38 km

We expected today to be short and easy, with only about 30 km to ride. It was raining when we woke up, and by the time we got out of the hotel it was only sprinkling. A Cambodian driving the other way said he went through road construction much of the way from Kratie to Chlong the day before and he thought it would be a bit difficult. We rode about four kilometers out of town and saw the beginning of the road construction: a very wet, muddy clay coated the surface and most people were stopped to consider the odds of making it through. A major portion of traffic in Cambodia is motos, and there were a few trying to get through. Normally we see anywhere from one to five people on one motorbike, and most moto passengers were walking, barefoot, through the mud behind struggling drivers. Many a scooter went down, and there was a huge crowd of locals watching the spectacle. Some attacked with speed, others on bare tip-toes keeping the bike upright while barely inching forward. The sprinkle became a full rain again, so we turned around to wait it out in a restaurant.

The view from the restaurant where we waited out the rain.

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Three hours later we returned to see even more traffic and people backed up, but more were also making their way through now. The sun had come out and so we waited, while watching, another hour and a half or so before going through.

The spectacle of the mud race!

Within a couple of hours we were going through dust. We made it to Kratie in the late afternoon, with the sun showing it’s full power, the cool rains a very distant memory.