And thus into Laos--from Stung Treng to Savannakhet

Written from Savannakhet, Laos on the 3rd of January 2015.  Weather today on the road from Pakse (the first city in Laos northbound) was fine and warm to hot by mid day (cool to start, but that's fine). There were clouds in the south behind us and a few puffy white things ahead.  A quarrelsome head or side wind kept the bike on edge all day but didn't really bother us much.

Crossing from Cambodia to Laos at their only land border gate has changed.  I came that way my first time through the two countries. . .what. . .six years ago.  Then you had to have your Lao visa in hand (bought it in Phnom Penh that time) and the two frontier offices were two wooden shacks a hundred yards apart, with a dirt road between.  It was a sunday so I paid a little for overtime at both shacks, but not much, and romped on to the north.  Now. . .how things have changed.  The Cambodians are within weeks of finishing a very pretty, very showy, almost pagoda-like structure to complement the "toll booths" they presently operate from.  It will totally overshadow the Lao side when it's finished, but the Lao side too is a good sized office building, nicely done, and well organized.  Altogether, it was a pleasant crossing, though I'm pretty sure the Cambodian officers overcharged me. . .including a $10 customs clearance for the little horse, though she hadn't cleared customs inbound.  The youngster (it said "trainee" on his name tag) assured me the Lao side would send me back to get it if I didn't have it when  I got there.  So. . .anyway, close to $45 poorer, I rode out into Laos, but with all the paperwork perfectly in place.  I'm prepared to argue with any policeman I meet.  However, after today, when all the gentleman asked was where I was going. . ."Hanoi on that bike???" and how much I'd paid for it. . .then we shook hands and I rode off into the north.  Not much as checkpoints go!  His English was American Midwest good. . .who knows??

Speaking of pagodas, I stopped at two today, both small and out in the country in small towns, but still quite nice.  The Lao pagodas are different in several ways from the Khmer.  Most notably, the actual praying part of the compound seems to usually be a small (if very ornamental) building, often locked closed when not in use.  For Khmer pagodas I normally just take off my shoes and walk right in.  When you can get inside, it seems the Lao pagodas have a much more austere interior, without the wall to wall (and ceiling included) murals of the life of Buddha. . .rather a demure band of paintings and photographs around the perimeter.  Certainly I've not made a study of the matter, but that's my impression.  Both Khmer and Lao pagodas are well guarded by fierce dragons (the Khmer by "nagas" actually, a snake-dragon with a whole bunch of cobra heads.  The Lao might use either a multi-headed naga or a very similar creature with a single fearsome dragon head..  I have to find someone to explain to me the relationship of ferocious dragons with a saint like the Buddha.  It escapes me.

But back to border crossings. . .on the Cambodian side, the road was brand new, basically unused and the countryside was empty for the 60 km north from Stung Treng.  In fact, that trip, the road across the big bridge over the Kong Kong river was blocked with a barrier pole chained at both ends.  Local folks had taken the matter in hand and blocked one end of it up so that a typical Honda Dream could be scootched under if you got off or leaned way over.  I was riding an old Minsk that trip and had to get off and lay the bike almost entirely on her side to get her under.  But we got under and went.  The world is changed.  cars, trucks and motorbikes are back and forth across the bridge all the time, running out into the hinterlands north of the bridge, where communes and villages have sprouted up and all manner of homes and farmsteads are settled in.  It's a dry upland setting (okay, I've only ever been here in the dry season, so what do I know?)  but it's not anywhere you'd try to go rice.  There are any number of other crops though, and you can herd cattle among the scrubby woods.  People are making a life anyway.  There's essentially no industry in the area but I did visit a little home-done pre-cast concrete plant where they were busy making lots of big water jars. . .really big, as in 3' tall and nearly that wide.  Everybody has a couple parked under a downspout to catch roof water when it does rain.  Demand must be steady, they were making them in batches.

