101 km

We’re out of the hotel just after sunrise, and though it felt warm and sticky when we were loading the panniers onto the bikes, the breeze felt cool once we started cycling.

We made our way through the morning bustle of traffic, which was already at full speed by 6:00 a.m. and backing up near the roadside markets just outside of town. This is the land of horns, with every motorized vehicle adding to the cacophony. Small cars will sometimes have horns that belong on Mack trucks, some motos (scooters and motorcycles) will have car horns, and vans or other “people-movers” may sound horns that in the U.S. announce ambulances or fire trucks. And the flow of traffic, if you can call it that, is a might-is-right anarchy, with speed or size dictating who gets to go where and in what order.

In other words, it’s crazier than anything we’ve seen in any other country, and Dave has ridden in Central and South America. We saw it the minute we crossed the border into Cambodia, and we’re likely to see it until we leave. There are no traffic police, as we read in a German-published atlas, but there are spray-paint outlines of accidents scattered here and there on the roads. Not that we need reminders to be careful.

Not only is the road paved today, but it is smooth and flat and we make great time. We also see a slightly greener landscape, with farms outlined by palm trees stretching between the many small villages we cycle through. A few fields are in use, but most are waiting for the rainy season to begin. We see clouds building in the distance, but the heat is still continuing to build. There is rain forecast for the area over the next few days.

Billboards like this line the road.