Day 4 in the jungle!
This morning we met in the hotel restaurant for breakfast at 6.00am, and shortly after we set off on our journey to Pursat. The first part of the route was along a road busy with local children biking to school and people going about their daily business. Before long we turned off this road to once again head into the Cambodian countryside using a small dirt track.
We had decided to take a bamboo train for some of today’s journey, as some of the roads along today’s route were impassable on a bike as they were just soft sand tracks. The bamboo train is what it says on the tin essentially a piece of bamboo decking with a small petrol engine attached to it. Eventually after about 25km we arrive at the place where you can get on the bamboo trains. We had sent Frederick (Bike Ride Support) on to arrange a train for us and to speed up the process – on his arrival he was told that there were 2 trains coming at 10am. We arrived at about 9.40am which we thought was great timing as we could do a quick visit at the small school in the village. We were playing with the children at the school showing them magic tricks, playing songs with guitar and showing them how to take photographs. As the time ticked on it soon became apparent that our bamboo trains were not coming. A few calls and a couple of conversations later we realised that the bamboo train wasn’t going to happen. As there was no road beyond the village we were at we had no option but to turn around and head back the way we had come.
We decided to try and get as far as we could using the maps we had and by asking people along the road. We were disappointed that we didn’t get to use the bamboo train but it felt like a bit of an adventure trying to find a new route.
As the villages we stopped at today were all very rural, there were no public toilets along the route. At a few points along the journey people welcomed us to use their own personal toilets. This is a typical representation of the kindness of the Cambodian people; they have nothing but would give you everything!! This whole experience has been completely humbling and once again I am reminded not to take anything in life for granted.
Eventually 72km later we arrived at our finishing point for the day. Although we were all a bit disappointed about the bamboo train, we had a great day biking and it was brilliant meeting all the kids at the school.
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