March 3, 2006
March 3, 2006
Muang Khong to Stung Treng (105km): We planned on getting an early start knowing we had a long day ahead of us. We met Justin outside the guesthouse at 5:45am and rode the short distance to the morning market to find road snacks. The morning markets are fascinating. Women were sitting in the dirt with small blankets laid out selling fresh fish (some still alive) from the Mekong, live toads, roasted toads on a stick, live chickens tied together by their feet, small birds (which we think they eat?), vegetables, fruit, water, baked goods (spongy type rice cakes, corn fritters, sesame donuts) and some small household items. I found a food vendor making Lao coffee so we sat down to savor it one last time. So we did not get on the road as early as we would have liked, but finally managed to get off the Island via a quick ferry and heading south by 7:00am. We were grateful for the overcast skies and the cooler temperature than the proceeding days. We all were interested in stopping at the Khong Phapheng Waterfall just before the border of Cambodia. We had done about 25km and thought we had passed the turnoff somewhere and missed the waterfalls because we didn’t see any signs (which wasn’t really a surprise). We were all a little bummed because they were supposed to be impressive. About 2km later we surprisingly came across a sign to the falls. It cost us $1.00USD each to look at the Khong Phapheng Waterfalls and we thought we would just blaze through the post and not stop to pay just like the locals. Little did we know that there was a cop a little ways up the road collecting entry tickets. Before we could go back for a ticket Justin had a flat and some mechanical problems that I helped fix. Then I went to go purchase the tickets and we were all impressed with the size of the falls. I kept looking for the lines where it would be runable in a kayak and pointing them out to Jodi. It was a nice place with some newly constructed viewing structures but I was a little put out that they charge an additional $1.00 USD to use the toilet. We all had a good laugh when Justin pointed out that a Beer Lao is $0.80 USD but at the falls they cost $1.80, eighty cents for the beer and 1 dollar to get rid of it. The falls were a nice little side trip and worth the stop.
Back on the highway I stopped quickly when I saw a bright green snake a few feet in front of me that looked like it was agitated and alert with it’s head lifted high. We were all afraid to ride around it because it kind of looked like a small cobra and we didn’t feel like being chased by an aggressive snake. A motorcyclist passed us and crossed in front of the snake but the snake didn’t even move. So I went first and made a wide arc around the snake going as far over to the left side of the road as possible. Then Jodi and Justin made their move following my lead. Thankfully the snake left us alone.
Just outside Veun Kham, the last town just before the Cambodian border, it started to rain so we stopped for some breakfast. The customs gate spanned the road and had one little food stall where we ate noodle soup with egg and found they had Coffee Lao! It was a really good one too. It started pouring rain for about 15 minutes so we waited for it to slow down enough to continue south. That was interesting since we haven’t seen rains like that since Malaysia. About 500 meters away the road split, the right went to the ferry pier and straight ahead led to the land border crossing between Laos and Cambodia. We went straight and just after the junction the road turned into a dirt double track. It was a fun stretch of about 6km that felt just like mountain biking in a quiet little forest. We came upon the Lao Immigration Office, which was a little shack on the side of the road. It looked more like a ranger post than immigration. To get stamped out was only $1USD and then we rode another 500 meters to the Cambodia Immigration Office to get an entry stamp for $1USD (since we had previously purchased our entry visas in Vientiane). While we waited for our stamp we spoke with 4 English backpackers that hired a car to take them across the border and they were telling us their woes. They didn’t exchange their sterling pounds in Laos because they didn’t like the rate and now they didn’t have any local money or USD. Not a smart move. So they ended up paying almost twice as much for a $20 USD visa on arrival because the border patrol gave them a one to one rate for pounds to USD. The town where they were going wasn’t known to have banks either so they were pretty much screwed. After they left we thought about how we should have offered to exchange some money for them since we’re going to London anyway. Oh well!
