Tickets to go up the mountain are free – issued at the tourist office at the bottom. But as soon as you leave the office on your bike the tourist police will pull you over and take you to there office and give you shake downs from – Cambodian driving license, wing mirrors, etc (despite the fact they are Tourist Police, not Traffic Police) to ‘Sorry I can’t let you go up the mountain it’s too dangerous – unless you give me some tea money.’
Stand around and argue the toss for thirty minutes plus, or straight out the gate smile and offer a couple of bucks and get out of there immediately. Either way you pay in time or money…

We’ve heard rumours here that the customs officials at the Koh Kong border crossing aren’t giving out paperwork to bikers coming over from Thailand. The result is that further down the line the cops, looking for bikes with foreign plates, pull em over and fine them…We’ve heard (second-hand) that one guy was asked for 200 bucks. Make sure you score your temporary import permits at the border.

Just added a kick-start XR250R to the fleet – come direct from the states, never opened in Cambodia. What an easy bike to ride quick off-road. Only a couple more models and I will have owned the entire XR range…now where am I going to find a nice clean 650R…

This could be the end of the old trail from Mondolkiri to Ratanakiri for the hard-core dirt biking scene. Admittedly they put a dozer up it last season in order to put up poles to support fibre optic cables, and the rainy season washed all their efforts away. But the construction guys seem much more serious this time – will the Death Highway be lost under a built up dyke road? Watch this space…

Just finished the recce for the 2011/2012 season and here’s the result -
http://youtu.be/bpnj33J1XnM

The first results from the helmet cam that Debs gave me for my birthday. Footage from this last season Feb/Mar 2011.

With a bunch of loonies! Haven’t laughed so much in ages as the Norfolk Boys and the Brummie Brothers wreaked havoc around the country, turning tents upside down with sleeping clients in them, spiking the medic’s beer with viagra, forever hiding each others kit. Then when we had to take one of the guys to be checked out after a spill and the doctor told him he was ‘too fat to x-ray’ they just wouldn’t let it drop. What a laugh. Look out for the new website www.toofattoxray.com. The rainy season has been quite light so all the trails were in good condition. And a flooded Route 66 made for a great last day. Hope all the rest of the tours are as full of laughs and as free of injuries as that one. Classic.

Have Youtube will post footage – some helmet cam stuff from last season(08/09): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ9xbD0AaFQ