Day 1 Cycle: Phnom Penh to Srok Cheung Prey (48 miles which became 55 miles)

First day cycle route

After a 6.30am breakfast at the hotel we were on the road by 7am "raring to go"!

It was early Sunday morning and the streets were a little quieter than normal which made our getaway alot less stressful than it could have been. After 10 days in the capital and our test ride out on the tandem the week before, Max seems to have learned the "rules of the game" very quickly but all I see is tuk tuks and mopeds en masse. They weave their way along and at the junctions it seems to be every man for himself and a simple test of nerve (something which Max seems to have in abundance but is still a work in progress for me 😉). 

In the suburbs of Phnom Penh we overtook six young and very enthusiastic cyclists and it quickly became apparent that they wanted to race us. With a bit of effort we cruised past them on the tandem but twenty minutes later they delighted in overtaking us again! Max declared it a hollow victory though when he realised they'd held onto a tractor to tow them past us 😉

The roads were fairly quiet once we escaped the centre of Phnom Penh 

Roadside views 

It soon started to heat up and then, after an hour of fairly good progress, we hit a closed road. This resulted in a lengthy diversion which, after about half an hour cycling, brought us right back to where we started, effectively adding another 8 miles or so to our journey 🫣. This broke our morale a little! We tried hard to push ahead but the temperature continued to rise. The lack of pitstops took their toll and so it quickly became a battle of will to survive. 

The detour - little did we know how it ends 😫

We finally arrived at our accommodation around 2.30pm absolutely exhausted. It was a $5 a night guesthouse - quite a comedown from the luxury we'd enjoyed in Phnom Penh!  It was very basic but clean and what's more had a washing line right outside - it's always our first priority to get the cycling gear washed and dried!  Our only concern was the large number of "unwanted guests" that we noticed buzzing around! Luckily Max had brought his mosquito plug which seemed to ward off the enemy 😉

Walking into town in search of some lunch we spotted some fried tarantula on sale at the local market. I'd read beforehand that it's the local delicacy but we declined to sample any 😂. Thank god we didn't see any live ones during our brief stay (trust me I was certainly on the look out 🤣).

After walking for at least half an hour in the blazing afternoon heat, we finally found a nice restaurant for lunch and we literally fell on our food when it arrived! Thankfully they called for a Tuk Tuk to take us home afterwards - rather unusually there wasn't a single one in sight anywhere. I think we would have probably melted somewhere along the roadside if we'd attempted the walk back 😅. 

After a brief rest back at the guesthouse we decided to venture out again in the evening - desperately trying to find an air-conditioned bar where we could cool down and rehydrate.  Unfortunately we were refused entry at the local Karoke Palace (the only sign of life in an otherwise deserted area) because, while all we wanted was a drink, all they wanted was for us to sing 🤣. 

These geese were almost the only sign of life near the guesthouse! 

So instead we ended up with an iced slurpy in the local petrol station with a group of Buddhist monks for company! Well, it did the job at least👍

Iced drinks at the petrol station 

In stark contrast to our last evening of luxury in Phnom Penh where we enjoyed cocktails on the rooftop bar of the hotel. What a difference a day makes 😂