The road just after the border crossing was graded into a 2 lane dirt road and with the rain it had become very muddy....welcome to Cambodia! The mud clung to my front tire and after 20 meters it seized. Jodi and Justin were not having troubles so I deduced that my front end was too heavy from front panniers. I moved my fronts to the back, cleared the mud and sat back as much as possible. It worked! After another 500m the road became more packed making the mud less of a problem. The road turned to gravel shortly and a little further along we were pleased to see the left hand side of the road was paved. Road works were in progress so it was closed to traffic but we rode it anyway. The road switched between paved and unpaved for the next 55km and we were able to maintain a pace of 18km per hour most of the way. We became pretty exhausted throughout the day due to the varying road conditions and all agreed that this was our hardest day of riding on this journey so far. Towards the end we felt like we were riding out in the middle of nowhere with nothing in sight. Then I spotted a cell tower in the distance so I knew we were coming upon a bigger town. We knew that just short of Stung Treng the road splits again and we were to take the right fork, which leads down to the ferry crossing into town. I found this beta on the LP Thorntree site thankfully because the left fork leads to a dead end at a bridge that is not complete. We watched the sunset on the Mekong as we boarded a small rickety wooden ferry packed with about 20 people and our 3 loaded cycles as well as a motor scooter. It didn’t feel like the most stable of boats and it was quite low in the water (a couple of inches between the top boat edge and the water). We all hoped we wouldn’t be diving for our bikes shortly. They obviously do this all the time because we had no problems and rolled into the small, well-used port on the other side. In Stung Treng we selected our accommodations quickly and helped ourselves to a well deserved huge dinner.
Stung Treng to Chang (88km): Ughh! This 88km ride was the toughest I have ever done. I did not enjoy it and if I had to do it over I wouldn’t. Instead I would have paid the money and had someone take me down the river to Kratie. It was hot and dusty with very little in the way of services. We had to clean and lube our chains every 30km because the silt turned our fine tuned bicycles into ones that sounded much like the dilapidated ones we see children riding to school on a daily basis. Yet in some sick way I liked the adventure of it all. We stopped in a small town about 4pm looking for food and accommodation. We found food, but the accommodation was a small room off the front of the restaurant that had a mat for the floor and a hammock. No fan, no A/C, no blankets or sheets and no screens or mosquito nets. I’m not even sure they had a bathroom where we could wash up. Although for $1USD a night you can’t complain too much. We considered staying there, but after eating a meal we felt rejuvenated enough to press on since we thought maybe we could find something further up the road. Around 6:30pm we rolled into a village scattered along the road just as the sun was setting. We couldn’t figure out whether this was our destination town as no one spoke English. We started getting really worried because we were only seeing the villagers wooden and grass shacks….no restaurants or guesthouses to be seen. We were riding along slowly with all the villagers staring and yelling greetings at us as we passed and feeling quite panicked with what we were going to do. We rounded a corner and saw two monks walking out of a Wat. We immediately rode up to them and one of them greeted us and asked if we would like to stay in the pagoda at the Wat. We eagerly said yes as we had heard that if all else fails you can always stay at the Wats. Whew! One of the locals helped us lift our bikes up into the pagoda, which was no easy task. The stairs are more like a steep narrow ladder and with the heavy loaded bikes it took two guys and careful footing. An old couple that are the caretakers of the monks made us a small dinner of rice and canned sardines that we ate on a mat on the floor while the monks watched (they cannot eat after 12pm). Then we sat down with them in the corner where they had a hammock that they shared and we took turns singing songs. They sang lovely tunes in Khmer while Justin and I belted out songs from Queen, Metallica, Sir Mix-a-lot, Madonna and even graced them with the oldie but goodie "Afternoon Delight". Thankfully the monks only spoke broken English! Jodi laughed along with them and told us we were going to hell. It sure seemed as if they were enjoying our off key songs though a there were plenty of laughs and silliness going on. The oldest monk was about 18 years old (the youngest maybe 13) and there were only four of them so you can see why they enjoyed the entertainment…boys will be boys monks or not. They laid out 3 small mats with small decorative pillows on the wood plank floor for our beds and we all collapsed with exhaustion onto them. The monks continued to sit next to us and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee (we didn’t know they could do that). Then at 9pm they went off to do their chants for an hour. It was mesmerizing to listen to and lulled us all to sleep. Jodi, Justin and I all woke up a couple of hours later freezing! Who knew that the wind could get so cold in Cambodia at night when the days are so hot. The pagoda was just a rectangular wooden building on stilts that is open to the outdoors with a couple of tiny closed in rooms constructed at the back for the monks. None of us had any type of camping gear so we ended up unrolling a couple more bamboo floor mats and laying them on top of us to try to keep warm. It didn’t do too much to help. Between sleeping on the hard wood floor and the cold wind, it was a long night with not much sleep.
