Sitting in the lobby of the Mekong Hotel Kompong Cham, twenty-nine dirt bike mounted riders and the drivers and passengers of the four back-up vehicles watched as CNN almost gleefully announced that the winds of the little storm on the Vietnamese coast had hit over 120 kilometers per hour.

For the first time in living memory it was going to rain in December, and God, with a sharp sense of timing, had booked it to arrive December 12th , the start of the First Mondulkiri Rally-Raid'98.

The fun kicked off earlier that day when the tour collected together at the Olympic Stadium, site of another first, the first Open Go-Kart Championship round held in Phnom Penh. We were scheduled to do a few victory laps of the circuit somewhere in the middle of the first rounds of the races, the cyclo race and the dance session from the chipper-looking cheerleaders.

Having successfully completed a few laps (a bit early in the game to fall off, with 400 kms of the best tarmac and dirt roads in the country ahead of us), the majority of the 29 dirt bike entrants followed Big Ben, one half of the Angkor Dirt Bike Tours team, and hit the little known river road to Kompong Cham.

The Land Rover support team , headed by Glen Robinson of Cambodia Astra Motor Ltd, would then steer the Land Rover Discovery, Defender 90 and ex-army aluminum bodied 'light landie' along the main highway to our first night's rendezvous at the Mekong Hotel.

The Defender was also pulling the trailer full of supplies that included spard parts, a complete bgarbecue and enough food to feed this little mobile army for at least three days of the five-day expedition. The Clouds were already gathering as the last of the team pulled out of the TOTAL petrol station next to the railway station.

The idea had started sensibly enough over a few beers several months previously. Ben, myself and three other dirt bike fanatics had made one failed attempt to reach Sen Monorom a couple of years before. Now, with the much improved security situation in the countryside, we were keen to try it again. But a big trip involving more than just a hand-full of bikes would need support vehicles which also coincided with the 50th Anniversary of the birth of one of Britains best exports, the Land Rover. Supporting the Kouprey Wildlife Organization is one of the Bayon Pearnik's pet projects, so we knew that they were very active in the area. They suggested that we use the trip to distribute information to the local people on how to avoid snakebites and what to do if they do get bitten, and also use sponsorship to provide anti-venom. And so the idea began to take shape.

Mobitel generously offered to provede the money for the anti-venom. TOTAL offered fuel for the bikes and and Cambodia Astra Motors got together and provided the 5000 leaflets in Khmer warning of the dangers provided by snakes and the all important Rally-Raid race jerseys.

The leaflet had originally been written in Russian , Then translated into English which Cambodia Astra then had translated into Khmer. Ace photographer David Van Der Veen was called on to capture all the golden moments while his French counterpart, Alain, snatched digital footage so we could watch eaach other fall off our bikes again and again. Ray and Belinda from Weldmesh volunteered to be our mobile caterers, as some of the fatter entrants were worried that such an energetic trip might rob them of their hard-earned beer bellies. Angkor Dirt Bike Tours was formed to organize the whole venture-and off we went.

It was an overcast 6am that a decidedly second-hand looking group of bikers assembled at the Mekong ferry crossing on the edge of Kompong Cham, ready to catch up with the support crew who had set off even earlier in order to make some ground on the faster moving bikers. But despite gray skies and the early hour , the mood was quietly exuberant ñ the moment had arrived, time to get seriously dirty on a virtually unbroken 280 km stretch of dirt. Excellent.

A motley collection of bikes had been assembled with the Honda XLR 250 and Baja being the most common choice, followed by the Suzuki DR 250 , a couple of Honda XR 600s and crm 250s, a DR 350 , an RMX and KDX 250. The only bike to draw "tuts" of disapproval and shakes of the head from the experienced dirt stompers being a rented Honda AX1 250, really just a modified road bike than a serious off-road tool like the rest. Then there were the Land Rovers and the Weldmesh supply trailer, of course, and a rented Mitsubishi Pajero piloted by some guys working in Ho Chi Minh city who had heard about the raid and just had to go, Five guys had come from HoChi Minh, and one Phnom Penh old hand had returned specially for the rally while the most at least knew the way and that more than a handful had already ridden the road at least once. All these guys and only one woman to keep them all in line, and fed ñ brilliant Belinda the barbecue Queen.

The plan had been to leave Kompong Cham at first light, meet in Memot for lunch, distribute some leaflets, then meet again in Snoul where TOTAL had arranged a special petrol stop for us, before pushing on to Sen Monorom before dark.