Hit The Dirt...

I think when the person upstairs created Cambodia they said "let there be dust" and there was dust. Our adventure from Phnom Penh to the Lao border was full of dust, dirt and potholes the size of small elephants. Despite all this, I had a great time as we made our way into the "wilds".

From Phnom Penh we took a bus to a small town on the banks of the Mekong names Kratie (pronounced Kra-chay for some reason). Kratie is a really run-down place that attracts travelers looking to see the rare Irrawaddy river dolphin or those moving further to the Northeast. It was in Kratie that we met our first dishonest Cambodian - the owner of the horribly overpriced hotel we stayed in. This fine young man was more interested in laying in a hammock beside the Mekong, talking on his cellphone and shooting his BB-gun than running a hotel. He was rather fond of pointing the empty gun at us and saying (in his best John Wayne voice) "I'm going to kill you good". He was 'nice' enough to arrange onward transport for us and a Danish guy (The only other guy staying in the hotel). It turned out to be a pickup truck packed with the three of us and an undetermined number of Cambodians.

We rode in the very cramped pickup for an ass-busting 5.5 hrs... By the end I thought I would never walk again. Turns out it was worth all the effort as, although dusty, Ban Lung was a nice little town with some exciting things to do. We spent our days riding dilapidated bikes around on very dusty paths. We saw a beautiful crater lake called Yeok Lom; a perfectly circular lake surrounded by dense jungle. We wanted to go swimming in the crystal clear water and nobody else was around so we decided to wear our two-piece bathing suits. Long story short, there might be some videos of us swimming (taken by three Cambodian teenagers) on the Internet.

While in Ban Lung we also saw two beautiful waterfalls, one you could swim at the base of! We were almost totally alone, so it ended up being a more serene and infinitely less traumatizing experience.

From Ban Lung we squished into a Toyota Camry with nine other people for the 3 hr ride to Stung Treng, the last frontier of Cambodia. This ride was actually good fun... the driver was sharing his seat with another man while we sped along treacherous roads. On this ride I decided if I were ever to back a foreign NASCAR driver he would have to be from Cambodia!

I'm not going to lie, Stung Treng is not the nicest town on earth. The post office closes between the hours of 12 and 3, there are only about 2 empty and dusty streets and the only cheap guesthouse in town is a bit of a hole. That said, it is the only place in the area from which you can make the short journey into Laos. We opted for the less popular 'land' route to avoid, at any cost, another trip down the blasted Mekong. Our friendly, if not a bit shady, tour organizer "Mr. T" was more than happy to take our $9 and change it into a trip across the border. If our experience is any judge, "I pity the fool" who books any kind of trip with Mr.T. Luckily, we made the journey with another couple from Britain/Spain and that made it a little less nerve-wracking. After a long day's ride that included a lot of waiting, a boat, mini-bus and Cambodian family vacation car we made it to the serene island of Don Det.