99 km

Goodbye horns, hello dirt! We thought we left the noise behind yesterday, but today we really enjoyed a lack of traffic. We took the “river road” north from Kampong Cham on the east side of the Mekong. It started out as a hard-packed gravel and dirt road much like the urban trails in Flagstaff. Soon it turned to hard-packed and rough dirt, and soon it became mud because of the rains that came through early this morning. We went from dirt to mud and back to dirt several times. A few times, we left the main river road to follow single-track paths behind the villages right on the river’s edge, winding between the river and fields of corn and tobacco. It was my favorite day in Cambodia because the scenery was green and beautiful, the pace was slow and the people were the most warm and welcoming of any we’ve seen here so far.

We rode right on the edge of the Mekong for many kilometers before heading inland on a dirt road.

Later, the mud just starts to build up as we ride and push our way through ox-cart village roads.

The day was longer than we expected from reading our map, and it was our longest on this trip in terms of time. The rough dirt and muddy sections took a lot of time and effort. Luckily, the last 25 kilometers were paved with chip-seal so we were able to increase our speed for the last bit. We were completely tired out when we finally reached Chlong.