Cambodia here we come !
Always nice to go to another country. So today we will leave Laos and cycle to its neighbour.
But first we take a look at the Irrawady dolphins that can be spotted near Don Det island along the border. So another early start to spot the dolphins at dawn. We are lucky that the dolphins are also awake at this early hour; it really paid off to come out of our beds. Also the boat ride too and from the dolphins is very nice. The Mekong is beautiful here, with all the islands, the trees in the river and the countless number of birds that can be seen.
After that back to the guesthouse and by boat to highway number 13 again. Our first goal is to spot the waterfall a little further South. We just have a little money to pay the enterance fees, but they recently raised the prices so we send in Jeroen to take the pictures for the website. Marcel and Kees in the meanwhile have a nice chat with the guards.
Then finally off to the border. Voeng Kam at the border is still about 20 kilometers away and we will get there around noon. At the point where the highway ends and is replaced by a dirtroad we are told to go right (which will lead you to the most common used route: the boats to Stung Treng). When we arrive at the Mekong river bank and tell the border guards we want to bike and not take the boat we are sent back to route 13 and told to go straight on as seen from the highway. So we have made a detour of about 10 kilometers that took us precious time.
After reaching route 13 again the road turns into a stone littered path. Where Jeroen immediately has a flat tire. After some 5 kilometers we reach the Lao checkpoint. Here we have to pay US$ 5 to get our passports stamped. Although we take some time to talk with the border guards in order to get the price down we do not succeed. They even do not stamp our pasports until they receive the money. Probably our attempt fails due to the position of the desk. It is in front of the barracks and all the other border guards are also watching so giving in will most likely mean losing face by the guard on duty.
The guard tells us that only a few people pass this land crossing. With regard to foreigners: in the dry season only about 5 a month on a motorcycle and maybe 2 on a bicycle. So today they have a good day. A total of 3 Westerners stupid enough to come here by bicycle.
After leaving Laos a 100 meters on our right is the Cambodian border checkpoint where we manage to bargain the fee down to ten US dollars for three people on a bicycle (here you are sent into an office with only the highest ranking officer, so it was more easy to talk the fee down). Then we head South on Cambodian road No 7 hoping to reach the ferry near Strung Treng before dusk. The fact that we cross the border late and that they do not sell water here (what we expected) made it a though 57 kilometer long time trail. So we are happy when we reach the ferry just after 5 O'clock and can jump on it right away. The boy who collecting the fares jumps to his feet and demands one dollar of each of us. We say we want to pay in riel but that is impossible according to him, so we give him 5 dollars with the message to give us dollars back. When we where on the other side it takes him some while to give our change back but after a few attempts (he tries to give us back riel at a terrible rate) he succeeds to get the change.
Being very tired we check in at on of the first guesthouses and finish 3 bottles of water each before we decide to take a shower. In the evening we send an email to the home front telling that we finally reached Cambodia and take some extra of those delicious bottles of drinking water to our room to celebrate it.

With trembling legs we take off to cycle the remainder of highway 7 to Kratie. The Americans also turned this stretch of the road into a nightmare by means of their beloved "Carpet Bombing" strategy. We expect the worst.
The first 29 kilometer are in a good shape because the Cambodians turned it into a dirtroad. But after the first Bailey bridge (just after the fork with Hw 9) the misery starts. Words can not describe what we had to endure. So I will not try it. The only thing I can say is that even an off the road crack as Jeroen doesn't get a good felling riding roads like this one.
What we did see along the road. Also about that we can be short: nothing. We did not have the time to look around because we needed to have our eyes on the road to prevent riding into a bomb crater filled with mud. We were very happy that after 70 kilometers we arrived at O'Krieng. On the internet (the Cambodia forum of Andy Brouwer) they told us that you good get a bed here. And that was indeed possible (thank you George Moore). Three bamboo stretchers were carried outside and after fixing our mosquito nets above it we were ready to go to bed. But not before we had an excellent shower among the pigs.
We fell asleep with pain in our whole body having a restless dream about the ordeal that awaits us tomorrow the last 70 kilometer on this "Highway from hell".

