Breakfast at the usual place (second day on the trot). There was a lovely, fresh feeling in the air due to the heavy rainfall overnight. Got on the boat paying 260000 for lots of extras I did not know about and headed off in a boat full of tourists down the labyrinth of channels that make up the Mekong at this point of its journey
Arrived on an island with lots of French history, locomotives, waterfalls and space pizzas. Well French colonial bridge was subject to a hefty fee and all other attractions are to be paid for in some way (such as having to pay to leave your bike)! We’d been told it was all inclusive, but hey ho, such as life. Noodles, French old port and a chameleon fight, then we got back to the boat to hop off to the other side of Mekong. The tourist minibus that was supposed to take us further did not want to take us with the bikes (paid for), so we cycled 10km to join our fellow tourists viewing the “pearl of the Mekong waterfalls” - apparently the largest in South East Asia.
We topped up our water supplies, said goodbye`s to our fellow friendly tourists and headed for the border crossing (9km) just in time to cross as the border was shutting early (a bit of a leasurely approach to time schedules over here). We got a visas (inclusive of an extra non receipted fee to help with the fund to buy the border guards much needed extras J) and cycled off into Cambodia. There was no place to exchange money, but the usual touts who wanted to charge us $70 to take us to the next town (60kms). We said not and toddled off into nothingness and the fast approaching sunset. The only traffic that passed us on the route were the border guards making their way home. We found a closed guest house after some 15kms and darkness descended. We mistook the military police quarters as a possible guest house, which turned out to be a good thing. They offered to let us stay in one of their empty rooms in the complex and use their facilities – they even offered us dinner. One of the team had been posted all over the world doing training, so spoke excellent English. We decided to camp and had a good night’s rest with thunder and lightning rumbling ahead. No need to lock our bikes with the top security present!
Cycled: 54kms