December 31, 2012

We finally succeeded in starting early today, before the sun was up even. We didn’t have much hope for finding anywhere open to eat, but then we came across a bakery! A steady stream of customers on motos were buying large bags of baguettes presumably to sell on their own or use in their food stalls. We loaded up on pastries like muffins, sugar cane jelly filled scones and something similar to a cinnamon roll. We passed on the hard boiled egg, ham pizza croissants and hot dog baguettes though.

The morning started out windy and cold. For the first time since we got to Asia, I wanted a sweater. A strong headwind made the first 20 km very difficult, but did help warm us up.

At the crest of a small hill, we ran into the family of bike tourist again. They had spent the night at a temple in a small village when they couldn’t find lodging. Outside of the temple were stone carvers working on a variety of large stone statues. They used hand tools and electric tools. It was incredible to see them at work.

When we started up again, the wind had died down to a nice breeze. The road was flat and we were making good time. I was leading, focused on mileage, as we chipped away at our 100km day. We had so far to go, it was important to keep a stead continuous pace. At 50km into the ride, Chandler had to tell me stop because we were in a town and should eat something. So far today, we had passed very few places that appeared to have good food. One little village had about a dozen stalls all selling the same two things: little birds on sticks fried whole (legs, head and all) and piles of fried snakes, or salamanders or something…

With another 50km to go, the day was becoming much harder. We ended stopping every 10km for water or a snack. One thing that kept our minds off the distance we needed to cover were our encounters with waving, enthusiastic kids. My three favorite of the day: one naked little girl desperately running towards the road to shout hello, a little boy who yelled hello and then pulled a snake out of the mud puddle he was standing in to show us and a little boy who was squatting and pooping in a field while yelling hello at us.

We were so happy to finally make it to Siem Reap and checked into a hotel. Our total distance for the day was 66.5 miles. Our reward was pizza! Two pizzas actually. After such a long day, we even had a little energy to do a little exploring.

Pizza!

Chan and lion's rear

We didn’t make it to midnight though to celebrate new years with everyone else. Once we laid down in bed, it was over.

December 30, 2012

Since we opted not to boat across the Tonle Sap, we had to ride around via Sisophon, which is located at the intersection of Highway 5 and Highway 6.

Battambang

We stopped into the other vegetarian restaurant via a short tour of the city. We took a route along the river which was much more charming than the back road we had seen the night before. The east bank of the river was quite a bit cleaner and had more modern buildings, apparently the west side that we had stayed on was the old part of town. The restaurant was very busy with every table filled with local people and many people taking food to go. In appearance the place looked like any other busy restaurant including the big bowl of broth a lady was ladling into bowls of noodles, but in fact everything on the menu was vegetarian. Meat has been so prevalent in Thailand and Cambodia so far, it was a little shocking to see so many options and so many people eating here.

We had a little trouble getting out of town due to socializing again. It seems that every time we stop, someone has questions about the bikes, where we are going or have been. It hasn’t been hard meeting the locals. This time it was a 41 year old tuk tuk driver who was curious about our trip and told us about his sons and then a few minutes later we stopped and chatted with a young English teacher.

A number of exciting things happened today. First, we discovered sugar cane juice. It is incredible. The juice is squeezed out of peeled sugar cane which is hand fed through a gas powered roller press. The juice is then poured into a glass mug (or a plastic bag to go) filled with ice. The first sips were OK, but once it cooled down with the ice, the slightly sweet taste emerged. It is a very cool and refreshing drink. The stands which dot the roadside are easily identified by a bucket full of peeled sugar cane. In Khmer the drink is called something like “tuk am pow” which means the water of the sugar cane.

Making sugar cane juice

The second exciting thing was that we not only saw but spoke to other cycling tourists! Chan spotted a bike with panniers parked on the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. The bike belonged to a Frenchman who was cycling with his wife and 4(!) kids around Europe and Asia. They had been on the road for 8 months and were headed to Siem Reap like us. We exchanged contact info and made plans for them to host us in France when we get there next summer. It was great to stop and chat, even briefly with some other bike tourists.

I also got a souvenir today. The krama is a traditional Khmer garment that has a hundred and one uses. Scarf, bandanna, sling, child carrier, skirt, etc. While biking through a small village, I noticed a man with several different colors of krama fabric loaded on the back of his bike. I selected a purple checked pattern and he measured off about a meter of fabric, cut it off and handed it over.