The road though, brand new six years ago, is in pretty tough shape.  This is an example of why we have inspection on construction projects.  It looks as though the spec called for 1.5" of asphalt, whatever that is in cm . .2.54 x 1.5  call it a 4 cm specification.  That's not a lot of asphalt even over a really well compacted base, but if your base is a couple of cm high here and there that only leaves a thin skin of black paving, and it can't last.  It didn't.  Sigh.  So the folks along there eat a lot of dust and people on little motor bikes slow down.  It's not the dirt and stone that slows you down, it's the impact when you come to what's left of the 4cm pavement. . .like a 4cm tall rim rock above a softer cliff face. . .hard on tires and springs when you hit it very hard.

That's the Cambodian side.  On the Lao side they're showing off.  There's not a ripple or a tear in that road surface forever, it seems. . .not until you get to Pakse.

But before you get to Pakse you must stop at the falls!!  Be alert after you get through the border crossing and loose into Laos, it's only a few kilometers north to the turnoff--on your left, of course, the river is on your left, and will be for a long time now, though rarely in view. Here I go again.  When last I saw the falls. . .I know, six years ago, and things change. . .you just rode your bike up to the little restaurant and parking area and overlook structure, got off, took your photos, said hi to anybody who spoke English, got on your bike and left.  Sigh.  It's still worth seeing mind you, unless you just don't care for majestic natural spectacles, but now you stop and pay 55,000 kip (about $8) per head to get in.  Guards, docents, cashiers, parking lot attendants, huge families from Thailand and Japan, kids selling photos (good photos actually) of high water events or large flocks of birds or. . .that sort of thing.  One real benefit (not worth the 55,000 kip mind you, bu still) one real benefit, as I was saying, is somebody has built a pretty good table top model that lets you take in the situation at a glance.  What you're looking at is just one of several channels the river has been forced into by the solid mass of rock that blocks its course.  So, that volume of water, impressive as it is, isn't really the whole river. . .you'd need a helicopter to see it all at once, or buy the DVD no doubt.  then on to Pakse before dark. . .easy, but don't stall too long.

What to say about Pakse??  It just isn't a place I've learned to like yet, so I don't hang around, and oddly enough, having moved on I don't find anything to like.  The biggest problem with Pakse (that I know of) is that the highway has been torn up all along the edge of town (the town center is off to your left as you come in from the south. . .down toward the river).  It's been torn up a full year I know of personally, but it had been torn up before I got there last year and it's still torn up today.  It's getting a lot closer now, they may finish in another six months or so. . .but my gosh it's a mess and hard to get through. Besides the torn up highway, which will no doubt be lovely bye and bye, the town seems to turn its back on the river.  It has a nice convenient bridge to get across on, so doesn't need a ferry landing any more, and with the highway and the trucks and cars, no need for river freight, and the banks are really high and steep (probably a really good thing when the river rises), so they aren't inviting for a walk along the bank, and anyway, property development has taken the whole thing.  I managed this trip to get a look at the river by pretending I was interested in a room in a luxury resort. . ."Paradise du Mekhong", spelled that way.  French I think, though I didn't know they put the h in Mekong.  Actually, you DO say it that way, slightly aspirated. . .It was a lovely view up and down the river, which is a very impressive sight, even bereft of ferries and freighters.  At $85 for a private balcony vip room with river view. . .I didn't stay.  Anyway, Pakse has a busy and modern (sort of) down town center where I was able to get all the help I needed to get my fancy new smartphone talking to the internet again (access changes every time you cross a border),

