neglected and havens for road side littering others are tended and sometimes marginal household farming areas. However, along the highway the more aesthetically minded patrons plant brightly coloured red, orange, pink and yellow Cannah Lillies to filter the run-off and absorb flooding during wet season, as well as bananas, morning glory and lotus.


Then kinds of Farms and crops appeared by area. First, on day one its aquaculture and shrimp farms, then day two: mangos, then by day three: cassava, eucalyptus plantations for building and dusty forest regeneration on fallow land. By the end of the first day, with plenty of pit stops, we made it the near-by small city of Chachoengsao, about 35 km away. Pleasurably tired, without any particular pains we crashed in our motel bungalow feeling satisfied that we completed our first day of riding. By day two we pushed our distance to 40km. On Day three we did a comfortable 50 km in 3 hours. Our legs and knees getting warmed up to it. I am beginning to appreciate a feeling of strength and
fitness and a knowing that I can and could go anywhere I want.

The long stretches on the dusty and isolated, oven hot tarmac makes me doubly glad for our water supplies and 'First-Need' pump operated water filter. The feeling of independence momentarily strikes me as a double edged sword as I fleetingly consider the unpleasant possibility of unreachable heat exhaustion on an ill-considered and unprepared stint- I pushed the irrational fear away, and encouraged myself with the thought that we gladly avoided that fate with our planning and journey in densely populated Asia.


I expect that this journey we are embarking on is and will bring up many unrecognized insecurities. Survival fears, basic, primal and reptilian. Who'd have guessed that riding a long, dusty isolated stretch of road could trigger a similar feeling to that of a swim away from the shore line in a dark ocean at night. The optimism of beginning a new adventure is largely overwhelming and thoughts like the prior barely graze the surface of my awareness as I see the next HWY sign stating our distance from the next town.