Day 6 - Saturday (beginning to lose track though!)

Our first day of properly getting out there. We smashed the road miles up to Kratie, stopped for some food then aimed to follow the Mekong river north along dirt roads to Stoeng Treng. Our plato avoid the main roads failed after about 2 hours of riding when the wide dirt road turned into a smaller dirt track, then a footpath, and ended up at a house. So we said hello, then turned round and back-tracked 2 hours toward Kratie for the night.

Great days riding though, started getting the hang of the bikes in some good rocky and sandy sections. Only to drive past a moped doing the same thing with 3 people on board. Damn Honda Waves.
We stopped to swim in the river near Sandon, but didn't spot any of the famous local freshwater river dolphins. We did get into a good water (us) and then mud slinging (them) fight with some local kids though.

Most of the comedy of today came from being teh last of the 3 bikes and not being able to see your own front wheels, let along the trail for the dust coming up off the other bikes. Most of all we learnt to accept the constant swerving to avoid dogs, pigs, cows and chickens running across the road, even worse than the local drivers and pedestrians! Got lots of waves and shouts of 'Hello' from the kids in the villages as we road through though, no begging, just happy to come and shout Hello at you, none of them could do 'Bye-Bye'.