Sunday 16th Jan - Two Weddings and a Puncture!

Well, we have all had the most amazing day so far - Just returned from a Cambodian Wedding reception.  

Whilst having breakfast on the roof terrace this morning in Phomn Phen, we noticed an Elephant walking down the road with his trainer - not the sort of thing you see everyday!

We took our tour bus for the first 30km this morning, as the road taking us out of Phomn Phen was too busy and narrow to cycle.  We soon arrived at the start, which was a small village at the side of the Mekon river. We parked the bus outside the local temple for our bikes to be unloaded and a crowd soon gathered.  Whilst waiting for our bikes to be assembled, we took a short stroll to meet the monks and use the facilities.  We were soon mobbed again by the local street children, whilst talking to the monks.   We gave the street children a toy to play with, which we had purchased a few days before for 25 cents from a roadside market stall and they were thrilled to bits.

We set off following the Mekon river on a dusty road, which we followed for most of the day.  The track soon became very sandy and we found it difficult to make good progress.   Our average 12 miles an hour soon dropped and the pace slowed up, even more so when Mike got the first puncture of the trip and Jayne came off her bike in the sand. We found that every time a truck passed us, we couldn't see for a while and had to hold our breath.  We soon realised that reinforcements were needed, so we stopped to each purchase face masks with Tweetie Pie logo's, to prevent us breathing in the dust.  One of the ladies serving on the stall was concerned that we had no sleeves on our tops and thought that we would get cold!!   It was 30 degrees, but winter for the locals as they were all wearing trousers and long sleeved tops and even some of the children had jumpers on!!

It''s the Wedding season here in Cambodia and over the last week or so, we have seen many Weddings taking place at the road side, with many actually on the road itself!!  The best one so far was on the first day at 7:55am, taking place on the inside lane of a roundabout.   The bride and groom were dressed in bright pink and looked magnificent.   A long queue formed, with people bearing gifts.

We were trundling through a village about half way through our cycle today, when we came across another wedding taking place in the road.  We could hear in the distance the very loud music, which grew louder as we approached.   We peeped through the side of the marquee and was soon spotted by the groom, who invited us in to see them.  The bride then asked if we could be in the photo's with her and Kate and Jayne reluctantly did, covered in dust and muck!

For lunch we stopped in the front garden of somebodies house, soon to be mobbed again by about 30 children.   We set up our pick nick and the owners soon appeared from their house, welcoming us to join them for a tour inside. We chatted for a while and was then presented with Coconuts falling out of the tree, which a young village boy had climbed bare foot to reach them.  The owners insisted that we all drank the coconut milk.

Towards the end of our day, we rode to a small island where our guide Pier lived to meet his family.  In order to reach the island we had to cycle across a bamboo bridge, which spans across the Mekon river.   We found this very scary, as it had no side supports.  The bridge was only just wide enough for three bikes and we had to overtake a slow moving moped with piglets on the back, only to find that a car was coming towards us!!  Kate got the shakes and didn't like the bridge very much!   Once we had crossed, we had to pay a dollar and found that the toll both owner had a Minor bird, which repeatedly said ''one dollar'', ''one dollar''.  nothing like the Dartford toll!

This evening, when walking back from our restaurant we came across another Cambodian wedding in full swing. Having stopped to admire the ladies beautiful dresses and make up, we were soon spotted and welcomed into join them by the Brides brother, who insisted on handing each one of us a piece of fruit. We were escorted through the wedding party to the dance floor and met various relatives on the way through.  We were presented with more fruit and tins of Anchor beer.  They were so pleased that we joined the party and wouldn't let us go!!   After much dancing and hilarity, we made our excuses and left as we have another 6am start in the morning.

Tomorrows town is famous for its cuisine - SPIDERS!!