TRAVELOGUE  »  Activity Rain Outs and Tuk Tuk Accidents

We knew that we were going to be traveling during monsoon season but, up until arriving at Kratie, it had never affected our plans.

However, shortly after arriving the deluge began and we had no choice but to hole up in our hotel for the night instead of doing our planned activities. This was a big bummer, as our schedule had us on the first bus out the next morning and the town became a casualty of war.

The next day our early morning bus took us to Phnom Penh, the capital, where we had to drop off our passports at the Vietnam embassy to get a visa. We originally thought the process would take a long time and we would have to spend the night but it took less than five minutes.

At this point we decided to try and make the last bus of the day to Siem Reap that was leaving in 10 minutes on the other side of town. A taxi or tuk tuk would never make it so we hopped on the back of motorcycle taxis and sped off. Weaving in and out of traffic we narrowly avoided cars, trucks and other motos…but we made it on time. And then the rain began.

The Runaway Motorcycle Tuk Tuk

We finally made it to Siem Reap at nearly 10pm after leaving Kratie at 7am and hopped into a motorcycle tuk tuk to take us to our hotel.

The monsoon rains were still falling and halfway into our ride the moto started to skid out in the mud. Bags went flying out of the open sides as we slipped down a small hill: the driver trying hard to get the vehicle under control.

We finally came to an abrupt stop and got off to reclaim our bags and survey the damage. No one was hurt and everything seemed fine until I discovered what actually caused the tuk tuk to stop: my dSLR camera backpack wedged under the wheel! We won’t go into the mini-freak out I had but when we finally arrived at the hotel I got to survey the damage.

Looking at my stuff I realized that the wheel had come to rest right on top of my big super zoom lens. Fortunately, I had a filter attached to the front of it that absorbed most of the damage. The filter glass had shattered and the ring that screws onto the actual lens was badly bent and could not be removed, but the lens itself still worked. To this day the filter ring is still on there and a few shards of glass remain. Guess it’s something I have to take care of when I get home.