Laos-Cambodia (and a shortcut through Thailand)!

The beauty of this trip resides in the freedom of riding a bicycle and being able to change plans when we feel like it. First of all, we were convinced we would not have enough time to come to Cambodia and second, the idea of paying a little visit to the Thais had not even crossed our minds before. But here we are, in Siem Reap Cambodia, very happy about our decision...

We had a rest from the hills in Southern Laos, it was flat but also windy. The road we took followed the mighty Mekong but we were, for most of the time, always a few kilometers away from the river and saw more dry rice fields than anything. Vientiane was fun place to stop; we visited the war museum and met up again with some other cyclists we had met in the North of the country. For those of you who think we are away for a long time, we were the poor ones with the shortest trip and all the others had the pleasure to cycle from 6 months to 5 years!They are a great bunch and I find it's always a pleasure to listen to their stories. More travel ideas for the years to come! We also came very close to participate in a cycling event in Vientiane, a bicycle race with mountain, road and timetrial categories. And for both men and women! I would have tried my best but we were out of time on our visa so we did not participate.There is an interesting building in the city called Patouxay, which is inspired by the Arc de Triomphe, and it is made with concrete that was originally donated by the USA to build a runway for the airport(!). It's the place where the cycling race started\ended. It's funny to see all those very strange colonial references.

We had a good time in Laos; the people are just very friendly and the countryside offers superb scenery. We crossed over to Thailand as our visa was running out and with a day where we got lost ( yes, we did manage to do that in a country that has just about a handful of roads!) we decided to take a shortcut to reach Siem Reap, in the North west of Cambodia.

We only spent 2 nights in Thailand, but that was just enough to have a taste of the country's world class roads and of the delicious Thai food. I'll have to go back there one day.

The day we crossed to Cambodia was very strange. There is a filthy rich casino resort on the Cambodian side and then a few hundred meters of pavement and BANG, dirt roads! Mentally prepared for the famously destroyed cambodian road network, we went through the first 120km of dirt road without much trouble other than being covered with dust at the end of the day. Then we reached one of the country's main road to reach Siem Reap and that was more of a cowboy experience. A good section of it was just very bumpy and dusty roadwork. It seemed to have been like this for a good while; the government perhaps just does not have the money or is too corrupted to finish the roads properly. So I arrived in Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor temples, just covered with a thick layer of dust that accumulated over my layers of sunscreen.I was surprised the guesthouse accepted us, we were just so dirty.

The countryside in Cambodia is beautiful but also very heavily mined (land mines) .. The old people also speak French very well, we spoke french 4 times in the first 2 days in some very remote places, that was odd!

Jean bought an hard boiled egg with a foetus inside, even if he was very hungry he did not eat it..

We'll take a boat tomorrow to cross the Tonle Sap, a huge lake full of fish, birds and crocodiles!
A la prochaine
Have a good minus 30 degrees!