NOTE: Even though the riding was intense I enjoyed the opportunity to witness a glimpse into a rapidly disappearing way of life in Cambodia where the roads are very bad. The Chinese are building new roads everywhere but I don’t understand the logic in their building 146km of road all at once. It makes for slow work and it looks as if the new road is being torn up as fast as it is constructed.
Chang: The monks got up at 5am and so of course we woke up with the activity also. They ate their breakfast first on a small elevated platform next to the Buddha alter while we sat facing them on the floor with the caretakers watching them eat. When the monks were finished eating we were all served the leftovers. After breakfast we took a few pictures with them, thanked them, gave a small donation and rode off. Having a slumber party with Monks was an interesting experience that I never expected.
Chang to Kratie (56km): Thank goodness we pressed onward the previous evening because this ride took the remaining energy I had. The riding wasn’t bad, just not smooth and it beat all of us up pretty badly. Outside Chang the road was tar seal with a loose rocking covering (we call it chip seal) and it made the riding difficult. Luckily the left shoulder was a little clearer so all of us crossed into the oncoming traffic side and rode on the shoulder. After awhile the road became the dusty hell of the previous day and we were back to riding on the right with our dust masks. We all looked like and felt like dirt bags since the pagoda didn’t have a place for us to wash up after our ride yesterday. We were riding with our previous days dirt, sweat and stink plastered all over us and we were all so very tired. Fortunately dust hell did not last long and we rode most of the way to Sambor on new concrete that alternated between the left and right lanes, which was closed to vehicular traffic. Just short of Sambor all traffic was required to exit on a dirt road that leads to the old highway into Kratie.
Before exiting we had second breakfast at a small food restaurant. I went to the restroom and Jodi and Justin ordered vegetable noodle soup. I returned in time to see Jodi almost vomit when they brought her soup with what looked like raw pork floating on the broths surface. Justin and I simultaneously jumped from our chairs to stop them from making two more bowls of the concoction. I told the restaurateurs that we do not eat meat. They took Jodi’s soup away and brought three bowls of noodles without meat. About halfway through breakfast we were a bit sloppy in watching our bikes when a Cambodian knocked over Jodi’s bike and picked it up and pretended that he was going to ride off. I learned later that the whole thing was a production meant to distract us while the other scum pinched my mini disc player out of my front panniers. I learned yet another travel lesson. Someday I will learn that when things happen they are usually meant to distract me from what is really happening and I need to start watching the perimeter.
We rode the dirt road through some very interesting small villages where we felt like we had gone back in time. In Sambor the road was along the beautiful Mekong River and became a single lane highway that appeared to be good pavement but the theme of the day was "things are not as they seem." It was not smooth and any speed over 15km caused my butt to move up and down on the seat turning it to hamburger. I rode most of the way on the dirt shoulder to get off the bouncy pavement which was a good thing because of the (what I like to call) "Tacomrys" speeding to and from Kratie (Tacomry: A cross between a Toyota Camry and a Tacoma truck. It looks like a Camry but it has more ground clearance and the drivers drive like teenagers on methamphetamine at very high speeds.) It’s a wonder they don’t kill more people and the locals don’t take them out with the left over munitions from the wars.
After 40km we were wrecked and stopped for a break just short of the fresh water dolphin viewing area. Jodi and I were impressed that the Cambodians don’t harass the dolphins with boats but have walkways built over the Mekong for peering into waters for the mammals unlike other places in the world that offer dolphin viewing.
We pushed on to Kratie and arrived around 2:00pm. We checked into the first guesthouse we found, showered and went to eat a large lunch at one of the many cafes. After lunch Jodi and I tried napping but the construction next door was to loud so we remounted our bikes and rode them to the nearest truck wash. For $0.25USD they hand washed, dried and were going to lube my chain before I stopped them. We then went about town checking things out and found the town to be pretty similar to Strung Treng.
