Sen Monorom was more of a stop on the journey around the east of Cambodia. I didn’t know what I wanted to do there, but I knew I wanted to go.

When I got to Sen Monorom (pronounced “san mon-ooor-um”), I did the usual procedure of walking around until I found a hotel. The place I went to first, which, as-per my policy of not ruling anything out, was eventually the one I stayed in, despite it looking pretty ridiculous from the outside. The next day I had a walk around and found somewhere with people who spoke English and were in possession of a map. I took the map and rented a motorbike from someone across the road, who was inextricably linked to the first place. The day was spent riding through the Cambodian countryside, looking for waterfalls.

The bike I was on clearly wasn’t designed for some of the roads I took it along, but it coped well, being easily the most well-maintained bike I had ever rented. First, I went to try and find Dak Dam waterfall. After looking it up in the guide book, it said that it was almost impossible to find, but I found it without any problems after asking a few of the people I met along the way. It was a bit smaller than I was expecting and had quite a bit of rubbish in it, but it was in the middle of nowhere and satisfying to find. I got back on my bike and went to try and find Romnear waterfall. This was much more difficult, as, as the bloke I rented the bike off said afterwards, the roads had changed since that map was made. It was still a good indication of roughly where these things were, but it took about 3 hours of riding around to find the second one. Finally, after going down a track that I didn’t think had anything at the bottom of it, I found the second waterfall. It was much bigger than the first one and even more remote.

I got back to the hotel and deposited the bike, getting up fairly early the next day for the bus to Koh Nhek. This was a stopping point on the almost non-existent road to Ban Lung, which I was wanting to get to by bus. I asked the guy who had rented me the bike the day before how much it would be and he recommended getting a motorbike from Sen Monorom to Koh Nhek for $60. I managed to find someone outside who would do it for $50, but after walking to the bus station (a space in the middle of the market), I found there was a bus leaving in 10 minutes for Koh Nhek. It would wait for me, but I had to go and pack my stuff as quickly as possible. Some guy who was helping me translate offered to take me on his bike and eventually helped by ferrying me between the bus station, the hotel and where the bus was waiting, which was a petrol station out of town. He managed to get the price of the ticket down, so I gave him the different plus a few extra thousand Riel. He wasn’t completely happy with this, but it was all he was getting!