Wednesday 12th
We start the day with a short cycle to Kep, only 35km before reaching our beach resort hotel. As we cycled down towards the coast, we saw our Colonial Hotel situated overlooking the sea. We arrived at 10:30am, too early to check in to our rooms, so we all decided to change in to our swimwear at the hotel reception, before heading off in our tour bus to the harbour to catch a ferry to the stunning Rabbit Island for the day. We were all surprised to find that our ferry was a mere rowing boat, with an outboard engine and not a car ferry to escort our tour bus on. Fortunately, it wasn't too choppy and we made it across safely. We soon found ourselves a couple of hammocks and sun chairs for the day to lounge on, before tucking in to another sumptuous lunch!!
Pier and Tel (our driver) played volleyball, while Kate and Jayne had a full body massage on the beach, on canopy four poster beds, while Don and Chris slept in their hammocks. This certainly set the tone for the rest of the day, before we knew it the sun began to go down and we were back on our boat, heading back to our hotel.
Upon returning to our hotel rooms, which were beautiful, Mike spent the next half an hour busy catching lizards with a newly invented lizard trap (AKA - wooden tissue box, with an ideal sliding lid). We managed to round up all the lizards, so that Jayne could sleep soundly.
Thursday 13th
We left our hotel early, as we had a full on day and many miles to cover. We headed away from the coast, which again took us through very remote villages and colourful fishing boats were seen along the way. After some distance on the sealed roads, we then made our way on to a red and dusty dirt track for about 10 miles, before stopping for lunch at a local's house/ farm / shop??? They made us very welcome, offering us fresh chicken noddle soup and home made banana wine, as we had to wait for our pick nick to turn up. We soon discovered that our bus and driver had been taken to the local police station, after being involved in a collision with a tuc tuc, towing a trailer full of bamboo. There was some sort of 'blow out' to one of the tyre's and light damage, but we never found out what really happened or haven't seen our bus since! (although we do now have a replacement, with Mercedes seats, which is much nicer).
Our mechanic and sweeper - Ham, soon took off on one of the locals mopeds to fetch our pick nick and was gone for some time, but that didn't seem to bother us, as Don the elder was tucking in to the home made banana wine. The father of the family shared this with Don, as he had decided that he was the elder of the group and deserved such treatment. We now agreed that we were all Don's children.
After a short while, Ham soon returned with pick nick, unrecognisable, covered in red dust with what seemed like ginger hair!! We dusted him down and took him out the back to the well to wash him down. This was certainly a very memorable lunch stop, with chickens in baskets attached to the toilet wall, with pigs just beyond in a sty.
By the time we had finished our cycling for the day, we were all covered from head to toe in red dust, only to find cold showers were waiting for us at our hotel for the evening.
In the evening, we were taken by bus to a local open air restaurant, where we drank beer in our hammocks and ate local Cambodian cuisine.
Friday 14th
We started the day, cycling along a dirt road, in between lush green paddy fields on our right and a huge lake on our left, covered in glorious pink water lilies (lotus flowers). We stopped for food at a National Park and visited a 12th Century temple, before having lunch on a thatched house on stilts. Here, we got really in to the local cuisine, by trying the local delicacy - 'Ants in soy sauce, with rice' yummy!!! We then spent the afternoons cycle heading back in towards Phnom Penn on the main high way, which unfortunately brought us back in to the city in the rush hour - what an experience never to forget! Tuc Tuc's, Bikes, Trucks, Cars and Ox's all heading towards us on the wrong side of the road, weaving in and out, taking up every inch of the road. We all quickly realised, that we had to rip up our high way code and do as the locals!
So far 327km completed, with only 413km to go!!
Saturday 15th
A rest day at last !!!
We were all up and out by 8am this morning, for a visit to the killing fields and the notorious S-21 prison. This was a very sombre and sad day, as this was where the notorious Pol Pot regime carried out mass murder between 1975 - 1979.
We then headed to the 'Russian Market' to purchase a few items, including genuine Addidas shirts for $2, with a Lacoste logo on the back!
More adventures coming soon - subject to internet connection in the jungle!!
Kate, Mike and Jayne
xxx
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