The room  in Pakse (this might be something to like actually) was a pretty nice place in a funny sort of way.  It was larger than many more expensive rooms and sparkling clean (you for darn sure want to remember to take your shoes off when you go inside in Laos, it's really bad manners to forget).  The toilet room was fair sized and included hot water and it was a nice mattress and pillow. . .but the "window" was just 4 squares of obscure glass block let into the wall high up.  That was it.  But. . .it was cool in the late afternoon  when the parking lot outside was baking.  You stepped inside, closed the door, turned up the lights and fan and. . .it was really a nice, quiet nest.  There was a serious wedding going on just down the block, with the requisite heavy duty sound system and a karaoke machine (or were those professional singers and a keyboard player??) Anyway, it was loud outside and quiet inside. . .all for $10.  Oh, and supper was on a street corner nearby, including conversation in Vietnamese.  Fun.  The only people more amazed to find a white guy speaking Vietnamese in Viet Nam are Vietnamese expats in Laos or Cambodia. . .they're always blown away, even with my limited vocabulary.

Aside from the guest house and the phone card and sim, I didn't bother the locals much the evening I got here, that seemed like enough.  This morning though I needed to find a gas station and a mechanic to change the oil (we just went through 5000 km for the trip so far. . .and at least 2000 to go in the next two weeks.  I need to keep moving).   We still got away pretty reasonably, just before 0900 full of gas and fresh oil and an intriguing breakfast.  The Lao people eat sticky rice.  I knew that, but it's still something to get used to for a while.  You roll a bit into a ball between your right hand fingers and maybe dip it in some sort of hot or salty or hot and salty sauce and pop it in your mouth and chew and chew and finally get it down.  Couple that with a chicken wing or a few baked stirred eggs. . .and coffee.  They do coffee here like I remember it from Bien Hoa in 1971. . .boiling water in a pot with a cotton "sock" full of coffee grounds.  The coffee in the sock gets changed, the boiling water gets poured in with the new coffee and the whole batch just blends with whatever was left in the pot a minute ago.  Works well, and a lot faster than the Vietnamese torture-by-delay style drip coffee makers that guarantee cold coffee. . eventually.  Mind you, I love Vietnamese Cafe Fin, but. . .sometimes you just want to get on the road.  This morning there was no delay on account of the coffee.  Chewing the sticky rice. . .another matter entirely.

The road northbound from Pakse to Savannakhet is pleasant.  It's not spectacular (other than the fact that it is totally flawless, without blemish or scar) and there are no mountains or waterfalls to delight the eye.  Rather, it's a prosperous countryside full of interesting homes and villages.  For a while I was convinced the Lao people from about 100 km north of the border on were getting their houses down out of the air and off their stilts.  It must have been just a local thing though, as the day wore on today I continued to see lots of "khmer" style homes on stilts (for no apparent reason, unless the local giraffes are man eaters).  There was a lovely lunch to be eaten somewhere about halfway between the two places and a not unreasonable amount of giggling between the mom and grown daughter as they pretended to be flumgusted by the foreigner. . .very pleasant people and good food.  Sticky rice again (get used to it, that's the future for the next week or so) and. . .another chicken leg and a bottle of something called "Double Black" which is a sweetened (white) soy milk that's nowhere as sweet as say Mexican Horchata, but otherwise similar.  So why "Double Black"??  Don't know.

 I did stop to watch a gang of people load a very reluctant cow into the back of a small truck.  She had long since decided she wasn't going to participate.  She lay down and stopped and stayed put.  Eventually they rounded up enough people to bodily pick her up and put her in the truck.  She rolled herself upright then and looked around, still unwilling to go along with it all but she didn't bolt.  She had several scrapes showing a bit of blood on her tan hide, but she'll be fine in her new place I'm sure.  She was a breeding age heifer in good condition, so I think nobody meant her any harm, she just got bought.