Muang Khong to Stung Treng (105km): We planned on getting an early start knowing we had a long day ahead of us. We met Justin outside the guesthouse at 5:45am and rode the short distance to the morning market to find road snacks. The morning markets are fascinating. Women were sitting in the dirt with small blankets laid out selling fresh fish (some still alive) from the Mekong, live toads, roasted toads on a stick, live chickens tied together by their feet, small birds (which we think they eat?), vegetables, fruit, water, baked goods (spongy type rice cakes, corn fritters, sesame donuts) and some small household items. I found a food vendor making Lao coffee so we sat down to savor it one last time. So we did not get on the road as early as we would have liked, but finally managed to get off the Island via a quick ferry and heading south by 7:00am. We were grateful for the overcast skies and the cooler temperature than the proceeding days. We all were interested in stopping at the Khong Phapheng Waterfall just before the border of Cambodia. We had done about 25km and thought we had passed the turnoff somewhere and missed the waterfalls because we didn’t see any signs (which wasn’t really a surprise). We were all a little bummed because they were supposed to be impressive. About 2km later we surprisingly came across a sign to the falls. It cost us $1.00USD each to look at the Khong Phapheng Waterfalls and we thought we would just blaze through the post and not stop to pay just like the locals. Little did we know that there was a cop a little ways up the road collecting entry tickets. Before we could go back for a ticket Justin had a flat and some mechanical problems that I helped fix. Then I went to go purchase the tickets and we were all impressed with the size of the falls. I kept looking for the lines where it would be runable in a kayak and pointing them out to Jodi. It was a nice place with some newly constructed viewing structures but I was a little put out that they charge an additional $1.00 USD to use the toilet. We all had a good laugh when Justin pointed out that a Beer Lao is $0.80 USD but at the falls they cost $1.80, eighty cents for the beer and 1 dollar to get rid of it. The falls were a nice little side trip and worth the stop.
Back on the highway I stopped quickly when I saw a bright green snake a few feet in front of me that looked like it was agitated and alert with it’s head lifted high. We were all afraid to ride around it because it kind of looked like a small cobra and we didn’t feel like being chased by an aggressive snake. A motorcyclist passed us and crossed in front of the snake but the snake didn’t even move. So I went first and made a wide arc around the snake going as far over to the left side of the road as possible. Then Jodi and Justin made their move following my lead. Thankfully the snake left us alone.
Just outside Veun Kham, the last town just before the Cambodian border, it started to rain so we stopped for some breakfast. The customs gate spanned the road and had one little food stall where we ate noodle soup with egg and found they had Coffee Lao! It was a really good one too. It started pouring rain for about 15 minutes so we waited for it to slow down enough to continue south. That was interesting since we haven’t seen rains like that since Malaysia. About 500 meters away the road split, the right went to the ferry pier and straight ahead led to the land border crossing between Laos and Cambodia. We went straight and just after the junction the road turned into a dirt double track. It was a fun stretch of about 6km that felt just like mountain biking in a quiet little forest. We came upon the Lao Immigration Office, which was a little shack on the side of the road. It looked more like a ranger post than immigration. To get stamped out was only $1USD and then we rode another 500 meters to the Cambodia Immigration Office to get an entry stamp for $1USD (since we had previously purchased our entry visas in Vientiane). While we waited for our stamp we spoke with 4 English backpackers that hired a car to take them across the border and they were telling us their woes. They didn’t exchange their sterling pounds in Laos because they didn’t like the rate and now they didn’t have any local money or USD. Not a smart move. So they ended up paying almost twice as much for a $20 USD visa on arrival because the border patrol gave them a one to one rate for pounds to USD. The town where they were going wasn’t known to have banks either so they were pretty much screwed. After they left we thought about how we should have offered to exchange some money for them since we’re going to London anyway. Oh well!
