Tomb Rider

Your adventure in Cambodia begins as soon as you touch down at Phnom Penh international airport! Our friendly tuk tuk driver will be waiting for you and will transfer you to your hotel, weaving through the madness of the city traffic en route.

If this is your first time in Cambodia, we recommend a visit to the Killing Fields and S21 Genocide Museum where you can learn all about Pol Pot’s barbaric regime back in the late 1970’s where an estimated 3 million Cambodian people lost their lives. It’s not a ‘nice’ day out, but it’s one we strongly recommend as it is an incredibly eye opening experience that will stick with you throughout the rest of your journey across this beautiful country.

In the afternoon we will all get together on the rooftop of your hotel (which by the way has the nicest rooftop swimming pool in the city!) for a welcome briefing. We’ll talk you through the entire trip, the various safety considerations and introduce you to the rest of the team and fellow riders. Following this, we will board a private boat that will take us out onto the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers to enjoy a few cold drinks as we watch the sun set behind the Royal Palace. We’ll then be dropped off at an excellent riverside restaurant for dinner. Welcome to Cambodia!

• Accommodation: 4* hotel with the best rooftop swimming pool in the city
• Included Meals: Dinner
• N.B. The cost of a visit to the Killing Fields and S21 museum would be for your own account.

Early in the morning to avoid the madness of rush hour traffic, we’ll hop into a minivan for a 30 minute drive out to our workshop, which is closer to the edge of the city. The bikes will be lined up waiting, all clean, shiny, warmed up and ready for adventure! We’ll have time to make some adjustments to the bikes if required, and then it’s time for your first daily briefing before hitting the road!

The road doesn’t last long though, as we’ll be onto the dirt within the first half an hour and as the day progresses the countryside will feel more and more rural and get more and more beautiful. We’ll pass through villages, weave through herds of cows, ride alongside train tracks & rice fields and be cheered on by the local children as we go.

We’ll meet with our support vehicle at a Buddhist pagoda, where our driver will have prepared a picnic lunch for us. After we’ve devoured our sarnies, we’ll receive a blessing from the local monks… They’ll splash us and our bikes with holy water as they chant words that none of us foeriegners understand. Roughly translated, they’ll be wishing us the best of luck for the trip ahead. But please understand that these blessings do not make you invincible…  Previous riders have been known to ride off of the trail into a trench full of muddy water and frogs within minutes of leaving the pagoda, so please exercise the same amount of caution, regardless of how blessed you feel!

After some more fantastic riding, we’ll arrive at our accommodation for the night & round off the day with cocktails in the pool. As far as first days go, this is a good one!

• Accommodation: Resort with a swimming pool.
• Included Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Today’s ride is an absolute corker! We kick off with half an hour of paved road where we will refuel and ride up into the hills. Then it’s trail time! And man are these some good trails! We spend the morning riding tracks that wind through the pine forests, stopping briefly on top of a cliff to try and spot the giant hornbills that glide above the jungle beneath (in case you don’t know, hornbills are huge birds with big colourful beaks (think Zazu from The Lion king) – they’re simply beautiful!).

We have single track trails, two track trails, rocky sections, creek crossings and possibly some dodgy stick bridges (depending on the route we choose to take). As we descend, the pine forest merges into jungle and we find ourselves ducking beneath bamboo and trying not to decapitate ourselves on spiky vines. It’s an exhilarating ride that certainly requires your full attention!

The tracks in the afternoon open up a bit and we ride on red gravel tracks that vary from ‘nice and smooth’ to ‘steep, rocky and rutty’! We end the day with incredible views as we descend from the hills to our riverside accommodation.

Tonight we ‘camp’ next to a river. But this is more ‘glamping’ than ‘camping’, with proper mattresses and electricity in each of the tents. It’s a stunning location too and we can take kayaks out for a sunset paddle before being served dinner under the stars.

• Accommodation: Riverside glamping.
• Included Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

We’ll enjoy breakfast next to the river before bidding farewell to our camp host. We have a big day on the trails today, but we ease into it with some cruisy red gravel roads to start the morning. We then turn off of the gravel, ride through a river and weave through the trails until we reach a tiny village named Kamlot. This is the ‘real Cambodia’ right here!

Sandy trails pass through more tiny villages before venturing back into the forest where there’ll be plenty of creek crossings and some rough rutty sections. It’s thirsty work and you’ll be ready to ride the easier gravel tracks when we pop out into the fields of sugarcane & tapioca that cover the surrounding hills.

We finish the day in a small dusty town at a basic, no frills guesthouse (we are very much in the back of beyond by now) and will enjoy a BBQ in the courtyard.

• Accommodation: Basic guesthouse.
• Included Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Leaving our guesthouse behind, we hit the gravel road and visit a particularly random Buddhist pagoda nestled into the side of a rocky hill, home to a monk who speaks surprisingly good English!