After a good night sleep under the stars we headed off at dawn. We skipped breakfast because the holes that will come shake our bodies that we will probably eat it over and over again.
And yes we didn't leave the village yet and the holes in the road became bigger and bigger, just like the lose pieces of stone. After some 30 kilometers on this "highway from hell" the road became a little better and by keeping up with some travelling salesmen on motorbikes we were able the get the average speed above the 15 kilometers an hour.
Around km 49 Marcel found the breath to brag again because suddenly good stretches of tarmac appeared in stead of the bomb holes we were getting used to. He told us that after this ordeal was over het would sent a letter to his friends the Americans to inform them that they had forgotten some stretches and to ask them to finish it off.
It appeared to be the start of a very good road, on the Mekong riverbank, for the remainder of 25 kilometers to Kratie. And we also managed to add another tourist attraction to our list. 17 kilometers before Kratie dolphins could again be spotted in the Mekong river. So we tossed our bicycles away and enjoyed to watch these wonderful creatures again.
After that it took us almost an other hour cruising this great road until we reached Kratie. There we checked in one of the guesthouses and celebrated our hassle free ride with a stroll along the Mekong boulevard.

Today turned out to be a short ride.
We left at 6 O'clock again and took the touristic route along the Mekong river. The dirt road, that was paid by the Asian Development Bank and just finished, was in excellent condition. So we were able to look around without being afraid to fall in a hole like the 3 days before.
So we were able to see a lot of the lively and beautiful rural life of Cambodia. It was obvious that this part is one of the more wealthy parts of the country, because the houses where bigger and also there were lots and lots of people around. Something we also did not see the last days.
After 2 hours (a little over 30 km) we reached the city of Chhlong, something we reconed would take almost the entire morning, being used to Highway number 7.
In Chhlong we stopped at a small shop and it turned out that a retired captain of the Royal Cambodian army was living there. He immediately start rattling in French and after so many days speaking Lao, English and a little Khmer it took us some while get everything so sorted out in our heads that we could have a conversation with him. He told us there were 2 guesthouses in town and we had to head on another kilometer or so and just before the riverboatlanding we would see the guesthouses.
That turned out to be our salvation because Jeroen his stomach was giving him problems. So we decided to stop here and take a rest the remainder of the day.
So around 9 we reached the endpoint of today, and after some social talk we took a bath and a rest. After 4 O'clock "siesta time" was over and we made a ride around town. We also visited a very beautiful temple were one the naga's guarding it missed an eye. We were told later that the military camp on the top of the hill was one of the few places where the Khmer Rouge had a tough fight with the Vietnamese in 1979. In the firefight one bullet hit the naga, destroying the eye.
After that we went to bed at the usual time because also here electricity was cut at the usual time of eight thirty.

Feeling rested and with our abdomen in a perfect condition we enjoyed the touristic route that led us over one of the most beautiful roads along the Mekong. Also this part of Cambodia is rather crowded and many people stare at us in utter surprise. One woman even literally rolled off her chair laughing when see saw us. But that is not a surprise. How would you react if three Chinese in their strange looking sportclothes where speeding through your backyard. At the first real bench in Cambodia we took a rest. Sitting there enjoying the people passing (and taking pictures) by we only got on our bikes 3/4 of an hour later.
At or around kilometermarker 60 Marcel had another flat tire (score Marcel 3, Jeroen 2 and Kees 1). We rode onto the local temple complex and under blessed eyes we fixed the tire.
After that the path got a little more difficult to follow, but after we asked some people we got on the right track again. However, after almost 100 km we were happy that we reached the Japanese bridge that spanned the Mekong to Kampong Cham.
In Kampong Cham Marcel suddenly good demands. He wanted a bathroom western style because after a few days he wanted to relax also in there. Very easy. Marcel got the duty of selecting a hotel. The first one did not match his standards so we moved on to a second one which he indeed did approve of. The night we spend behind the computer telling the people at home of our adventures. We that we went for a drink. We met some expats in a newly opened restaurant. The owner, an American, gave us the advise to take the old road to Kampong Thom. A little difficult but the scenery is definitely worth the inconvenience caused by the bad road.