And thus, after a year's absence, into Savannakhet, which is one of my favorite places along this trail.  It's a Mekong town too, but it lines its rive bank with outdoor eating and drinking spots, all bright colors and friendly people and lovely smells from the charcoal.  There's actually a dock and real boats (big, ugly steel canoes really, with big long tail motors) real boats though, tie up and look for customers.  The town parallels the river for quite a ways and kind of spreads randomly out into the countryside on a few different arterials.  It has too many one way streets, but they don't shoot you if you miss one (the signage is good, some people are just a little stupid or preoccupied or whatever and it WAS a 2-way street up to then. . .).   But other than that. . .several comfortable guest houses, of which I've formed a favorite the past two trips. . .but there are good guest houses all over.  So what else. . .racing canoes in the pagodas (I measured them all last trip and won't again, but I note that one of the pagodas has one up for major repairs. . .will have a look at that.) and there are several pagodas to choose from, so a good fleet.  There is one of the best massage facilities on the whole route.  I always have a sore back by this point in the trip, so that's a wonderful thing!  And finally, there's the night street of takeaway food!!  That's enough to make the place famous all of itself.  It takes up a whole block of double-wide sidewalk. . .20 or 30 women and 2 or 3 men. . .cooking and selling all sorts of things for about  sixty two and a half cents a serving (except for the grilled and bbq meat. . .more like $1.25 per serving).  Sticky rice of course, and perfectly acceptable che (Vietnamese dessert).  You carry your prizes away in separate little plastic bags closed with an amazing knot in a rubber band (how do they do that so fast and tight??)  and carry it back to your hotel (mine is carefully chosen to be close by) and borrow a bowl and spoon the hotel has waiting for just such a need. . .and have a wonderful dinner.  Yes.  That's a good enough reason to come to Savannakhet, especially if you're passing through anyway.  Oh, if you get the stuffed cabbage, be aware that this is not Polish style stuffed cabbage.  For one thing, the meat is coarsely chopped not ground, and came from a chewy part of the pig.  But that's minor. There's no tomato sauce, but that's okay too.  The main point is the hot.  Hot hot.  Be ready.  These are not your grandmother's cabbage rolls.  But they sure are good.

The bridge headed north to the border is wide open now, though six years ago you had to lay your bike on its side to get under the barrier poles.  

The take-apart interior mold for making big water jars.  The outer shape is obtained with a single thin cut-out that is rotated around and around the form as you add mortar.  Very interesting.

The finished jars.  Every home has a couple at least, under downspouts.

A small part of the Mekong going over the falls.  The French built a railway to carry freight between the Cambodian and Lao segments of the river.  

Downstream from the falls

He who dies with the most Bougainvillea

A pair of Nagas guarding the steps to a Pagoda (I drove up the access road, had enough stairs for now).  This blows my theory about single-versus many-headed dragons.  The Lao are beset by both kinds!

In witness whereof, here's another from the same pagoda.  Both in Laos.

A Lao pagoda, though still ornate, is much more austere than the Khmer pagodas with their all-walls and the whole ceiling in murals.  Here, at most, a band of  murals (and photos sometimes) around the walls.

I vote for the savior that pulls you out of the crocodile infested sea while your boat sinks.  Not bad.

I'm sure I've missed similar representations, but this is the first I recall seeing of mermaids guarding a pagoda.

He'll no doubt turn out all sorts of green and red and gold before he's finished, but I really like a gray dragon. . .

This architecture is still basically an elevated home on stilts, but the downstairs has been closed in and the evolution toward a ground-based house is well along.. . . .a porch, for example.  

I stopped to visit with the carpenters erecting column forms on concrete footings a couple of feet down in the ground.  The mixed-on-site concrete is scary soupy. . .and the columns are small.  I hope it's not a tall house.

God bless all tire repair shops.

A very typical Lao style temple. . .of the small sort.  They are normally locked and I've never been inside one.

The little horse waiting patiently in the sun while I make up my mind.  Settled on the chicken leg and sticky rice.  Excellent!

And this is a very ordinary roadside restaurant kitchen, complete with cook.  Her young daughter disappeared when the camera came out.  Sigh.

A purely ground-based house, no history of stilts here!  And they are totally unafraid of color!

A young cow who did not want to make the big move.  It took a real crew to get her in the truck!