From here, we pass through plantations and rough rocky tracks that suddenly open up into wide sandy tracks. If you enjoy sand, you’re going to love this day! With the Cardamom Mountains to our left and Aoral Mountain to our right, we’re riding along a flat valley that frequently floods during the wet season. When it floods here, the locals make new single track routes around the flood on their scooters. What that leaves behind is a criss-crossing selection of winding trails that are an absolute joy to ride! Pick your own line, get up on the pegs and pin it.

We have multiple river crossings, bridges and many small Cambodia villages on the list today. These villages are picture perfect representations of the Cambodian countryside: buffalo lazily jingling through rice fields, stilted wooden houses, towering palm trees and kids playing in the rivers. It’s simply stunning and, if all goes to plan, we’ll be passing through some of the most picturesque villages as the sun is descending into the golden hour.

Today is another big day, so you may not be too excited about the fact that we’re camping tonight. But when you jump into the river with a cold beer at the end of it and then enjoy a BBQ next to a campfire beside the water, it all makes perfect sense. It’s a beautiful way to an epic day and the sound of the flowing water will surely ease into a good night’s sleep on your comfy air bed.

• Accommodation: Riverside camping. Private tents with air mattresses.
• Included Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

This morning is a real mix of terrain, starting with rough rocky trails through the bush that gradually get less rocky and more sandy. These are old trails that have been used by the local villagers for the past hundred years or more, evidenced by the fact they cut so deeply into the land, often providing towering walls of dirt either side of us as we cross small creeks.

Today we cross the Tonle Sap River. The flow of this river changes twice per year, flowing between the mighty Mekong and Tonle Sap lake – the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. We board the ferry at Kampong Chhnang and enjoy a 20 minute cruise across and along a number of smaller branches of the river before we land in the province of Kampong Thom.

We wind down the afternoon on easy dirt and paved roads, cruising through villages and small towns, navigating herds of cows as we go.

We finish our day in Kampong Thom town where we will stay for two nights and enjoy a well earned rest!

• Accommodation: Resort with a swimming pool.
• Included Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Take some time to relax by the pool in the morning, take a stroll along the river into town or get a massage. In the afternoon, you have the option to take a minivan out to the Beng Mealea temple site and spend a bit of time exploring these impressive ancient temples. We can of course bring a cool box full of cold drinks with us so that we can sit among the temples and enjoy a couple of cold ones as the sun sets into the surrounding jungle. Perfect.

• Accommodation: Resort with a swimming pool.
• Included Meals: Breakfast.
• N.B. The cost of the minivan and temple tickets would be for your own account.

Well rested, we’ll hop back on the bikes and ease back into the riding with a morning of cruisy gravel roads alongside rivers and rice fields…

Tonight we stay in a village named Ta Seng. We’ll stop off at our accommodation to get cleaned up before taking a short ride out to a nearby temple, riding past a couple of smaller temples along the way. Preah Khan is a 1,000 year old temple surrounded by thick forest, and it is just beautiful! We’ll arrive in good time to witness the sun set behind the temple arch, with no other tourrists in sight and nothing but the sound of the jungle around us. This is a very special place.

We will spend the night in a homestay, owned by Mr Duhl – the village chief. It’s basic accommodation with everyone sharing one giant bedroom and your shower being a bucket, but this is Cambodian village life and it’s all part of the experience!

• Accommodation: Basic homestay. NO private bedrooms and NO shower.
• Included Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

It’s the final riding day of this epic adventure across Cambodia! We start the day with a stroll into the village for a local breakfast and then hit the dirt.

We’re straight onto the trails and soon pass an ancient temple perched right next to the trail. These are our favourite temples… Sure, Angkor Wat and the other major temple sites in Cambodia are impressive, but there’s something special about discovering these lost temples in the forest, where no other tourists ever visit, knowing that the only reason we’re witnessing such incredible sights is because we rode our dirt bikes on challenging trails to get here.

Today we’re mostly riding on Cambodia’s very own ‘Route 66’, but unlike the US version, this route is an ancient highway that connects Preah Khan with the city of Angkor (now Siem Reap). The ancient route has now deteriorated into a fantastic trail that winds through the forest, crossing rivers and cutting through fields. While there is little evidence of the physical highway left, we do occasionally ride over impressive 1,000 year old bridges that are still standing strong.

We’ll roll into the beautiful town of Siem Reap, feeling quite heroic after such an epic journey. We’ll go out for a celebratory dinner and possibly a few celebratory drinks. For those that want to keep the party going, there’s of course the lively Pub Street!

This ride is truly a once in a lifetime adventure and a fantastic way to experience the Kingdom of Wonder!

• Accommodation: 4* hotel.
• Included Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

It’s the end of the tour from our side, but if this is your first time in Cambodia we strongly recommend you extend your stay by an extra day, allowing you time to take a tuk tuk tour of the impressive Angkor Wat and surrounding temples. We can of course arrange this for you (the cost would be for your own account).

Our team will load the bikes onto the trailer, bid you all farewell and commence the drive back to our base in Phnom Penh, arranging your transfers from the hotel to the airport before we depart.

• Accommodation: Not included.
• Included Meals: Breakfast.