The road just after the border crossing was graded into a 2 lane dirt road and with the rain it had become very muddy....welcome to Cambodia! The mud clung to my front tire and after 20 meters it seized. Jodi and Justin were not having troubles so I deduced that my front end was too heavy from front panniers. I moved my fronts to the back, cleared the mud and sat back as much as possible. It worked! After another 500m the road became more packed making the mud less of a problem. The road turned to gravel shortly and a little further along we were pleased to see the left hand side of the road was paved. Road works were in progress so it was closed to traffic but we rode it anyway. The road switched between paved and unpaved for the next 55km and we were able to maintain a pace of 18km per hour most of the way. We became pretty exhausted throughout the day due to the varying road conditions and all agreed that this was our hardest day of riding on this journey so far. Towards the end we felt like we were riding out in the middle of nowhere with nothing in sight. Then I spotted a cell tower in the distance so I knew we were coming upon a bigger town. We knew that just short of Stung Treng the road splits again and we were to take the right fork, which leads down to the ferry crossing into town. I found this beta on the LP Thorntree site thankfully because the left fork leads to a dead end at a bridge that is not complete. We watched the sunset on the Mekong as we boarded a small rickety wooden ferry packed with about 20 people and our 3 loaded cycles as well as a motor scooter. It didn’t feel like the most stable of boats and it was quite low in the water (a couple of inches between the top boat edge and the water). We all hoped we wouldn’t be diving for our bikes shortly. They obviously do this all the time because we had no problems and rolled into the small, well-used port on the other side. In Stung Treng we selected our accommodations quickly and helped ourselves to a well deserved huge dinner.
Stung Treng to Chang (88km): Ughh! This 88km ride was the toughest I have ever done. I did not enjoy it and if I had to do it over I wouldn’t. Instead I would have paid the money and had someone take me down the river to Kratie. It was hot and dusty with very little in the way of services. We had to clean and lube our chains every 30km because the silt turned our fine tuned bicycles into ones that sounded much like the dilapidated ones we see children riding to school on a daily basis. Yet in some sick way I liked the adventure of it all. We stopped in a small town about 4pm looking for food and accommodation. We found food, but the accommodation was a small room off the front of the restaurant that had a mat for the floor and a hammock. No fan, no A/C, no blankets or sheets and no screens or mosquito nets. I’m not even sure they had a bathroom where we could wash up. Although for $1USD a night you can’t complain too much. We considered staying there, but after eating a meal we felt rejuvenated enough to press on since we thought maybe we could find something further up the road. Around 6:30pm we rolled into a village scattered along the road just as the sun was setting. We couldn’t figure out whether this was our destination town as no one spoke English. We started getting really worried because we were only seeing the villagers wooden and grass shacks….no restaurants or guesthouses to be seen. We were riding along slowly with all the villagers staring and yelling greetings at us as we passed and feeling quite panicked with what we were going to do. We rounded a corner and saw two monks walking out of a Wat. We immediately rode up to them and one of them greeted us and asked if we would like to stay in the pagoda at the Wat. We eagerly said yes as we had heard that if all else fails you can always stay at the Wats. Whew! One of the locals helped us lift our bikes up into the pagoda, which was no easy task. The stairs are more like a steep narrow ladder and with the heavy loaded bikes it took two guys and careful footing. An old couple that are the caretakers of the monks made us a small dinner of rice and canned sardines that we ate on a mat on the floor while the monks watched (they cannot eat after 12pm). Then we sat down with them in the corner where they had a hammock that they shared and we took turns singing songs. They sang lovely tunes in Khmer while Justin and I belted out songs from Queen, Metallica, Sir Mix-a-lot, Madonna and even graced them with the oldie but goodie "Afternoon Delight". Thankfully the monks only spoke broken English! Jodi laughed along with them and told us we were going to hell. It sure seemed as if they were enjoying our off key songs though a there were plenty of laughs and silliness going on. The oldest monk was about 18 years old (the youngest maybe 13) and there were only four of them so you can see why they enjoyed the entertainment…boys will be boys monks or not. They laid out 3 small mats with small decorative pillows on the wood plank floor for our beds and we all collapsed with exhaustion onto them. The monks continued to sit next to us and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee (we didn’t know they could do that). Then at 9pm they went off to do their chants for an hour. It was mesmerizing to listen to and lulled us all to sleep. Jodi, Justin and I all woke up a couple of hours later freezing! Who knew that the wind could get so cold in Cambodia at night when the days are so hot. The pagoda was just a rectangular wooden building on stilts that is open to the outdoors with a couple of tiny closed in rooms constructed at the back for the monks. None of us had any type of camping gear so we ended up unrolling a couple more bamboo floor mats and laying them on top of us to try to keep warm. It didn’t do too much to help. Between sleeping on the hard wood floor and the cold wind, it was a long night with not much sleep.
