We crossed into Cambodia last week, having cranked the 90kms from HCMC surprisingly easily... Stopping for fresh bread around the 70km mark was a nice second breakfast, and the border crossing around noon went reasonably well, once we'd been herded here and there to get to the correct desk a few times...
Leaving Vietnam...
And arriving moments later in Cambodia...
It didn't take long for the roads to change... About 3 km's into Cambodia, the road went from the smooth regular Tarmac we'd been used to, to a rough, bumpy coarse aggregate style surface, which then continued for about 20 km's until we reached the outskirts of a small town, where it changed to a wonderfully smooth, finely graded road.
By then, our hands, wrists and butts were pretty numb from the bumps and rough rumbling ride... Crossing onto the new surface, as I said to Tom at the time, was like night and day... Like going from rolling down a rocky slope in a barrel, to skating on freshly Zamboni'd ice...
It was another reason to enjoy rolling in to a town...smooth rollin'! Aside from that and fun interactions with the locals, we also like the cold soda or fruit juice opportunities!
However, we soon discovered the smooth rolling also only lasted as far as just outside the other side of town, and we were back to rough riding.
We rode about 50 km's into Cambodia before calling it a day and resting up at a nice little guesthouse, a short way down a side road in a small town we were passing through.
By lunchtime the next day, with the roads still mostly rough, we rolled into a larger town only to come to a screeching halt at a huge traffic block that was all stopped at the Mekong River. We suddenly found out that but we were about to have to take a ferry ride 300m across the mighty, muddy river.
$1 later, (the tickets were 50c each), we found ourselves jostling for room right on the back edge of an open decked vehicle ferry, next to bicycles and mopeds laden with good, animals and fruit.
The other side of the river saw a huge change in the road surface... One for the (very much!) better... So much so, we made some great km's, knocking out a total of 127 kms and getting into the capital city of Phnom Penh by early evening.
We spent a couple of days there, resting my back and taking a few pictures of the beautiful temples and the grand palace.
Although it is a large part of the history of Cambodia, neither Tom nor myself felt up to visiting the area known as the Killing Fields... It is a 'tourist attraction' but not in the usual sense, but the atrocities that occurred there were not something we felt we wanted to see first hand at the time. Maybe next time.
We did enjoy the sights, sounds and food of the city though, and Tom also got to take his first Tuk-Tuk ride, when we took the little moped-pulled carriage back from the supermarket, before wandering out again to take pix of the temples.
Tom got to dip his hand in the mighty muddy Mekong too..!
Rolling out of Phnom Penh, the lovely smells of freshly baked bread filled the air from the many bakeries north of the city. It wasn't long before we left the city behind though, and got back out not the green palm filled countryside, with, for a change, a nice tailwind helping us along.
Ducks on sticks... And sometimes on sticks, on bikes, were for sale all along one stretch of the road, which was well worth a photo break...
We'd clipped out a decent 135 km's before late afternoon, and upon reaching a small but bustling town at a large crossroads, we found a beautiful new guesthouse, complete with piping got water, cable tv, AC, and even solid wifi, so for $15 we checked in, grabbed some food from the well-stocked gas station over the road, and crashed out.
We got a good, well-rested early start the next day, aiming to do another 120 to 130 km's, which would have left us with about 60 kms to roll into Siem Reap the next day, but my bike had a bit of an issue, which made us have to rethink our plans...
Right now though, it's dinner time, and I need a break from typing... So I'll update more shortly.
More to come soon!
Cheers!
RWK.
OUT.
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Location:Sivatha Rd,Siem Reap,Cambodia
