Today we are effectively treading water because we can't enter Thailand until tomorrow. We fly out of Bangkok on the 4th of July so the earliest we can re-enter Thailand is on the 20th of June because we only get a 15 day visa exemption when crossing into Thailand by land as opposed to 30 days when entering via an international airport. The 15 days means 14 nights so we will spend tonight at the border town of O'Smach.

We didn't set an alarm for this morning because we had less than 40 kilomters to cover from Samraong to O'Smach but we still woke up at 4am. This meant we could have a lazy cup of coffe and check the last night's rugby score (thank goodness the Springboks beat Ireland with a burst of tries in the last quarter) before gently ambling up the road at about a quarter past six. I had planned that we would stop for breakfast at the cross-roads about nineteen kilometers from samraong but all that was available was rice porridge and noodle soup. So we bought a few apples and enjoyed them with some crackers a further kilometer or so up the road.

Just before O'Smach there was a sign for a resort pointing up a dirt track to the right. We cycled up the track for about six hundred meters but couldn't find anything. It was a lovely quiet spot, in the tress halfway up the mountain and far from the main road so we sat and enjoyed the stillness for a while.

While we were climbing the hill up to O'Smach we realised that it was the first climb we had done for more than a thousand kilometers. Cambodia is mostly an incredibly flat country.

The first guest house we encountered as we entered O'Smach was the Touch Mey Mey. The room on offer was the standard $15 and was slightly above normal standards so we have taken it and will waste the day here while we start planning our route through Thailand.