NOTE: Even though the riding was intense I enjoyed the opportunity to witness a glimpse into a rapidly disappearing way of life in Cambodia where the roads are very bad. The Chinese are building new roads everywhere but I don’t understand the logic in their building 146km of road all at once. It makes for slow work and it looks as if the new road is being torn up as fast as it is constructed.
Chang: The monks got up at 5am and so of course we woke up with the activity also. They ate their breakfast first on a small elevated platform next to the Buddha alter while we sat facing them on the floor with the caretakers watching them eat. When the monks were finished eating we were all served the leftovers. After breakfast we took a few pictures with them, thanked them, gave a small donation and rode off. Having a slumber party with Monks was an interesting experience that I never expected.
Chang to Kratie (56km): Thank goodness we pressed onward the previous evening because this ride took the remaining energy I had. The riding wasn’t bad, just not smooth and it beat all of us up pretty badly. Outside Chang the road was tar seal with a loose rocking covering (we call it chip seal) and it made the riding difficult. Luckily the left shoulder was a little clearer so all of us crossed into the oncoming traffic side and rode on the shoulder. After awhile the road became the dusty hell of the previous day and we were back to riding on the right with our dust masks. We all looked like and felt like dirt bags since the pagoda didn’t have a place for us to wash up after our ride yesterday. We were riding with our previous days dirt, sweat and stink plastered all over us and we were all so very tired. Fortunately dust hell did not last long and we rode most of the way to Sambor on new concrete that alternated between the left and right lanes, which was closed to vehicular traffic. Just short of Sambor all traffic was required to exit on a dirt road that leads to the old highway into Kratie.
Before exiting we had second breakfast at a small food restaurant. I went to the restroom and Jodi and Justin ordered vegetable noodle soup. I returned in time to see Jodi almost vomit when they brought her soup with what looked like raw pork floating on the broths surface. Justin and I simultaneously jumped from our chairs to stop them from making two more bowls of the concoction. I told the restaurateurs that we do not eat meat. They took Jodi’s soup away and brought three bowls of noodles without meat. About halfway through breakfast we were a bit sloppy in watching our bikes when a Cambodian knocked over Jodi’s bike and picked it up and pretended that he was going to ride off. I learned later that the whole thing was a production meant to distract us while the other scum pinched my mini disc player out of my front panniers. I learned yet another travel lesson. Someday I will learn that when things happen they are usually meant to distract me from what is really happening and I need to start watching the perimeter.
We rode the dirt road through some very interesting small villages where we felt like we had gone back in time. In Sambor the road was along the beautiful Mekong River and became a single lane highway that appeared to be good pavement but the theme of the day was "things are not as they seem." It was not smooth and any speed over 15km caused my butt to move up and down on the seat turning it to hamburger. I rode most of the way on the dirt shoulder to get off the bouncy pavement which was a good thing because of the (what I like to call) "Tacomrys" speeding to and from Kratie (Tacomry: A cross between a Toyota Camry and a Tacoma truck. It looks like a Camry but it has more ground clearance and the drivers drive like teenagers on methamphetamine at very high speeds.) It’s a wonder they don’t kill more people and the locals don’t take them out with the left over munitions from the wars.
After 40km we were wrecked and stopped for a break just short of the fresh water dolphin viewing area. Jodi and I were impressed that the Cambodians don’t harass the dolphins with boats but have walkways built over the Mekong for peering into waters for the mammals unlike other places in the world that offer dolphin viewing.
We pushed on to Kratie and arrived around 2:00pm. We checked into the first guesthouse we found, showered and went to eat a large lunch at one of the many cafes. After lunch Jodi and I tried napping but the construction next door was to loud so we remounted our bikes and rode them to the nearest truck wash. For $0.25USD they hand washed, dried and were going to lube my chain before I stopped them. We then went about town checking things out and found the town to be pretty similar to Strung Treng.
posted by Kirk & Jodi Roberts at 6:38 PM
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