Top 25 best rides ever – The Riders Digest about Khmer Ways
In the newest Issue of the UK Rider’s Digest, Ricardo Rodrigues, states that his Khmer Ways experience was one of his “Top 25 best rides ever”.
Read the original article on their web issue on page 116
or here below:
Having flown from Bangkok to Cambodia we were now in Siem Reap, a city on the outskirts of the UNESCO World Heritage Angkor temples and because of the high inflow of tourists (many of them more interested in more earthly pleasures than architecture) a place where foreigners are not allowed to rent motorbikes. Again, the internet came to the rescue in the form of Khmer Ways a company founded in 2009 by a German and a Cambodian that does guided day tours around the area using the ubiquitous Honda Dream 125. Even though you are riding the bike yourself because you are part of an organized group with a tour guide it’s not considered a rental. It’s the perfect loophole and it was one of the highlights of our trip. With 50% of its economy based on tourism associated with the temples, Siem Reap is not a pretty city. It has grown into an incongruent mix of massive resorts for wealthy foreigners, side by side with small houses and huts; big paved avenues and red clay streets; Range Rovers and BMWs alongside tiny 125cc bikes and Reur’moks (Cambodian style tuk-tuk). The temples of Angkor are worth a visit but after that call the guys at Khmer Ways and get yourself on a day tour of the real Cambodia, the countryside where people work in the rice fields and everything doesn’t cost a dollar. Catia decided to be brave and ride on her own, but we were assigned two Cambodian guides because the route included some challenging off-road sections, that way, whenever she needed to she could jump on the back of my bike and one of the guides would take hers. Leaving Siem Reap heading to Phnom Koulen Mountain the route included a mix of paved roads linking with narrower dirt tracks and running through small villages and rice fields. The small Honda Dream 125s proved to be the perfect tool for the job with crude suspension and spoked wheels that can take a real beating, an off-road rear tyre for extra grip on the looser stuff and a centrifugal clutch, which made one handed driving child’s play (perfect for narcissistic selfies!).
The 100km we covered while visiting the Reclining Buda, the waterfalls and the 1,000 Lingas was probably the slowest average speed tour I’ve ever done, but it’s definitely in my Top 25 best rides ever. The guides were a pair of super nice guys, the scenery is amazing and the small bikes are so much fun and so easy to ride off-road! To the point that Cátia, who rarely ever rides, did it all on her own except for the road up the mountain and then she only opted out because of the traffic (it was a national holiday and many families go to the National park for a day at the waterfalls and a picnic).
