Anton Swanepoel's Blog

Ferry crossing

For details of the places I visited in Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, with GPS Coordinates, see my book Vietnam Caves.

For details on motorbiking in Vietnam and Cambodia, from buying and selling a motorbike, to border crossing, see my book Motorbiking Cambodia & Vietnam.

After my slight mistake with my visa scam, I finally manage to get a visa for Vientam, and off I go on my road trip.

Took a bus from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Ho Chi Min, Vietnam today. 6 hour ride, and the WiFi did not work, aahhh.

On the way we stopped twice for food (20 min only). There is no time to order food made to go, you basically have two options.

Option 1

Option two

I had enough adventure for one day, and went with option 2.

We also crossed the river with a ferry, first time for me on a ferry. So cool. Got out of the bus and was surrounded by locals trying to sell you stuff. Did buy a bottle of water. The little girl wanted 2000 riel, 50c. I only had 1200 on me, and her brother quickly said yes and gave me the water. (In Cambodia they go from 1000 to 6000 a bottle.) When I got on the bus, the Vietnamese guy I made friends with, laughed and said they cost 100 Riel in town. 🙁
Little girl bottom left of picture.

We made it almost to town, when the bus broke down. The bus company quickly got taxis to take us the last 20 min or so. We were supposed to be dropped off by the bus station, but instead the taxi dropped us off next to hotels, then waited outside. I went in, checked the prices and walked out. Checked the apps on my phone for a place I already wanted to stay in and walked to the taxi driver. Since I had no internet, I could not use the Expedia map function, and just showed the driver the saved address and asked how much to the place. $5, I thought it was a rip off, but since I did not know where the hotels was, I agreed.

He literally drove my one block further and stopped at the other hotel. Oh well. However, as luck would have it, the Main Street with many of the bike shops in, is the next road up, 450 feet from my hotel. So tomorrow I will be bike shopping.

Next Day

Visiting the Landmine museum, Cambodia

As many people know, Cambodia’s country side is still littered with hundreds of thousands of landmines. This was laid during the Khmer Rouge regime, and also the Vietnam war.

These impersonal killing devices, that costs $5 to plant, and $500 to find and remove, is killing long after the war ended. And they are not killing terrorists or military units, but local farmers and kids.

Many demining groups have been established with help from prominent figures, with Princess Diana a prime example. However, even with the best efforts, it is estimated that it will still take 100 years to clear Cambodia of mines.

Unexploded bombs dropped on Cambodia on display outside the Ladmine museum.
Landmines, or mines, comes in a bunch of different sizes and designs, each one developed for a certain purpose.

Different landmines on display.
Each landmine have a different charge (explosive power), and different way of activating. Most are activated when a pressure is applied, then removed. Like when you step on it then off again. Others have pull levers. The weight that activates it also differs. For instance, an anti tank mine is normally about 500 kg to activate, where smaller electronic land mines can activate on 3 kg. these small mines are normally only used to maim. They will blow your leg off, but not kill you.

This is perfect for booby traps. For when medics come to help you, snipers can kill them. The small land mine can also be placed underneath a larger anti tank mine. So if a deminer takes the mine out, he activates the smaller mine and gets blown up. For this reason, mines are no longer removed. But when found, they are marked then blown up with a small charge.

landmine ornaments.

Demining is done by finding out where landmines are. This can be from information from ex soldiers that know where landmines are, villagers that have lost people from mines or have seen one in the ground (rain can wash them out.)

Deminers then go and set up grids around the field. Using protection gear and special detection units, they look for mines. However, many smaller plastic bodied mines do not always show up on the equipment, and deminer will probe the ground with a stick. A deminer can do around 50 to 100 sq meters a day. A minefield however, can be thousands of sq meters. Ones a mine is found, it is blown up, and the location added to the local minefield database. When an area is cleared, it is marked safe, and added to the international and local minefield database.

Sadly, due to the lack of cooperation from many governments, unwilling to give data on where their troops planted mines, (for then they have to admit just how many mines they planted), one of the most frequent ways a minefield is found is when local kids step on one when visiting a noughbour or helping to farm rice on their farm.

the parts from these bombs are used to make legs for those injured by the very same bomb.

pictures showing how a trap was set. Some had bombs that would drop and take out an entire platoon, others just had spikes or logs come down and impale people.

Going off the beaten path.

As I get more an more comfortable with navigating the countryside, I start to plan and do longer and more remote trips. This trip is supposed to be done with atleast a 200 cc off-road motorcycle. Ha, they just do not know how to ride a bike, I will show you what a 100 cc road bike can do.

I started the 2 1/2 hour ride to my first stop early the morning. After about 25 km, I left the tarred road for a gravel road. From here on it was eating dust for the next 50 m. Although I did pass over some nice bridges and rode along some nice country side.
Eventually I arrived at the ticket office, and parted with my $20 for the honor of entering the nature reserve.

From here on, it was another long dusty ride as I climb up into the mountain. Here and there on dangerous sections, the road was cement.

Eventually I arrived at the junction for the Kulen waterfall, and the 1000 lingas. First I visited the waterfall.

Some shopping for those that want some local crafts.
I parked my bike at the top, and walked down. But was amazed at how the locals easily just ride up the path. Little did I know that what I was about to do later, would far exceed this.

The river is past the eating places, and locals love to come here and swim in the river, and also sit under the waterfall. That is in the dry season, for in the wet season this is a raging river and to strong to swim in. A bridge gives access to small ruins on the other side.
The ruins are small, but not cleaned up, giving them that lost treasure look.

From here I went to the river with the 1000 lingas. Some of the water comes out of the ground like a fountain, amazing to see.

Following the path next to the river to the source of some of the water.

A fountain that has the water bubbling out from beneath the white sand.
After an early lunch, I went to find the big Buddha statue. However, I could not find the temple. Eventually a local guide came up to me and asked if I wanted to go to the temple. I said yes. He said $10. I thought it was too much to go to a nearby temple, but since I could not find it, I offered him $8, that he took. Little did I know he was talking about another temple in the mountain.

What followed was 11 km of mountain riding, burning rubber and scraping chassis over rocks, kicking sand up going through dry river beds, passing streams with the bike half underwater, going through dense forests and passing over log bridges. I could not take more pictures as a needed both hands and feet to keep the bike on the road, or rather track.

When we stopped at our first spot, I am like. Okay, $10.
We did a side tour to the bat cave, that has 3 praying places inside the cave, and sleeping places for those praying on long sessions.

After the cave excursion, we went to the top for a nice view, using sophisticated ladders. Nice of my guide to test it for me first.

Then we headed deeper into the forest, for some more first gear bundu bashing. Until we eventually came to the temple. I am like, this is a giant elephant, where is the big Buddha. He is like, o, that is where we met, i take you later.

Rhino or something.

Then it was time to head back, all along the 11 km of mountain track, what fun. Eventually we got back to where the Buddha is. It is a massive Buddha, build on an even more impressive rock, in a temple on the rock. Amazing. You can take like a 1000 stairs to the top, or you can just ride your bike up from behind the temple like us ha ha ha.

Place for prayer at the bottom of the rock.

View from the platform.

And then it was time for the two and half hour dust ride back home. Thanks for reading, more adventures to come.