Gentlemen, the disaster:
I was hired to guide a charity ride in the Cardamoms, there were 9 other riders, 4 coming with me on rental bikes from Phnom Penh, 5 coming over from Thailand, we were to meet up in Pailin. I took them shopping for their bits and bobs, (we had picked up the bikes the day before, I met them at the airport). Route 5, the most direct way was full of check points, police, military and royal guard, as one of the hire bikes had no indicators or mirrors, and they had not ridden on Cambodian Motorways before, also to avoid being stopped and having to pay bribes to the cops, I opted to go via Siem Reap and stop there, to leave early the next morning to Pailin and join the others. We were to witness a demolition arranged by the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, for whom we were doing the ride. W managed to get hold of them and I told the Thai group why we went via Siem Reap, and that we’d see them the next day. None of them thought to buy a local sim card and give me a call to establish contact. I admit to not telling them to do this either.
One of the rental bikes began to loose oil when hot, each water/rest stop, we were adding coolant and oil to it, a second rental had a rear wheel out of true, and was eating petrol, both of these were solvable once in Pailin, true up the wheel, 3 usd, clean carb and jets, 1 hour job and a bottle of Redex and all is well. We had to stop once to repair a clutch cable, we were surrounded by locals, I tried to keep them back and the lads said I was over-reacting, I told them that if they did not mind the bikes, and let me help the rider with the repair, things would go missing. The next stop was to replace a clutch cable, I helped, and let them mind the bikes, which they did not do. On the next stop, a hammock, bungee chord, water bottle and a shirt were missing. Strange hey?
We found a dirt road that was relatively good, 70 kph easy, so we took that instead of the main road to Pailin, less dangerous as well. As there is much road construction happening in the area, the signs had been removed. I had the khmere guard ask locals for the right road, we missed on turning and had to backtrack 20 km, but finally we hit Pailin.
Only to get a text from the Thai group that they had moved to the base camp of the Cardamoms, Osom. We got the GPS out and set off for Osom. I ended up having a head on collision with two army men on a scooter. I was out of it for about ten minutes before I could sit up. The scooter was destroyed, the driver hit my headlamp, the passenger hit my body armour, in the sternum. The usual circus played it’s way out, my bike was impounded until a settlement could be made over the scooter, they did not care about the men.
I arranged for us all to overnight at the medical centre, in our hammocks. At this time, we could not contact the others, as they still had not thought to get a local sim in Osom. In the morning, I sent them on ahead with the guard to meet the others and explain my predicament. In the mid day, I received a call telling me that one hire bike had packed it in, one rider was ill, they found the roads too “hairy” and were leaving the done for bike with the guard to walk out of the jungle to a main dirt road and camp with it until it was recovered, they were heading back to Phnom Penh and quitting the ride.
I offered to return to Phnom Penh, swap bikes and meet them further along the way the following day. This would have been possible as there was one rider in the group that had done the Cardamoms twice before, I was sure they would be okay until I could reach them. There was no reply
except to tell me they were angry with me.
One hire bike owner is also blaming me for his bike packing it in because I recommended an ex pat mechanic. There was no way he, I, or anyone could foresee that an oil problem would develop after 5 hours of doing 70 to 80 kph. The rider stopped using the bike in order to avoid siezing the engine.
I finally managed to get sms contact with the Thai group, filled them in on the situation. Of course I got the blame for “ruining the trip”. They told me they were leaving the trip and heading back to Thailand.
I spent the same day getting things sorted with the police, military police, army, with the help of CMAC and the UN Human Rights people, a settlement was reached. I then had to ride to Battambang to sign all the paperwork. I contacted the group, told them they could still do the tour, by meeting up in a town nearby, ride on while I rode to PP to swap bikes over and could rejoin them the next day. They blamed me for all that went wrong, while I maintain that had they simply remained in Pailin, as arranged, this could have been avoided.
The guard was paid to stay with the bike, the guards bike was more than capable, all they needed to do was take it slow and easy. 2 of the 3 were novice dirt riders, one well experienced, the road to Osom is a novice ride.
What a balls up.
There was no reason to quit the trip, yes, one lad fell ill, but the rest could have adapted to the situation and carried on.
I have had to apologize to the Cambodian Mine Action Center as they had spent money to send a team to do a demolition special for us to see and film, this was a wasted effort as the group from Thailand had decided to push on. I am operating under the assumption that they had forgotten the planned demolition in Pailin. Had just one of them bought a local sim card, and called me, this could have went differently.
My deepest and sincerest apologies to all involved, lack of communication, and failure to respect arranged meeting points, and mechanical failure of one bike, plus my collision were all contributing factors. It took me a day to get the bike out of impound, and would have taken one more long day to reach the group again.
Planning must have flexibility planned into it. If there is no flexibility, the rigid plan falls apart.
The trip did not have to be cancelled at all. Just modified.
Mick :angry:
Lucky for us, we had some very experienced leaders in TB & Crash to get us out of the poo & back on track, so to speak 