Southern Lao rice paddy in the dry season. . .Mekong river bottom land, seems to be a very productive region.

Good night fron Savannakhet, sun setting into Thailand across the Mekong.

Time to start northward again--Siem Reap to Stung Treng (via the New Road)

This too was started  in Kulen, Cambodia, late in the evening on December 30, 2014. Here's how that version started:  "It is cool for here right now, late evening, which is to say, it's a marvelous temperature, the wind has fallen off , and it's lovely.  The locals think it's quite cold, and that's fine too.  There are stars out overhead, the brighter ones.  The dimmer stars are overwhelmed by the light of a dubious gibbous moon.  I'm not sure if it's waxing or waning. . .hence dubious, though it has to be one or the other eh?"  (That was supposed to be funny, laugh for the man. . .)  

Kulen is an easy (as in "marvelous road" easy) 120 km from Siem Reap on  Highway 64.  I know that now, but the morning starting out I was just reading the script from Google maps, wanting to find out if it's always fouled up out in the sticks.  So far the score is Earth 2, Google none.  But it's still early days.  Suffice it to say that I wandered around for about 50 km this morning, first trying to follow Google out into the puckerbrush (as before, the route finder insisted I was doing well right up to the moment the single track trail I was following ran off over the edge of the world).  After I gave up on Google and poked around on my own for a bit, including chasing off down a magnificent newly paved and lighted road that lead to. . .the Apsara Authority Headquarters. . .and stopped.  There was a fine little lunch stand there and a really helpful gentleman who sketched a sort of hieroglyphic map for me in the back of my diary.  In the end I actually ended up going clear back into Siem Reap (hold your applause please, until the presenter has finished his. . .er. . .confession).  

So here's how it went:  I left town, following directions, turned north (good choice) and made the next two turns Google asked for.  The third turn couldn't be right, it was the single track trail over the edge.  So I went left instead of right, on a fine looking road that did not suit Google at all.  The gps duly noted that I'd deliberately ignored instructions and began registering distance off track.  I followed the new road on the tiny touch screen for a ways, and it really was going nowhere we needed.  Two bad choices.  Great.  Standing there, in the weeds by the side of the road with $8.50 worth of minutes and 3G kilobytes available, I did an internet search.  No kidding. (clap if you're impressed!)  I found the van company that has pioneered service between Stung Treng and Siem Reap and their offices were in Siem Reap and they had a map to their location on the website and I knew how to get there.  I went.  The office lady was brilliant but not really personally familiar with the route, but she kept me busy until the boss came back from lunch and gave me the details I needed.  Actually, he effectively wrote out a route and marked up my old map to show the new road and told me I could easily make Kulen before dark.  If you ever need a van ride to or from Siem Reap, check out Asia Van Transfer www.asiavantransfer.com. They were a great help to me and are getting rave reviews on line.  

Update. . .it's now New Year's day, I'm ready to leave Stung Treng in the morning and this is finally ready for you.  Laos here we come. . .

 I've completed the exploratory trip across the north of Cambodia.  The route runs through a number of small villages, most of which hardly show on a map.  Kulen, my overnight stop en route is one that shows.  Preah Vihear City definitely shows, it's a busy place.  That's the Western name. . .the locals call it T'baeng Menchey, but it's the capital of Preah Vihear province so. . .that's how it shows on the donated highway signs.   But there are very many more small towns and villages and wide spots in the road with a cafe or a mechanic's shop and a few dozen kids.   

It was a lovely ride, a road to dream of.  Actually, it's just one of the roads you dream of.  This road is the one you specifically dream of when you're breathing dust and desperately trying to avoid hurting the motorbike (or your sit bones) and somehow not end up as a splut on a truck bumper on the horrible potholed road surface that is too often the normal state of affairs in this part of the world.   The road is essentially straight and level. . .you don't actually make a diary entry for every turn or hill, but they're uncommon enough to make note of.  More important, for most of 300 km there's hardly a single break in the asphalt.  It's definitely not the road you dream of when you're wishing for mountains. . .we may find that one up ahead in Laos (which is just a bit further up the road now).

