They See Us Rollin'

Wednesday 12/11

We woke up early, as planned, and as usual. Again, we wanted to start cycling early so that we could do a good distance before the sun was too hot. Surprisingly it was not so hard. Guess it was because we had gone to bed early and had had a good rest. We got out of the guesthouse and went across the street where there was a market and there we purchased some snacks for breakfast. We had several different kinds of sweeties and salty things, most of which we could not figure what they were. The best one for both of us was the banana fritter. Yumm!

Pedro and Marta picking what's for breakfast.

After breakfast we kept on cycling and Pedro stopped at the barber's place and said that he was ready to get his hair cut! He seemed very excited. :) The barber cut his hair and gave him a good shave, all for one dollar! Pedro was happy and very pleased with the result.

Pedro at the barber's.

It was then time to keep on rolling.. Until Marta got a flat tire! Yes, I had cycled over some tiny needle like object that happened to puncture through the tire and make a hole in the inner tube. Good though that Pedro had taken with him from Portugal a repair kit. He fixed the inner tube and found that little object that had caused the problem! Saved the day! Thank you Pedro!!! ;) 

The flat tire time.

We then continued to cycle till a town called Pursat where we stopped for the market. There Pedro went to get some bread and muffins for lunch.

Market in Pursat.

Once that was done we cycled a bit more until we found a decent place where we could hang the hammocks for the break of the day. It was further off the road near some houses, there were some perfectly aligned trees waiting for us.

Though at one point my hammock was invaded by the sun and I was forced to move to another place, then Pedro did the same.
After the rest we continued to cycle a bit more, not too long though, it had been an eventful day and we both were tired. We stopped in a town in a guest house called Paris. There we stayed for a while to blog. Once we had rested a bit we were ready for dinner. Next door to the hotel was a nice 'restaurant' where we asked for some rice with some meat. The man got us big dishes of very nice fried rice mixed with some greens and meant. The taste was awesome! One of the best dinners so far. And the price was only 2$ per plate.
After dinner we went to a market where most sellers were packing everything away. But we managed to buy some very tasty cookies for breakfast. We also got some strange green snacks.
Then it was late already and time to go to sleep, after all we had to wake up early again!

Thursday 13/11

As usual the alarm went off at five o'clock in the morning. We had gone to bed quite late, so it was much harder to get up! We had WiFi there so that made the morning even longer. For breakfast we had the cookies we had purchased previous day. We left the hotel much too late, at close to seven o'clock. The sun was long up and heating the streets we were about to roam. I was very dissatisfied with the late start, because for me it is very hard to take the heat. So the say started off with me being Miss Grumpy. We cycled in the sun and I wanted to stop way too often and could not cycle fast at all! Finally it was time to rest! Pedro found an amazing place for us to hang the hammocks. It was under a house (as many houses here are built on tall 'legs' to avoid flooding). What's the best part is that the house was in the lake Tonle Sap. The view was beautiful!

Peter Lamb tying hammocks.

Marta resting.

We stayed there swinging above the water for the whole resting time. A few times some kids came by to go swimming. The place is not really suitable for that, but they still seemed to have a lot of fun. Some of them wanted to come and chat with us, but unfortunately the language barrier exists. So it was smiling and saying: "Hello!"
During the rest time I also tried the green strange snacks we had gotten yesterday. The texture was like it was play dough, the smell was sweet. But the taste was not good at all!

After the nice rest on the breezy lake it was time to keep rolling! We got back to the road and kept going. Soon I got really hungry since all we had had was cookies all day, so we stopped in a place where I could eat. It was rice with green beans and meat. Pedro claimed that he was not hungry. Again, it was time to roll. The more we cycled the easier it was for me because the sun was slowly setting. The air got lighter and soon there was no need for sunglasses. And soon we had to use some lights to see the road. Pedro gave me his headlamp so I could see the way. Then Pedro got hungry, so we stopped again, so he could eat. In that place there were some cute kittens that were a bit frightened, but wanted to cuddle. And AGAIN it was time to keep going, at some points we stopped to ask people where was the closest place to sleep, and they just indicated that it's very far. So we kept going and going and going. Finally we reached a town called Sala Phlov Veay where Pedro quickly spotted a guesthouse! The price for it was 5$. She gave us a room that had not been cleaned. But it would actually make no difference as evey hotel and guesthouse we had stayed so far had always been poorly cleaned. She was nice enough to give us clean towels and blankets. But later on I found out that the shower was broken, so I ended up washing under the tap. Pedro went in the shower a bit later and claimed that he was able to fix it. Oh well! It was time to sleep as the next day we were going to arrive to Phnom Penh.

Pedro & Marta on the road.