Krama seller

We made it to Sisophon pretty early in the day and found a very nice hotel for $13. It had just opened, and we may have been the first people to stay in our room. The transaction for the room was pretty amusing: the room price was quoted in US Dollars, Chan paid with Thai Baht and received Cambodia Riel as change. We had read that Baht is readily accepted in western Cambodia, but we found that about half the time people didn’t know the exchange rate and didn’t really want to take it. We changed the rest of our Baht to Dollars at a private money changer for a rate only about 2% worse than the true exchange rate.

Sisophon was a decidedly non-tourist town. There were lots of bars, but we had a bit of trouble finding somewhere to eat. We finally found a place with pictures of noodles and egg on their sign and sat down. After some miming with the guy next to us we figured out we had to put our order in with the cook, and they would bring our food to us. Our smiles were met with the cook’s uneasy large eyes and it became clear that there was no menu, and no English (and clearly no Khmer on our ignorant end). Luckily I had taken a photo of the menu at our guest house in Pailin which was in both Khmer and English. I pulled out the camera which caused much confusion, and then laugher as we pointed to what we wanted on someone else’s menu- it worked perfectly and we had a very nice dinner. We watched some Thai PBS back at the hotel and got to bed early in preparation for our long ride tomorrow to Siem Reap.

Fried rice with vegetables, please

December 29, 2012

Towns in western Cambodia are a little more spread out than Thailand which meant we had another long day in the saddle.

We had a little trouble leaving early as we lingered over our breakfast of omelettes with fresh baguettes. We also spent a while socializing with the staff at the guesthouse.

Finally we got on the road and pedaled through Pailin towards Battambang.  At one point Chandler stopped to take some pictures of a truck and I had a wonderful round of the “hello” game with some kids. They were just so darn cute and excited, I didn’t care if they said hello a hundred times.

Chan's truck

Cute children

Buddha on a mountain

Crazy colorful flowers

We made it to Battambang around 1pm and checked into one of the first guesthouses we came across. For $6 a room, it was clean and they had really good cable. We ended up watching Kindergarten Cop, the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic while relaxing before dinner.

After our siesta we went looking for food. Battambang is home to not one but two vegetarian restaurants. For less than $4 we had fruit ice shakes and solid meals of noodles with some sort of meat substitute that we couldn’t identify. It had a similar texture to seitan, but was darker colored and looked like mushroom stems. It was a nice recharge from a long day of riding.

Dinner

At this point it was getting dark so we headed right back to our guesthouse. Battambang is the second largest city in Cambodia so there was quite a bit of traffic. The side roads were pretty rough tracks and there were lots of bored looking teenagers hanging around on their motorbikes. We got a vibe that the city was a bit rough around the edges and probably best not to explore at night. Tomorrow the plan is to ride up Highway 5 to Sisophon on the way to Siem Reap. There is a boat that goes there from Battambang, crossing the Tonle Sap, but we have heard it takes up to 10 hours or so which is not much quicker than the 12 hours of biking spread over two days we estimated to ride around.

December 28, 2012

Our plan was to do another long day to get to Battambang, but when the alarm went off Chan hit snooze. When it went off again, I told him to hit snooze. When it went off a third time, we decided to just turn it off and sleep. We slept until 10 and it was awesopme.

After breakfast we laid around our room for awhile doing some research on the next town. Chandler wasn’t feeling 100% so we watched “The Killing Fields”, a movie about an American journalist covering Cambodia in the 1970s during the rise of the Khmer Rouge. After the movie, Chandler was feeling even worse and was coming down with a bit of a fever. He took a nap while I read. During his nap, he was very sensitive to every sound and movement. I started laughing at my book and it shook the bed too much for him. At one point I had to get up and was laying back down on the bed. Chan said I was “an angel at lying down slowly.” Good thing we didn’t ride, he really wasn’t feeling well.

After his nap, he felt better so we walked around the hotel grounds until dinner. The area around the hotel was covered in flowers and fruit trees.

We chatted with a very friendly man who left Cambodia for the US in 1975, right when the Khmer Rouge was coming to power. He was visiting Cambodia and reconnecting with old friends. We learned a little about his life in Cambodia and his transition to living in the US. He also showed us what a durian looked like and how to tell if it was ripe. Durian is considered the “King” of fruits in Thailand, and is apparently well regarded in Cambodia as well. It has an off putting sulphury smell but we didn’t find as repulsive as others have described it. Apparently the flesh is very sweet and tasty, unfortunately the one he had was past its prime and not suitable to eat. Now that we know what it looks like, we’ll have to get the courage up to buy one and cut it up ourselves.

Chan and Tea

Baby chick

Bike powered water pump

Durian