A nice drive in kompong thom province.

[ken svay]

I went bush the other day with the gf to see her families place near skoun.
Going north on that highway 6 is a nightmare especially with the amount of work going on with the road widening.There is so much fill required here when doing roadworks because most of the main roads are embankments in the swamps.
Highway 1 is still being worked on I believe and highway 6 will take years as well.
We turned west 9 ks before skoun and went 15ks on a narrow,dusty road through bone dry rice fields.
Most of the farmhouses here have beautiful tiled hip roofs with finials and some have the fretwork barge boards or fascias.The roofs would have been expensive yet most houses are clad with palm leaves not timber.
They would all have been built in the 1950s I guess at about the same time.It is like the shophouses in inner phnom penh that all date from the same era-cambodia had a brief window of prosperity back then it seems.
The families half built ruin backed onto a low hill,one of several covered in bamboo forest-a really nice place in a small village.
The half built house is actually a very substantial double shophouse about ten metres wide and twenty deep with only columns and shoulder high brickwork upstairs on the top slab.
There were two huge sacks of seed rice from vietnam,many sacks of straw,speakers,amps and tables and chairs from the defunct wedding business.So much stuff that the family sleep outside in the lean to.
Mum cooked a fantastic lunch with two different types of whole fish,beef and veges.
On the way out of the village we drove up a steep road to the top of the tallest hill where there is an eighth century temple,funan I think.It consists of three towers built with red bricks and there were stone artefacts scattered around that hadnt been looted-I was very surprised.
The view was stunning of course.
There is a road from here to komong chanang and north to kompong thom,a moto road that is.
I am surprised that the adventure moto businesses dont do a loop through here.
Only a few ks from the hills is a burmese temple where tourists sometimes go but one has to walk in and as rain was threatening we had to push on-anyone know anything about this temple? I know about the burmese temple in pailin but this one is a long way from there.
From the top of the hill one can see the tonle sap in the distance,a canal could irrigate those parched fields so easily.
Irrigation projects dont seem to be a high priority in the kingdom-buggered if I know why.
We came back via the prek liap bridge-a big mistake.That road is being widened as well and built up by more than a metre-it is best avoided as the holes in the old road are huge.
I didnt have a 4wd,only the next best thing- a rental car and I thought that I had broken it when it crashed into one huge hole.
Got back to phnom penh about four and it was home to bed and into mum.

[vladimir]

My one ambition in life is to tour the back roads/ (and some front roads) of Cambodia with ken svay as a guide, and record his commentary on tape and with a camera.
I think I could learn a lot and have a great time.
One REALLY interesting Aussie.
No sarcasm here.NOT joking.
First, I rob the bank.