Driving a Tuk-Tuk in Cambodia

Thunder cracked overhead. The tuk-tuk swayed against a heavy gust of wind as pellets of rain pounded against the face of the weary driver. He revved the engine and sighed. The time on his Summiteer prototype read 5:30 PM. Night was closing in, and they still had many miles to go. 

The back roads of Cambodia are littered with potholes. You frequently have to swerve to avoid monkeys or livestock, and if you should break down, chances of getting help are slim. But the highways, with their roaring trucks and swift motorbikes, are even worse. 

This is why TRASKA founder Jon Mack, and two of his friends from the United States, found themselves navigating rivers, rice paddies, and gravel roads along the 100-mile drive from the capital, Phnom Penh to the southern city of Kampot.

The mission was to see something of the country and have an unscripted adventure while testing the road-worthiness of the new Summiteer. Buying a tuk-tuk and driving it across the country was an idea out of the blue. 

But the more they thought about it, the more enticing the idea became.

Tuk-tuks — motorbikes attached to a small carriage with enough space for about three grown men — are ubiquitous in Southeast Asia. Most tourists use them as a primary means of local transport — a trip from your average hotel to any given tourist attraction usually costs just a couple of dollars. But any tourist can ride in a tuk-tuk. It takes a true adventurer to buy one and drive it independently across an unfamiliar country. This, at least, was the conclusion Jon and his friend Alex reached… after a beer or two.

Jon and Alex had arrived in Cambodia first. Their friend Bryce was arriving a day later. What if, they mused as they watched the sunset from a rooftop bar, they bought their very own tuk-tuk the next day, and surprised their friend by picking him up from the airport in this majestic vehicle. An adventure for the sake of adventure — a worthy goal for any real traveler!

The next morning, Jon and Alex were still buzzing with excitement about this new plan. They started chatting with locals and ended up renting a tuk-tuk and driver and zooming around the frenetic capital looking for a dealership dodgy enough to sell a tuk-tuk to a couple of foreigners no questions asked, but also legitimate enough to provide enough documentation to prove to any nosy police officer that the vehicle was not stolen.

After a couple of hair-raising encounters with suspicious characters in shady parking lots, a suitable vehicle was soon acquired. 

Triumphantly, Jon and Alex rolled up to the airport to pick up their friend Bryce. But Bryce was not impressed. The vehicle looked to his weary eyes like a serious liability. Finally, after being coaxed into the driver's seat, he too caught the bug and became enthused with the idea.

The three travelers zipped around the capital seeing the sights and getting used to the handling. The chain had an unhelpful habit of falling off at the least provocation. This led to a humble encounter with a local farmer who they had to beg for assistance. Without a common language, Jon and his friends somehow made their predicament understood. The farmer smiled and matter-of-factly got down under the vehicle and showed them how it was done.

With this lesson in tuk-tuk mechanics committed to memory, it was time to tackle the challenge of heading from Phnom Penh to Kampot, a journey of about 100 miles.

This “luxury” vehicle was no base model either — it came fully loaded with a canvas cover which, when slung over the carriage, created a kind of mobile living room. 

With surprisingly good mobile data coverage, laptops and a bluetooth speaker, the two passengers were riding first class while the driver was fully exposed to the elements.

Jon began the journey in the backseat, where he fired up his laptop and caught up with a bunch of emails about the (back then) new TRASKA Freedivers (if you received one of these emails and noticed a few typos, they can mostly be attributed to unexpected potholes!). The tuk-tuk trundled along at 20 miles per hour, and soon it was Jon’s turn to drive.

The sky was growing dark. Flashes of lightning illuminated thick, black clouds gathering overhead. Jon was in the driver's seat, desperately trying to coax the reluctant tuk-tuk the final few miles to Kampot before darkness fell completely and they were stranded in the middle of the country. The rain was thick and harsh. The engine stuttered and coughed. Every bump threatened to dislodge the chain.

Finally, they made it. Soaked to the bone, they swaggered triumphantly into the hostel they had booked. 

Who else, they wondered, had driven here in such style?

After spending a few days tuk-tuk-ing around Kampot, a council of war was held about what to do with their beloved method of transport. Eventually, it was decided that hanging on to it would no longer be practical if they wanted to explore the islands off the coast. Reluctantly, the decision was made to sell it. It took barely 10 minutes to find a willing buyer on a street corner, and the crew managed to recoup most of what they spent. The tuk-tuk is probably still out there, trundling around the streets of Kampot, picking up other tourists who will ride it for a few minutes before heading off to their next destination. If only they knew the full story!

 

Travels With TRASKA is a new series that looks at the adventures people have had with a TRASKA watch on their wrist. If you have a story to share, write to nathan@traskawatch.com and you could have your adventure written up by a travel journalist and published right here.