Day 5:
This morning we managed to get an early start and set off on our journey from Pursat to Moung Russey at 6.30am. After a few kilometres of cycling down a fairly busy tarmac road we veered off onto a dirt track. Soon after we realised that we had lost our support vehicle, so stopped to call Dee the driver and try to locate them. Bizarrely the house we stopped outside had ’gang nam style’ blaring out, something I am not sure you would get away with in the UK at any time let alone 7am in the morning!!
Shortly after we were reunited with the support vehicle we stopped at a small village to load ourselves up with water and energy snacks; as we were about to start cycling down effectively what was a canal tow path and not suitable for our van and trailer. The village seemed fairly primitive as was reinforced when we were told the nearest house that had a toilet was half a kilometre away!
As we started cycling down the canal we realised that today’s surroundings were going to be completely different from those we had experienced during the days previous. The function of the canal was to irrigate the rice fields it ran through the middle of. The further we got down the canal the more remote it felt and for much of the journey you could see the horizon every which way you looked! It didn’t take us long to conclude that today’s biking wasn’t going to be easy, there was virtually no shade and the canal dirt track was extremely bumpy and uneven.
We stopped at one of the sluice gates on the canal for a water break and the sounds that were coming from the raising and lowering mechanism were phenomenal. These eerie acoustic sounds could almost be described as the trapped voices of the people who made the sluice gates.
Along the journey I also learnt what a pineapple plant looks like and how the insects that are sold on many market stalls are caught and trapped, so not only did I have a great days biking but I’m a little bit wiser as well!
We arrived at Moung Russey at around 4pm, this was a small town with only 3 hotels no street lights or internet and very few places to eat (no menus in English so ordering dinner was fun!!)
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