Since I left Siem Reap the second time so late in the day, I just made Kulen in the last bit of full daylight.  There was another, even smaller little place 22 km before Kulen, with two rather sad guest houses, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be picky that late in the afternoon, so I stopped to see.  After testing the mattress (amazingly lumpy and hard) and eyeballing the toilet (?) at the end of the hall (?) on the second (creaky) wooden floor of the better looking place, I re-checked the distance left to run to Kulen (which I was thinking of as a significantly larger place) and decided I'd make it and so perhaps missed an even more interesting experience.  But Kulen was wonderful in a funny way.  I rode clear through the village without spotting the (one) guest house, but stopped and drank a bottle of water and got directions back to the far end of town (four blocks?) and sure enough, I'd blown right by a perfectly nice place on the corner by the round about.  The room was plain and small and sort of peach colored, but the mattress was dandy and the pillow close to perfect.  The toilet was in the room right enough, but it was a squat type thing, something I don't love.  Oh well, all else was fine, the price was $5 which was fine and the family was friendly, though a white guy was definitely not their normal clientele.  The young son of the family had me sign the register, a hand lined spiral notebook.  The column headings were all in Khmer script anyway, so it was just guesswork.  (Ed note: something just ran down my glasses. . .wonder who he was and where he went)    I'm pretty sure I got my name in the right column, but the youngster couldn't make me understand what all else was wanted.  In the end I gave them my street address and the USA and he bought it.  There were no other western names in the book.  

So, Kulen:  You might spell it Kulean also, and it's pronounced "Coo-LEAN" or maybe "Coo LEE-un" or something close to that.  It's an L shaped place, there's a 4-way roundabout at the corner, with the other two roads running off to other related hamlets, and the right turn heading off down Hwy 64 through the center of Kulen.  There is the one guest house, several homes doing duty at various times of day as restaurants, several (3?  4?) mobile phone shops (mostly selling dumb phones by golly), a seamstress, a pretty extensive market area on a pair of streets off the highway (and thus made of red dirt and somewhat rutted, but easy enough to ride or walk through).  I ended up walking the whole length of the place for supper, but I think I was too hasty.  I thought there were only 2 restaurants in town, one other and the place I ate my rice porridge and slivered chicken and what passed for a sweet dessert. . .odd stuff, but with coconut milk on top and tasty enough, with a gummy chewy texture.  Pretty good really!  However, on the walk back through the dark to the guest house it became apparent that half the homes along the highway opened up as restaurants of some sort as soon as the sun went down.  Some of them smelled really good, but I was too full, even to try a grilled quail, sort of a one-piece miniature chicken.  H'mm.  I think I may have been a little hasty, but it was fine and there was some pleasant conversation with a young man (the owner's son?) who had moved back from Phnom Penh to marry and help with the family business.  

I wrote a while and read a bit and went to bed early for my recent schedule. . .shortly before 11:00.    

Morning in Kulen was cool to the point of cold until the sun was well up, but it was hot before noon. I went out walking and looking for breakfast and this time did very well indeed.  I stopped in the first open place I came to shortly after 6:00 and was offered a choice of noodles or rice, in either case served with grilled meat and stewed vegetables. I went for the rice and a big glass of sweet milky coffee with finely crushed ice and a pot of hot tea. . .for. . .er. . .two dollars, and the cook and her helper (her husband I think) were extremely pleasant.  The place was just a tin roof lean to off the front of their home, dirt floor, charcoal fire, an orange plastic cooler for the ice and big heavy tables (the solid wood slabs are 4" thick and the things weigh a ton or something close). . .and an older TV showing a local news program, which was being broadly ignored.  

