Category: Biking South East Asia

I managed to be on the road at 6.30am after discovering the reason for my leg sore yesterday was because the saddle had twisted slightly to the left so well greased up with vaseline (not recommended according to Sally) I left Bamai Motel feeling comfortable and determined not to get dehydrated today.

I was helped by the conveniently spaced , western style coffee shops 🙂 so every hour or so I stopped for a jumbo Frappuccino and a 600ml bottle of water and cake 🙂 Yummy to if a bit expensive. It seems there is a clear two tier pricing system here. Local food is cheap ie meals for £1 to £2 and Western style  food like coffee & cake for £3 . This scheme worked well, I even at to stop for a pee at one point 🙂

The road is quite busy and is in the process of been dualled although interestingly its the bridges that get left till the end, maybe they have a shortage of cement or steel?  The result for me was good, as I used the unfinished empty carriageway hopping onto the busy road to avoid the unfinished bits 🙂

After 67 miles at 1pm it started to get way to hot for me so I pulled into the rundown Phaon City Hotel 🙁

This evening I discovered a great little restaurant the other side of 12 lanes of traffic 🙁  It has a cool name of ครัวโสภณ the menu is in a similar style, luckily a young couple on the adjacent table spotted my bewilderment, the girl had lived in London so spoke good English, so within moments I had another great Thai meal. The young guy aspires to cycle like me 🙂 and if he is reading this please send a copy of the pic to me at blog@geoffjones.com

Here is today’s Strava:

Todays pics are here or if you want the complete set of pics and not have to use the dreaded Google+ thne go here https://geoffjones.com/pictures

Tomorrow BANGKOK..

I left the comfort & splendour of the Angkor Era  a bit later than I would have liked at just after 7. The lateness was, at breakfast,  I received an email alert from Wordfence saying some files in a blog I run had suspect files 🙁  so I just deleted all 8 of them 🙂

Outside it was a gorgeous morning about as hot as an English summer’s day 🙂  Traffic was heavy initially but manageable especially with the good road service. I hit upon the start of a cycling race 🙂 I tried keeping up but these kids were fast! at 21mph I gave up and conserved my energy for later.

I love the amount of stuff that these guys tow around on their mopeds from around 12 adults to amazing stacks of mattresses etc. A couple of young girls came up and chatted to me in good English as we cruised along at 10mph. However, the road suddenly became very bad so they shot off.

I found a dealer for all the two wheel tractor things that are ubiquitous around Cambodia & Vietnam. Apparently they cost about $3,000 and made by Tra Chang a subsidiary of Kubata in Japan and imported via Thailand. Engines are up to 140HP so considerably more powerful than an Ox! The farmers with less than 5 hectares all use them as real tractors are at least 5 times more expensive. Apparently they (maybe) are called Power Teller’s

As the morning drew on it got hotter & hotter and soon coconut/Sprite stops became more frequent 🙂 Culminating in a garage just before Sisophon which had electric & real fridges where I consumed 3 cans of Sprite leaving a puddle on the table from the sweat pouring down my arms. I reckon it was upwards of 35degrees ;-(

So after 68 miles I collapsed on the bed in my $15 room at Nasa Hotel in Sisophon, leaving 25 miles or so to the Thai border at Paoy Paet (Poipet)

Here is the Strava, nic & flat apart from one pimple.

and a few pictures here