Day 40 - arrival in Kratie, a hotel goes missing and there are loads! - Trial by fire: new bike, first tour, first time in Asia

December 4, 2024

Day 40 - arrival in Kratie, a hotel goes missing and there are loads!

We were just about to go out this morning to get sim cards, money, breakfast and some snacks for the road when some music started playing. This lured us to the verandah far above the street below, where the traffic had stopped. We assumed that it was the national anthem.

Cavities are built in buildings in which swiftlets nest. Soup's on!

Getting SIM cards was a simple matter and we were soon walking around the market.

Tremendous produce, including water lily flowers.

We saw these strange striped fish before.

Deep fried morsels - terrific for the road.

We did have one glitch that delayed us - the loss of the key for a bike lock. A locksmith appeared and it was solved in no time with violence.

As usual, Ian was riding ahead of me and I was desperate for coffee. I thought Leekie's place was a cafe, but it turned out to be a beer distribution business and she ran an English school on the side. Still, she found cans of cold coffee for me and gave me useful information.

These boys followed along with me for a couple of kilometers.

Now, let us not forget about loads. All over Asia one sees loads that boggles the mind. One gets to the point where there seems no room for surprises and then there is.

We'll get back to loads later in this blog but until then here's another couple of neat loads.

This young man speaks excellent English - that he learned from you-tube.

Ian messaged me that we were going to have to find a hotel in Kratie. But by the time I got the message I couldn't have completed the ride before dark. There were some gas stations around and I started asking if I could get a ride to Kratie, 35 km away. I was getting nowhere until I asked a guy in a tanker truck. He looked a little puzzled, then he and his partner started trying to figure out how to put my bike on the truck. It all happened so fast that I couldn't get a picture. Within minutes we were on the road.

To make the experience completely authentic, there was a chicken involved. He tried to get away when I got in the truck, probably with good reason, but sat at my feet the rest of the way.

My bike made the trip without apparent injury.

They deposited me in Kratie and I went on to reconnect with Ian.

Now, to Ian's side of the story. I could see that we had a big day in the saddle regardless of anything else because the internet and enquiries suggested that our closest accommodation was 120 km from Stung Treng. The early going was hard on a patchwork quilt of a tar road. I even checked my tyres to see if they were soft.

Things changed after about 40 km at a road junction with a popular meat market. From there, the road was impeccably smooth with a good shoulder to the outskirts of Kratie. Traffic was light the whole way. Every so often I caught the dreadful, sweet offally stench of a truckload of raw rubber.

Roadside meat market. Many people pulled up and bought a slab.

It was fast but boring with continuous advertising competition for energy drinks.

There were villages every 15 km or so and around Sre Sbov I noticed a change in wealth. There were more houses, more people, less vacant land and, one other thing, rice. There were piles of threshings and young rice growing. There was simply more of everything. Is the soil better? Is there easier access to water?

A shady resting spot. As I left a fellow started loading the dressed timber (200 × 200 x 1000mm) onto a motor scooter. That's a load!

Finally, I reached the "True Money" turnoff and navigated my way towards the Cambali Lotus Hotel via an open-air party meeting room.

As I approached our destination a woman asked me in English what I was looking for. "A hotel", I replied. She told me that it's closed due to a river. Flooding? Yes. I never saw the hotel. I thanked her for helping me and saving another km on a rough dirt road. I asked for a photo and then bolted to Kratie.

I was booked into a hotel, overlooking the Mekong, before sunset.

Now, back to those loads we showed earlier. They are pulled by a motor scooter of 100 cc. To cite the SI unit for power, that thing wouldn't pull the skin from a custard. It makes me feel guilty gallivanting around home on 900 cc, pulling absolutely nothing.

Today's ride: 143 km (89 miles)
Total: 2,388 km (1,483 miles)

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