The first 15 kilometers over the sealed road to Phnom Penh were ideal to get the muscle pain of the previous days out of our legs and get them flexible. But when we turned in the old road to Kampong Thom we got visions of the Highway No 7 between Strung Treng and Kratie. Probably, some 30 years ago, somebody tried to reduce this road into rubble by bombing it. And our legs and bottoms were telling us that they had succeeded. So lets talk about the highlights of the day and not bother you with the dark side of cycling in Cambodia.
After some 15 kilometer of anguish we managed to get a ride in the back off a truck. Until today the opinions differ it was more comfortable and less painful then cycling. Also somebody living along the road to asked us if he could take a picture with us. And later we guessed he was right. When you see such a group of idiots on a bicycle passing by on such a terrible road. So when it happened you better take a picture to prove they did and have a good laugh about it.
After some 30 kilometers the road got better and we around kilometer 50 we cycled into an enormous rubberplantation. As far as the eye could see there were rubber trees. And the roads suddenly improved. Only problem was that there were so many roads that we got lost. Mainly because we were not used to have a choose. Until sofar most of the time our choose had be limited to only one road. The other factor was that the people we asked for directions all tried to talk us into going to the new Highway No 6. The told us that it was a better road (and we had to agree with them, certainly after the ordeal earlier), but we were told the old road was more beautiful. So we followed the old road, enjoying the scenery.
After we followed the old road we got on Highway No 6 anyway. And indeed it was sealed and better then the old road but because it was dry season they were refurbising large stretches turning it into a dustbowl. So again a hard day and we were very happy that we reached Kampong Thom at dawn. It was very busy along the read, especially with schoolchildren returning home, but also with big trucks. It was also quit dangerous and that was stressed by an accident we saw. A young boy was over by a van and it looked terrible. We wondered if he survived.
Our hotel was good and also the food in the restaurant downstairs was suburb. The only problem that we had to disappoint the lady in the room next to us because we were so tired of cycling that we did not longed for exercise but for a good night sleep.

On the bike but not for long because we saw BREAD. Something we did not see before. With gestures we made clear we like to have one of that delicious looking baguettes that they sold. They filled it with meat and some salad and as finishing touch a bit of chilisauce. We were invited to take a seat on two quickly organised chairs and so we had the most delicious breakfast in days. The rest of the day on the bike we were busy waving to all the people that said and waved hello or goodbye. It is a pity the Dutch crownprince Willem Alexander has already a wife otherwise Liesbeth would be a perfect match, at least regarding waving.
In Battambang we opt for a luxurious hotel. The prices where rather low because in the early nighties this city was the center from which the international support was coordinated and a lot of hotels were build around that time. But now there are to many hotels so the prices are favourable. On the grounds of one of the temples we had a chat with one of the Monks that wanted to improve his English and in return he gave us a quick course titled: What can you expect as a tourist in Cambodia.
And so another wonderful day had passed.

Today everybody was fed up with cycling. So time for other forms of transportation. Eric and Liesbeth took the boat from Battambang and the others loaded their bicycles on a pickup truck for the last 147 kilometer to Siem Reap. The trip in the back of the car can be described as dusty and a little crowded (22 men and woman with 3 bikes in the back of a pickup is even for Cambodian standards a little overdone). So they were happy they finally reached Siem Reap
Eric and Liesbeth had a much better time. It was a wonderful trip (the American we met in Kampong Cham said it was one of the highlights in Cambodia). Moreover, there were not so many people aboard. Some tourists and one Cambodian lady that was obviously seasick. She had to throw up several times, but she did it so charming and her face had such a dignified expression that one would hardly notice that she felt so terrible.
After arriving in Siem Reap the gentleman headed for lunch at a restaurant and when they wanted to look for an internet cafe to look where Eric and Liesbeth would meet them they (Eric and Liesbeth) cycled by the restaurant where Jeroen spotted them.
After we had met we went to look for a good guesthouse (that was not difficult to find) and sat down to exchange our adventures. It soon was clear we all had a great time on the road. After that a dinner in a chic restaurant to celebrate that we all had arrived. After that we went to bed knowing that tomorrow Angkor Wat was awaiting us, the cultural highlight of this holidays.

