A Cook's Tour_ In Search of the Perfect Meal - Anthony Bourdain [95]
‘That’s an endangered species, actually,’ said a voice in English.
Tim and Andy stood there in head-to-toe leather motocross outfits, covered in road dust, behind me in a dark corner of the hotel’s dining room. Tim has penetrating pale blue eyes with tiny pupils, and the accent of an Englishman from the north – Newcastle, or Leeds maybe. Andy is an American with blond hair and the wholesome, well-fed good looks and accent of the Midwest. Behind them, two high-performance dirt bikes leaned on kickstands in the Hang Meas’ parking lot.
Tim owns a bar/restaurant in Siemreap. Andy is his chef. Go to the end of the world and apparently there will be an American chef there waiting for you. Kry, looking exhausted, joined me for breakfast, saw the two men in dusty leather, and nodded hello.
‘Kry! How’s it going, you bastard?’ said Tim.
‘Not bad, Tim. How are you?’ replied Kry.
‘Still hanging at Happy Herbs?’ asked Andy.
Everyone knows each other in Cambodia, it seems. We were on the other side of the country – in the middle of nowhere – and Kry and the two motorheads were acting as if they bumped into one another like this all the time.
‘You see Misha?’ asked Tim.
‘We saw him just now, coming in, talking to some KR guys,’ said Andy.
‘He was on the plane with us to Siemreap,’ I offered.
‘How’d he get here from Battambang?’ asked Tim. ‘We didn’t pass him on the road.’
‘Maybe he take helicopter,’ said Kry.
‘Ahhh . . . yesss,’ said Tim with an evil cackle.
The two men were on a road trip across Cambodia’s back roads – a daunting obstacle course for most travelers, but rollicking good fun for dirt bikes. They’d intended to travel from Pailin down to Sihanoukville and the sea but ran into trouble after encountering an illegal logging camp in the jungle and had had to turn back.
‘We’re going to try another route,’ said Tim, ‘but if things don’t work out, we’ll see you in Battambang maybe.’
We couldn’t get out of town fast enough, but our driver misunderstood Kry’s instructions and headed toward the Thai border, grumbling under his breath. It was an hour before we figured out that we were headed in the wrong direction, inching along miles of jungle road, passing small farmhouses with satellite dishes on the roofs, the telltale black Toyota Land Cruisers, Land Rovers, and SUVs sitting outside of neat homes in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere were felled trees – as if an army of indiscriminate lumberjacks had simply waded through, chopping down everything in sight. The clouds hung low around the mountaintops, and the people, when they saw our car and our cameras, appeared shocked, as if we’d disturbed them while bathing. Our driver looked frantically unhappy. When Kry finally pointed out that we wanted to go in the opposite direction – back to Battambang – the driver nearly wept with relief.
The whole way to Pailin, our driver had kept his vehicle at a steady ten miles per hour. On the way back, he tore along at a reckless thirty miles per hour, oblivious to any damage he might be doing to his suspension or undercarriage. He’s scared, I realized. Really scared. When we passed a company of black-clad militia in full parade formation a few yards from the road, their heads turning in unison to watch us, our driver sped up even more, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror for the next twenty miles. At a checkpoint we’d passed the day before, there had been one or two rifles – clapped-out M1s or Chinese knockoffs. Now, the same checkpoint bristled with AK-47s. The whole way back, our driver was spooked. Every innocuous-looking civilian we passed on the road seemed to fill the guy with terror, a potential lookout radioing ahead to the ambush party. I never thought I’d be happy to see the Hotel TEO again, but I was. When you’ve been to Pailin, Battambang seems like a megalopolis.
Midnight in Battambang.
Tim drove one motorcycle, with me on the back, hanging on for dear life. Andy drove the other, with Misha behind him. We raced through Battambang’s quiet streets at high speed, making a god-awful