Cambodia...

We've made it to Cambodia...in Siem Reap today.

The roads in Cambodia...not quite like Thailand...

Day 9: We left at the usual 7:30 or so and traveled east towards the border...about 6 km away. The border crossing was suprisingly easy. A couple short line, a couple stamps, pay $25 for a $20 visa...not a bad markup all things considered. The first thing we came across was a cluster of huge casinos...seems that gambling is illegal in Thailand...so of course the borders are full of casinos. About a half mile later....the pavement stopped. Ahead was a thick brown fog of dirt and a road that looked like it had been smooth and flat when Christ was around (maybe). This would be our friend for the next few days.

There are many different road conditions in Cambodia from what we saw:
Hard pack smooth dirt (the nicest)
Hard pack bumpy dirt
Hard pack really bumpy dirt
Rutted in the direction of travel
Rutted perpendicular the the direction of travel
Dinosaur tractor tracks
Mud
Sand
Gravel
And then there is the "what the hell...I didn't hear the bombing runs last night!" road.

Of course you get to share the road with buses, trucks, motorcycles, cars, kids on bikes, people wandering aimlessly, cows, parked vehicles, construction crews, and countless other obstacles. The bigger they are, the bigger cloud of dust they are capable of kicking up. We chew on sand all day, it fills the spouts on our water bottles, our eyes and nose, and every nook and cranny on the bikes.


Thankfully, this was a pretty short day. 33 miles after we started we ended up in Sisophon. A hot, jumbled mess of buildings that lives in a permanent dust cloud. We are brown from head to toe...

Sisophon is a tweener. A note about tweeners: Tweeners, as we are discovering, are those little towns that appear between the main tourist stops. It's the town that your bus might refuel in on the way from point A to B. Not anywhere you would usually stop. There really isn't much to do or see and english is rarely spoken. But, they are an interesting place to be if you work at it a bit. You get used to being stared at like a freak...after all it's been weeks or months since the last whiteys rolled through town. You'll be followed down the street by children and EVERY child you pass will yell "HELLLOOO!" no less than ten times. Dinner can be a challenge....you may walk by a place a few times before you realize it is a restaurant. If you are very lucky, someone will speak enough english to figure out what you want. Tweeners are also cheap. SE Asia is cheap, so this means really cheap. Dinner, a few beers, bottles of water, etc. Hand over 3 dollars and get some change... Starting to like the tweeners....

So after some dinner and drinks...we retire for the night. We know tomorrow will be rough...105 km of the same road...on to Siem Reap...