"Afoot and light-hearted we take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before us... leading wherever we choose." Walt Whitman

We just cycled into Cambodia; what a different world! We cycled the 400 kms from Bangkok to the border of Thai/Cambodia and spent the night at the border town called Aranya Prathet. The following morning we cycled the 6km to the border. Nestled next to the border is a huge market with smuggled goods from all over SE Asia. From Fruit stalls, to US Army fatigue clothing stalls, to converse shoes stalls, onto lines of tuk-tuks calling out wanting to take us to the border. The dusty road to the Thai border check point is lined with men yelling out wanting to offer us "express visa service." Ignoring their calls we passed through the border quickly and had our visa within 5 minutes of handing over our passports (and we didn’t even have to pay the bribe that a number of people told us we had to give for the "fast service"). Hopping in line with old wooden push cards laden with boxes of fruit and veggies, pulled painstakingly slowly by Cambodians making their livings pushing goods across the border daily, we made our way over the Thai/Cambodia bridge. Poipet, the dusty Cambodian city rife with casinos, met us on the other side. Again, ignoring more calls from people, this time offering us rides to Siem Reap and telling us it would take 10 hours to make it on our bicycles to our destination of Sisiphon - 35 miles away, we pedaled along the bumpy and dusty roads. Luckily one of the customs officials mentioned that they drive on the right side of the road (unlike Thailand) and after quickly switching over our mirrors we were off!

Within 15 minutes the bustling city turned into a well paved road lined on either side with rice paddies and Brahman cattle. About every 10 minutes there is a small shack selling old liter bottles full of gas to passing motor bikes. Children run out of the small villages chasing after us screaming "Hello! Hello! Hello!" with giant smiles across their faces. Overall there is little traffic, the most part consisting of Toyota Camry’s speeding down the roads. These cars are known as "share taxis" and due to a complete lack of busses between the border and Siem Reap these cars make up the public transportation and they hurtle down the road like rockets. I was wondering if maybe after the Khmer Rouge was defeated, Toyota donated a bunch of cars as a part of humanitarian relief?

Showing up our skeptics in Poipet, we made it to our destination town of Sisiphon within 3 hours, averaging a spectacular 23 kilometers per hour! Our ride was full of warm smiling faces and screeching "Helllooooos" on a newly paved flat road with a huge shoulder to ride on. The only thing chasing us while we rode into town was black storm clouds that soon caught up to us. We rode the last hour soaking wet in the warm monsoon rain completely covered head to foot in mud. We needed just this catalyst to force us to construct rain/mud fenders. Arriving at a beautiful hotel we spotted from the highway I promptly wiped out, dumping the bike and myself onto the slick tiles lining the driveway. No broken bones, I suffered a bruised ego, elbow, and upper thigh. The hotel staff was kind enough to literally hose us, our bikes, and our bags off. I'm not usually one to make a grand entrance, but crashing my bike at the marble hotel steps with 30 staff watching wide-eyed tops the charts.

To give my banged up leg and arm a rest we took the next day off. Sisophon is a small city by Cambodian standards. The well paved highway is contrasted with the towns cracked and muddy roads. In the center of town a beautiful bustling market resides. Signs in both English and Khmer dot the roads. The influence of NGOs and humanitarian workers is obvious and it’s not uncommon to see aid-worker trucks zipping down the roads. Most of the health care related businesses we passed were internationally sponsored and one school we walked passed proudly marked it had been “Constructed for Cambodia by the people of Japan”. From what we have read and seen so far Cambodia is trying to rebuild itself post-Khmer Rouge.

Today we cycled to the big city of Siem Reap, famous for the neighboring Ankor Wat Temple Complex. We plan to send about 5 days checking out the city and temples. Overall the cycling here has been smooth and beautiful – even with a few soggy days.