Thursday, January 06, 2011

Chlong

Chlong, Jan 5, 2011.

95 km, ave 16, total 1387 kms.

Kompong Cham was really good to me. At Mekong Hotel I had a great room with all the amenities. The Mekong Crossing restaurant fed me great food and cold Anchor beers.

I quite expected to have sore legs from yesterdays long ride and was not altogether certain I should actually set off on another longish day. But my legs felt better than feared and finally at 9 o'clock I was off. Contrary to many others I elected to remain on Mekong's NorthWestern side for the first half towards Chlong. It was a wise choice. The road was not wide but fully asphalted. Lovely Khmer countryside, and not much traffic at all. I was by the ferry before noon.
Chlong (pronounced Schlong with a Dutch sounding Sch, like rrlong), is on the other side of the river and as far as I could find out there is only one place to cross, other than by the new bridge right at Kompong Cham. Once on the eastern side of the river the road is really bad for some 40 kms. The going was slow and my GPS kept switching off from all the bumping. Eventually I came on better asphalt again and the last bit into Chlong was nice.


Khmer houses



Khmer kids

There was one guest house right centre in town. Only 5$ and the room quite acceptable. But so much traffic noice that I continued on. Then there was a sign towards Mekong Guest House, and I moved in there.

Chlong is not much and probably only get cyclists staying overnight. After the 95 kms I felt in no mood for another 32 to Kratie.

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