Kratie to Steung Treng, Cambodia

145 km

We left before six a.m. and found the sky was mostly cloudy and the air was cool. This was a real blessing since we were looking at a 140-or-so kilometer day. There are no real towns and no guest houses between Kratie and Steung Treng, so we made sure we had enough food and water to carry us through a very long day.

We enjoyed the cool morning as we rode north past the place where we saw the dolphins yesterday. Soon after, the village lining the road thinned out and after a while we found ourselves to be the only people on the road for good stretches at a time. We haven’t seen much empty land in Southeast Asia. We heard that they’ve recently cleared the land near the road of land mines and from here to the border the government is now starting to let people move in to farm. I wouldn’t want to be the first farmer.

By mid-morning we pretty much had the road and countryside to ourselves. We passed through very small villages now and then, waving a few hellos to the shouting children. Some of them don’t know hello, but instead shout, “OK!” really loud. Many others shout, “Bye bye!” and answer hello only if we say it. Here’s another thing we’ve noticed since that first muddy day along the Mekong: there are groups of kids every so often who shout hello while holding their finger in front of their lips like a “shh” motion. I don’t know where these kids got that one. I mean, we came up with some theories, one being that someone got a bit overwhelmed by the many many repeated shouts of hello all through the village and replied by saying, “Shh” and holding up their finger. Who knows. They’re so cute they make me laugh out loud sometimes. They get so tickled when we say hi back that sometimes they scrunch up their shoulders, laugh uncontrollably and run away. They’re really the cutest ever.

Steung Treng is at the junction of a major river which joins the Mekong. So, to continue tomorrow we will need to either take a very short boat ride for FIVE DOLLARS EACH (grumble, grumble) or try and see if we can sneak across the newly-finished but not-yet-open bridge. The proprietor of the restaurant we ate dinner at said to bring a nice present for the guys and they might let us pass. Ah, yes, a “present,” of course.

Five Dollar Ferry

Closed Bridge