Mr. Ny picked me up Wednesday morning, we went to get my bike and hit the road. Just me and Mr. Ny for the next 3 days. Mr. Ny is in his early 20s, soft spoken, kind, a little shy, and on the petite side (making me look huge and clumsy). He’s been studying English for 3 months while he works full time as a mechanic for the tour company, and this was his first solo trip with a customer to Preah Vihear. I heard he was a little nervous (love him!!). We stumbled a couple of times with the language, but I couldn’t believe how well he spoke after such a short period of time!! Other things I learned about Mr. Ny: Before he was a mechanic he had been a Buddhist monk for several years. Becoming a monk is a rite of passage for Buddhist boys in Cambodia, but most only serve for several weeks or months, not years. Also, he has tattoos in Sanskrit on his arms, neck and chest (that I could see anyway). He explained they were to keep him safe. I later looked it up online, and it says they are believed to be magic and can ward off evil and hardship. They are done with bamboo or a metal rod by Buddhist monks or magic practitioners.

We drove about 5 hours that day, on dirt roads for a good portion of it. We drove by people carrying all kinds of things on their motos – big piles of grass, whole dead pigs strapped upside down across the back with their legs bouncing in the air, baskets of animals. Some people had started harvesting the rice, and all along the roadsides there were tarps laid out with rice drying on top of them.

We visited Beng Mealea Temple. This one had even more jungle growth left on and around it, and fewer visitors than the temples closer to Angkor Wat. We climbed off the pathways, over fallen temple pieces, and into the empty rooms inside. My pictures of this one didn’t come out that impressive, so unfortunately no photos to share!

We drove up to our hotel just outside of Koh Ker as the sun was setting. Driving on my own moto all day was awesome, but I was sunburned, needed a shower, and my butt was killing me.
The hotel had a kitchen, but no menu. I ordered what sounded like a chicken stir-fry type thing. Someone went out to buy the chicken, and dinner was served about 2 hours later. They basically chopped up the whole chicken (bones and all) into bite sized pieces, and flash fried it up with ginger and lemongrass (I think). I struggled trying to get the chicken off the bone on my plate, until I saw Mr. Ny just pop in a mouthful and spit out the bones. I struggled with that too. Mostly what I ate was mango and rice. After dinner and a Jackie Chan movie, I went to bed exhausted.

In the morning we ate breakfast, and I played with this thing for a bit. I don’t know what it is, but the family that owns the hotel had caught it, and were keeping it as a pet.

We spent a couple hours exploring Koh Ker. There was literally NO ONE there when we got there – not even the guys manning the ticket booth. The Khmer Rouge mined the area pretty heavily, and you see signs at every temple about the partner country that helped sponsor de-mining. According to the Lonely Planet says “1,382 mines, and 1,447,212 pieces of exploded and unexploded ordnance were removed”.

From Koh Ker we drove about another 5 hours, stopping to eat our packed lunch literally on the shoulder of road. I made a mental note for future ordering – pork or deer does not come with bone pieces. As we finished our meal I noticed Mr. Ny had set aside one of the to-go containers with a couple pieces of meat and some rice. He explained that there were a lot of ghosts in the area, and he was leaving it for them. I wished I could have asked him more – damn the language barrier!

We overnighted in Sra Em, watched some more Jackie Chan at breakfast, and then left for Preah Vihear. Prasat Preah Vihear is a mountain temple on the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and ownership has been a source of debate between the two since at least the early 1900s. There was military conflict on and off from 2008-2011, making it periodically off limits to tourists. That coupled with the fact that the area was a Khmer Rouge strong hold until 1998, was heavily mined and wasn’t easily accessible by road meant that a lot of tourists didn’t make it out there.

We drove our motos to the foot of the mountain, and paid guys with more powerful motos to take us up the rest of the way. There were soldiers everywhere, and Mr. Ny distributed two cartons of cigarettes to them as we walked toward the entrance to the temple. After he ran out one soldier came up, shrugged and said then he’d accept candy instead. Aside from the soldiers, there were only a handful of other tourists. Mr. Ny and I walked around, and he tried to tell me a little bit about the area. The temples were beautiful of course, but what really made them spectacular was the setting. You feel high above the rest of the world, and even the sky looked naturally photoshopped.

We had barely started when were stopped by tourist police who told Mr Ny that he couldn’t walk with me since he wasn’t an official guide, so I continued on my own. After not too long Mr. Ny popped back up again! He had mentioned to the tourist officer that I had lived in Siem Reap for a year and spoke Khmer well. Ahh – since that was the case the officer let him come back and join me discreetly. Clever Mr. Ny!

We hit a couple of downpours during the drive. Not funny driving in rainstorms. From the road.

We had gotten delayed with rain, and it was dark before we got near Siem Reap. Driving in the rain is no fun. Driving in the dark on a dirt road with no street lights, and no sunglasses to protect my eyes from dirt and bugs is miserable. We pulled over at a roadside stand owned by a family Mr. Ny knew, dropped off my bike, and he drove the rest of the way to my hostel.

As we said our goodbyes Mr. Ny gave me a giant genuine hug. He apologized for his English (no, no!!!), and gave me a Khmer/English phrasebook with his email address. I felt really sad!! Mr. Ny quietly won my heart. I was going to miss him!