West of Phnom Penh, the flat rice plain begins to roll into low hills, and the land of Kampong Speu opens out in a scatter of sugar palms, small farms and monasteries. This is the province of palm sugar, tapped from the toddy palms by climbers who go up the trunks twice a day, and the roadsides are lined with stalls selling blocks of it, along with fresh coconuts and fruit. The region is quiet and rural, with a way of life that has hardly changed in decades, and the sense of a different Cambodia from the capital's crowds.
The memorial sites that the ride seeks out in this area are part of a recent UNESCO listing of Cambodian places of memory, which includes Tuol Sleng, Choeung Ek and a small site at M-13. The latter was an early Khmer Rouge prison in the forest, where the man later known as Duch ran a security centre from 1971, before he moved to the notorious S-21 in Phnom Penh. Visits to such sites call for quiet and respect. The aim of the listing is to preserve these places so that the story is told truthfully, and to honour the dead.
The road west from the capital, National Highway 4, is wide and busy with trucks bound for the port of Sihanoukville, and the side roads that branch off toward villages and temples are narrower and rougher, with potholes and sudden stretches of red dust. Dogs, cattle and children on bicycles share the surface, and in the rainy season, from May to October, puddles hide holes. The best months for riding are November to February, when the air is drier and cooler.
Kampong Speu, a provincial town of over thirty thousand people thirty-eight kilometres away, has fuel, simple restaurants and guesthouses, and it is the sensible place to fill up and eat. Out in the countryside you will find roadside shops that sell petrol in bottles, which is fine in an emergency, but do not rely on it. Carry water and a rain jacket, and plan to return before dusk, since lighting on the rural roads is poor.