Our first day Angkor. It was very impressive !!. We started at the Bayon and spend more then a hour enjoying this temple with all its magnificent Buddha faces and beautiful reliefs. But the first thing that Jeroen did when he was off his bike was to stop a saleswoman, buy a T-shirt and immediately put it on and throw the old one away. After the Bayon we headed for Angkor Thom (the temple that is still overgrown with trees) and some other temples that were not as big as the first two.
At every temple we were pursued by persistent salesman and saleswomen, varying in age from 2 to 82. Yes, no kidding 2 years old. Even the smallest ones approach us telling: "He you madam, you buy postcard 1 dollar". It was also clear that they knew all pretexts. Liesbeth told them: "Sorry, I do not buy anything" was answered: " But sorry I can not eat, you better buy postcard 2 dollar."
But at the end of the day we managed to find a quiet spot at a small temple with also something to drink. An ice bucket was standing unattended near a small hut and when we went over to take a look a small boy pointed to his father who was sleeping off his hangover. We gently woke him up and took some cans and put the money in his hands. He was obviously very grateful because when we left he stammered "Thank you, thank you".
After that we went back to Siem Reap town and had dinner (a somewhat cheaper restaurant of yesterday). In the restaurant they also had some old coins that caught the attention of collector Jeroen. He even bought two, so he went to bed with a good feeling. Just as Marcel who new he made his wife Gerda happy by just buying nothing.

Every guidebook tells that you have to see sun raise at Angkor Wat. At 4.30 the alarmclock went off. So it was a very early start, even for early birds like us. Eric and Liesbeth were ready to go within 5 minutes, you almost would think that they get up at this untimely hour. After the others were ready we speeded the 7 kilometers to Angkor Wat. When we arrived we found out that more people read the guidebooks that tell you to start early, especially the number of Japanese is overwhelming. But in spite of the big crowd sunrise was very beautiful.
After sunrise we went sightseeing inside the temple. We lost Liesbeth instantly and also Jeroen wandered away in utter amazement over all the splendour around him. We saw them again at breakfast where some monkeys appeared in the trees and animal lover Jeroen had his second highlight that day.
After that we headed off for the 32 kilometer to Bantei Shrei. The rural scenery on the way to the temple was fantastic and in combination with the best road in Cambodia (sealed, no dust and sometimes a curve that keeps you awake) cycling was great.
Bantei Shrei is a small temple that is nothing special from the outside, but even an old stone hater as Marcel had to admit that the reliefs on the inside were beautiful. So we had no regret that we made this detour.
Then we headed back, but not before Eric tried to buy a postcard. But the salesmen had to stand behind a line and although Eric asked them to come closer they said they would get problems with the police if they did what he asked. So the deal was off. On the way back we were caught in a rain shower, forcing us to stop but as reward we had a nice time chatting with the villagers.
After that Eric, Jeroen and Liesbeth went on to discover Angkor. Kees and Marcel sacrificed themselves and headed to Siem Reap to arrange some things. They tried to reconfirm the flight of Jeroen and Marcel but did not succeed because it was Sunday. After that they put the latest adventures on the internet so the homefront was informed again and pampered their bikes. They found a carwash and enjoyed themselves half an hour just looking at a 5 men strong professional team cleaning their bicycles. After all the dust and dirt was removed they paid the incredible bill of 25 dollar cent. The investment immediately paid off, the woman along the road gave them give a wolf whistle.
When Marcel and Kees returned and told Jeroen that it was impossible to reconfirm the tickets that day Jeroen told Marcel that he preferred to leave Siem Reap the next day in order to try it again in Thailand. After we discussed over dinner Jeroen and Marcel decided to leave the next day.

