Dinner with the Mayor

Today has been one of our toughest rides since we cycled through the deserts of the Stans, this is mainly due to the heat as it’s been 43 degrees, and the terrain is very tough going, as we are cycling off road through all the remote areas, we are following both sand and mud tracks, and they are extremely dusty and uneven, as you’ll see from the photos!

We cycled for 3 hours without seeing a sole apart from the odd cow, and then suddenly in the middle of nowhere, we came across a farmhouse and temple, we stayed for a while to talk with the young boy monks, that was so interesting!

After leaving the temple we continued cycling through the jungle, which at the moment is mainly bananas plantations, the good thing is we won’t starve!

After many hours of fighting our way through the narrow mud tracks of the jungle, we eventually found civilisation just minutes before sunset, we came across a small town called Leuk Daek, which is on the Mekong River, but we were running out of time to find a camping spot, we planned to cycle through the town so we could find a hidden camping area, until some locals shouted over to us welcoming us to stay with them (another example of the kind natured people here) turns out one of the gentlemen is the Mayor of Leuk Daek Town, so he invited us to the District Hall, which is also home to the Cambodian Red Cross, they even invited us to join them for dinner! we ate the typical Cambodian Fish Porridge, and it was delicious!

So here we are camped at the back of the Town Hall next to the Mekong River, and we are directly opposite the Police Station 😳

Click below to see film clip