It was only a short walk from breakfast into the heart of the two market streets, so I walked through slowly and pestered people one way or another.  There was absolutely no English I could find, but there was a great abundance of produce, meat and fish on offer and a lot of people coming and going.   The consumer goods were mostly household supplies, plastic basins and bowls and silverware, all sorts of shampoo and soap in the little tin foil  packets, brushes and baskets. . .mostly imported things, not local manufacture.  There were several stalls with a good selection of new clothing, some of it pretty fancy  Not surprisingly, a lot of people stared at me, but most smiled or waved back and nobody seemed to mind my camera out and about.

Thus to the guest house past loading trucks and tractors headed for the woods and work in general, motorbikes being washed, trucks being repaired, vans loading people and "stuff" for a trip up or down the highway. . .a busy little town!  

The ride the second day (New Year's Eve) was just as fine. . .mostly flat ground and straight smooth roadway.  Ir should have been a 3 or 3.5 hour run if I'd been moving but I was constantly stopping for photos of one sort or another.  Sad note. ..my long time camera and companion of many thousands of kilometers of riding and many more thousands of photos . .laid a large egg half way through the day.  Oh sigh.  Well, I've been lugging three cameras along on this ride, so the next best got moved onto the camera belt and we'll carry on.  It does pretty well in good light and has a very long zoom and a gps, so it might all be fine.  The image quality isn't quite up to what I'm used to, but hopefully you'll not notice here on the blog.  I may be able to get the good old camera repaired in Vientiane or Luang Prabang and almost for sure in Hanoi, but by then of course it will be too late for this trip.  

So I rode through the day stopping constantly and often doubling back after thinking a minute ". . .I really do want that photo. . ."  I've enough now to give you a short photo-article on building a timber framed home the Khmer way. . .watch this space! 

Since the day was essentially nothing but the easy hum of the motorbike across the face of the land and the stops for photos I'll quit talking about it and show you the colors:

Leaving Siem Reap, this was the view from the fourth floor breakfast place, two floors up from the room.  The Siem Reap River flowing to your right (barely perceptible here, but obvious farther out of town)

Fooling around at a motorbike dealer's--backed the little horse up to a couple of tuks to see how she'd look.  These tuks are $800 apiece, ready to roll, and quite nice, though not the snazziest paint job!

National Road 64, past Dam Dek, headed north to Kulen.  You can yearn for a road like this when you're eating dust and desperate to keep your bike in  one piece among the chuck holes.  

Kulen at night.  No street lights, but everyone with something to sell runs a wire out to their stand and hangs a compact fluorescent on it. . .works pretty well really.

Home in Kulen.  We had exactly no language in common, but got by on courtesy and pantomime.  Good friendly people, comfortable room. . .well, there's that squatting toilet.  Problematical once you get to a certain degree of stiffness.  But we managed.

Bilingual directions. . .love 'em.  Don't always have 'em.  A mobile phone helps at that point

Nice house--Kulen

And another.

River fish from the Mekong?  Probably. . .or who knows, this far from the sea and many small streams around.

I'm sure they were cut for eating, but how??  Anyway, they're pretty all coiled up in a wash tub.  

Superabundance of produce. . .good looking produce at that. . .Kulen market

Pretty lady with a lot of eggs.  They strap these egg frames to a motorbike and ride away, no boxes at all!  Kulen.

Kulen's entry in the handsome rooster contest!

Kid on bike. . .friendly. . .Kulen (the middle of nowhere)

There are three shops making and selling heavy wood furniture. . .no mother of pearl inlays, but some impressive burl wood panels filling the hearts!.

I already had my hair cut this trip. . .won't be necessary again for. . .a long time!

A five dollar room with a squat toilet. . .really perfectly nice, and nice people

The little girl climbed up on the bike, so I set her on the tank.  She bounced and smiled.  I tried to hand Mom the camera but I think she misunderstood and took the kid instead.  Darn. But then she posed for me.  Who knows??

