January 17, 2012 by Moire
Kirirom is a 700 metre high hill in Kampong Speu Province, 2 hours’ drive from Phnom Penh. Geoff was in town, and we wanted to show him a good time, so we headed straight for the hill.
Andreas' bike taking a rest in Kirirom's deep dark wood.
Kirirom is synonymous with mountain bikers for its wicked forest single track. It’s also the venue for annual mountain bike race with the most technical riding found in Cambodia. Having skipped last year’s race, Dirk wanted to show Geoff what the newly designed course looked like.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Cambodia, Kampong Speu, Kirirom, Kirirom National Park, Mountain biking, Phnom Penh Wheelers | Leave a Comment »
January 10, 2012 by Moire
5 road accidents. That’s the number of incidents I saw during a mere 240 kilometres’ cycle over New Year’s. None of them were drink related. All of them were in broad daylight.
All I was trying to do was cycle my bike safely to Cambodia's coast and Sihanoukville...
Road accident #1: I set out from my home in Phnom Penh at 7am to start ride my bike to Sihanoukville via Kampot. It was a Saturday morning, so traffic was light from weekend office closures. That was, until I reached the airport, less than 30 minutes into my ride. Cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes were squashed together in an uncharacteristic manner. After a few minutes of bike pushing, I saw the ambulance booting towards city centre. I then passed the broken glass and two very crushed motorbikes lying on the road side. I stopped together with a number of others to take a quick look and a surrupticious photo.
Road accident #2: So there I was, cycling along the road, when two dogs started sprinting towards me from the other side of the road.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Bokor Mountain, Cambodia, Coast, Kampot, Lexus, road accident, Road biking, Sihanoukville | 3 Comments »
Not many people realise how beautiful Cambodia’s capital city is. In fact, my weekday running route is pretty incredible when it comes to impressive buildings.
Phnom Penh's Independence Monument
Within one kilometre of my front door, there’s the imposing Independence Monument. Built in 1958, it commemorates Cambodia’s independence from France in 1953.
Right beside it, there’s a long park that runs part of Sihanouk Boulvard. Every morning and evening, hundreds of people turn out to walk and run around this green spot.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Cambodia, Cambodia Vietnamese Friendship Park, Independence Monument, Phnom Penh, Royal Palace, Running Route, Waterfront | 1 Comment »
December 22, 2011 by Moire
Despite this blog being called “Running over Mountains and Around the World”, I’ve been a bit lax lately in fulfilling its mandate. I’ve been doing hardly any running. And I’ve been up very few mountains recently. Instead, I’ve been spending my time doing loads of biking in different forms.
Dirk and a monk on Phnom Basset, trying out Dirks mtb helmet
In October I cycled down to Kep on the Cambodian coast. 160 kilometres of very flat, pristine road travelled on my road bike. Now I’m not a fan of road biking at all. I rank it as the most uncomfortable form of transportation known to mankind. But I figured it was better than taking the bus all the way down to this beach-front destination. The roads themselves are perfect for those who are of the road-biking kind – wide road verges, lovely hot weather, and plenty of pit-stops along the way for water, coca-cola or coconut juice, whatever your favourite tipple. And it’s safe, the verge keeping you far from any near misses you might have the trucks, buses and motorbikes that speed along the highway.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Cambodia, Kep, Mountain biking, Phnom Basset, Road biking, Silk Island, Touring | 1 Comment »
November 1, 2011 by Moire
Back in July, I published my book, “Mud, Sweat and Tears – An Irish Woman’s Journey of Self-Discovery”. And what a journey it’s been.
Writing it was the easy part. I had just been laid off from my job in Ireland in 2009 and had moved to Vietnam with my other half. I lived off my savings, which was made all the easier given Vietnam’s dirt cheapness.
I spent two whole months, sitting at my desk for 4 to 6 hours a day, putting down all the words.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Amazon, Kindle, Marketing, Paperbacks, Self Publishing, Smashwords, Wicklow Round | 6 Comments »
October 25, 2011 by Moire
Thailand’s floods have dominated the international headlines in recent days. Cambodia, its next door neighbour, has not fared any better in the current rainy season. The country is now experiencing the worst floods in a decade. 247 people have died over the last 2 months. Over 100,000 people are still displaced. 16% of the country’s rice crop has been destroyed.
Cambodia's flooded paddy fields. Courtesy of abc.net.au
In Phnom Penh where I live, the main rivers are looking dangerously high. They’ve threatened to spill into the city for a number of weeks. In the province, things are much worse. I’ve just come from Pursat. The floods have destroyed rice and vegetables. Bridges and roads are destroyed. And though houses are built high up on stilts in anticipation of these annual floods, the water has reached levels that have forced evacuations.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Cambodia, Disaster, Emergency, Floods | 1 Comment »
October 18, 2011 by Moire
I spent last week in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. It prides itself as the world’s largest metropolis with over 25 million inhabitants. The city itself goes on and on, covering over 600 square kilometres of space despite its numerous skyscrapers.
The urban sprawl of Seoul, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Finding a place to run was always going to be a challenge. That, and finding the time to run. I was there to watch the Asian Gaelic Games, an annual event that attracts up to 60 Gaelic football teams from around Asia to battle it out for the spoils. With so many matches to watch, and with the world cup rugby on as well, it was hard not to indulge in drinking rather than running activities.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Korean War, Osan, Seoul, South Korea | 1 Comment »
October 11, 2011 by Moire
I’ve visited many sites of tragedy. I’ve been to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, where over 1 million Jews were exterminated. I’ve visited Kigali’s Genocide Memorial Site, where the 1994 Rwandan killing of 20% of the country’s population over 100 days is remembered. I work a 10 minute walk from Toul Sleng, a former prison where Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge tortured and killed over 17,000 people. Where I currently live, 2 million out of a population of 7.1 million died under the Khmer Rouge Regime from 1975 to 1979.
The waterfalls and pools at 9/11 site, taken where the names of those who died in Flight 77 are inscribed
At all these places I was numbed. But found it difficult to fathom the tragedy. So when we decided to visit the 9/11 memorial site in New York last week, I expected a similar reaction.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged 9/11 Memorial Site, New York | Leave a Comment »
A week of work in New York allowed me to check out Central Park for its jogging possibilities. I’m not a big city fan. But I had heard that Central Park is the perfect place to get away from the organised chaos of New York City.
View from the New York office after my Central Park morning jog.
The first thing that struck me was how peaceful the Park is. Despite the skyscrapers towering over the trees, I really did feel away from it all, even if 5th Avenue was less than a stone’s throw away. The roads are all blocked off inside its perimeter, so there was no fear of being run over by cars or motorbikes or tuk-tuks like I’m always aware of at home.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Central Park, New York, Road Running, USA | 2 Comments »
September 21, 2011 by Moire
Last weekend’s entertainment was an adventure race in Thailand. Most would be insanely jealous. But believe me, racing in the heat and dust, with dehydration and sunburn dragging you down and around over the 6 hour course is not as fun as it may seem.
The start of the extreme Koh Samui Adventure Race, Thailand.
The adventure race took place in Koh Samui, a romantic little island that costs an insane amount of money to get to. Organised by Active Management Asia, it’s a well put together race with a fun, well marked course. Unfortunately the travel costs reduced the numbers significantly of teams, half the number of turning out compared to River Kwai Race back in March.
I teamed up again with Dan to form the Irish Springboks. We were looking to do well on our second race outing together.
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Posted in Running around the World | Tagged Adventure Race, AMA events, Koh Samui, Thailand | Leave a Comment »
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