After saying goodbye to Marcel and Jeroen we were wide awake so decided to start the day early in order to escape the afternoon heat.
We visited the less know temples of Angkor. But frankly we did not succeed. We tried to follow the route outlined in the Lonely Planet Cycling Guide, but then the other way around. However, the maps and given directions did not allow that. It turned out to be a bicycle treasure hunt instead of a sightseeing tour. So we decided to follow our own route and that was a good decision. We saw nice remote temples (although still crowded with tourists) and, closing off of three days at wonderful Angkor, we decided to visit the Bayon and Angkor again.
After we got to the guesthouse Kees noticed that one of his spokes was broken. Because Jeroen had the right tools and a couple of hours trying to change the spoke did not have the desired result we decided that it was something for a bicycle repairman tomorrow in Phnom Penh.

After saying goodbye to Marcel and Jeroen we were wide awake so decided to start the day early in order to escape the afternoon heat.
We visited the less know temples of Angkor. But frankly we did not succeed. We tried to follow the route outlined in the Lonely Planet Cycling Guide, but then the other way around. However, the maps and given directions did not allow that. It turned out to be a bicycle treasure hunt instead of a sightseeing tour. So we decided to follow our own route and that was a good decision. We saw nice remote temples (although still crowded with tourists) and, closing off of three days at wonderful Angkor, we decided to visit the Bayon and Angkor again.
After we got to the guesthouse Kees noticed that one of his spokes was broken. Because Jeroen had the right tools and a couple of hours trying to change the spoke did not have the desired result we decided that it was something for a bicycle repairman tomorrow in Phnom Penh.

For us it is getting a kind of normal but most people call it an early start when you get on your bike around 6 O' clock in the morning. Knowing that it would be a day with a lot of dust we first confiscated some bottles with water before we left Sisophon. The trip to Poipet was kind of normal. Dusty and a bad road but no worries you will get where you want to go: Poipet.
At the border all the paperwork went smoothly, so soon we got on our bikes for the last kilometers to Aranprathet.
In town we first booked a train to Bangkok for tomorrow, checked into a guesthouse (a straw hut) and tried to reconfirm our tickets (the reconformation succeeded the second attempt). We ended the day with a very good tasting bottle of beer to flush away the Cambodian dust and to celebrate the end of our fantastic holiday.

Today with the boat to Phnom Penh. It leaves at 7 so on 6 O' clock on our bicycles to cycle the 10 kilometers to the pier and still be there on time. It was a kind of busy on the pier. It is obvious that all the tourist take this route. Against our expectations it was not easy to arrange a ticket for us and our bikes on the spot. All tickets are probably booked in advance and we had to wait until is was clear there were some empty spots on the boat.
The boat trip was not as nice as we expected, especially when you compare it with the boat trip to Battambang. So we were happy we finally reached the Phnom Penh.
We looked for a guesthouse but that was not so easy as we imagined. We went to the backpackers ghetto but the rooms they offered us were just dens. After 3 in vain attempts we managed to get some rooms that we liked.
After that sighseeing in the city and to find a bicycle repairshop for Kees his broken spoke. First we tried at some bicycle shops. But they only sold bikes. But they did point us in the way of an old man with a handful of tools. We asked him if he could help us and he reassured that we were at the right address. After 1/2 an hour the spoke was replaced.
Then back to the guesthouse to change clothes because tonight we had to celebrate the birthdays of Eric. He invited us to have dinner at a good riversite restaurant. After the dessert of Bananas flambe we headed to our beds knowing that tomorrow we can no alarm clock is ringing.

Friday 20 December