There are any number of these tuk-truck traveling shops, with somewhat varying merchandise on board.  I spotted gas dripping off the engine and hurried to save him (and his young wife inside the cabin) from flames and worse. . .he rushed when I beckoned, but smiled and waved his hand. . .OK.  It was water, from a tank somewhere, set to dribble down over the engine.  No wonder these little 125 cc bikes can haul such a load around the country. . .water cooled.  

The new bridge over the Mekong.  Oh my gosh.  There went the ferry.  What will become of the ferry town, Stung Treng??  For now, not a lot of change, though I'll bet the ferry crew isn't impressed.

They caught me taking photos in the market in Stung Treng and lined up to pose.  There were four though and one scampered off at the last moment.  

She serves the nicest sweet things with a ladle and tongs so quick you can hardly see what bowl she's been into.  For 25 cents per bowl.  Stung Treng outside edge of the market. 

Cacti, orchids, palm trees (small ones) and house plants big enough to need their own houses.  All pulled around by a 125cc motor bike.

They were eating salted and chili powdered snails from a plastic bag when I interrupted.  I have not tried the snails and do  not plan to any time soon.  Cooked snails are enough, thank you!

Among the plastic and silk flowers in the old market, Stung Treng

More--inside market.  

Sort of edging into the papers and gift wrap department, though really there's very little departmentalization.  It does seem odd to find a row of people selling much the same stuff shoulder to shoulder, but maybe I don't recognize the subtle differences.

I'm pretty sure she said "yes, go ahead" when I asked, but then she glanced down.  The Khmer people are simply good looking, handsome guys and pretty ladies.  Fun photography.

These tuk-trucks travel far out into the countryside with essential stuff. . .plastic bowls and baskets and the like, but these people seem just to come to the center of town, opposite the market and set up for the day.  

The same exact merchandise is available inside, out of the sun, , ,maybe it's less expensive out here from the tuk-truck vendors.

Here's a salute to the trucktors that saved my bacon in Laos last year.  note the full face helmet. . .never saw that before this trip on the tuks and the open cockpit trucks.  In Cambodia at least, it seems to be the popular thing now.  Dust and bugs and the occasional flying rock must make a facce shield seem like  a good idea.

And here's Stung Treng's resident dragon (boat).  I should have known, it's in the riverside monastery on the upstream end of town.  55 feet long, about 40" wide, 12 thwarts, 22 paddlers for racing.  The ends are pieced into the structure, not just bolted on as some are. This is far and away the best dragon head I've seen on the racing canoes.  Most are much more rudimentary or even made out of sheet metal.  The canoes at Kratie, only 120 km downstream have an entirely different style of prow and  hardly any paintwork.  Gotta vote for Stung Treng on this!

Washing motorbikes at the very end of the old ferry landing.   With the new bridge open the ferry is gone and the old pier is turning into a bike and car wash spot for the whole town. . .where you can fish no less!

Somebody's optimistic, a new hotel. . .a bright red one, not open yet though.  The tuk truck with baskets and more useful housewares. . .fun to think that it's both local goods and imported plastic.  The cabin is enough for the couple to spend the night in some comfort.  If it rains though, I suppose it gets pretty crowded inside!!  That outfit travels with the same engine as my motorbike!

Plumeria. . .gosh they're lovely.

Bougainvillea, grows almost like a weed here.  When I first saw it in 1971 in Viet Nam, climbing up walls everywhere I thought it was the most beautiful sight.  Still do!  He who dies with the most Bougainvillea wins. . .h'mm.

On the family fishing boat and residence.  They were mugging the camera from 75 feet away.  The lens may be long but kids' eyes are longer (the Kong Kong River at Stung Treng).

So good night (and good bye) to Stung Treng.  I've enjoyed the little town every time I've been here, but tomorrow we leave for Lao and begin the long hike north to Hanoi.