Lost Road to Kirirom

Simple enough idea. Hollywood and I decided to try an unproven line south from the town of Choam down to the hilltop resort of Kirirom. Word of a route existed, basically shrouded in legend and supported only by a squiggly dotted line snaking its way south on the ancient topo map and a vague handwaving from a couple locals.

Here come da fuzz
Norodom and Russian Boulevard. Hollywood and I stopped for the light and a few seconds later the fuzz slowly ambled over eyeballing my bike. Shit... Walking right past hollywood on his mirrorless, old-plated Baja he settled on me, pointing his baton at my chest. The little monkey wasn't accepting my protests that I didn't do anything, but my bike doesn't have a proper registration and I was afraid he would hit me with the $600 touch if he was in a mood to be a greedy little prick. I wasn't in the mood. After agreeing to pull over I started manouvering my scoot towards the curb looking for an opening in the wall of cops. When the main fuzz turned his back slightly I cracked it. The little fucker was surprised and tried to manhandle me and the bike to a stop but he was no match for the mighty torque of the Djebel.

Steeps
Had a good but chilly first night out with the manditory flat of crown but sadly, no whiskey or dope. Awoke the following morning to a chilly and windy day, perfect for a little recce on foot and the ride down south. I called bullshit when Hollywood felt the trail we were on was familiar. It was sustained, very rough and STEEP! The kind of riding where if you stop, you slide back down, fast. I made it to the flat spot near the top of the widowmaker and realized we HAD been there before. I waited for quite awhile. Unknown to me, Hollywood had a little mishap. He stalled on the climb accidentally switching into neutral, then after losing his front tire he began careening down the slope, backwards! Unable to spare a foot for the rear brake or shifter things got rapidly worse until his only option was a Casey Jones. Flying backwards off the bike and sliding headfirst on his back he managed to avoid the big stones with his head but ripped up his clothes, boots and bike pretty good.

I walked partway down and was happy to see he wasn't seriously hurt and his bike, with not much more than a mashed up footpeg, was basically fine too. Lucky bastard. Getting busted up in there would be a bitch.

A few hundred meters more and we topped out on a promising ridge which became our second campsite. The horror, we had no beer, no whiskey, no dope, and down to a can of tuna and another small can of spam for breakfast. Exhaustion took over and we were asleep at 8:30 dreaming of hamburgers, intoxicants and girlies, occasionally interrupted by forays into the woods to stoke the dwindling fire.

The next morning our dreams of Kirirom were dashed when the 2.6 km ride merely led to the top of a logging trail with no option in sight. Oh well, back to the big smoke.

Mechanics
The trip was looking in the bag when Hollywood had a flat in a Kompong Speu 'burb. We were lucky, the tire fix-it guy was directly on the other side of the road. Not only did he fix the tire, he replaced Hollywood's lost brake pad and his trashed rear wheel bearings with brand new sealed units. Final bill? 18 grand all in (not counting the roadside pops)! Incredible.

Anyway, nice to be back stuffing our faces with turkey and getting gooned at 4 in the morning again. A good christmas afterall!