If I didn’t want to stay in the isolated town of Stung Trang in the north of Cambodia I had to take some risks. It was not raining the whole morning and even though the clouds were still not letting any sunrays through and all around Stung Trang they were black, agains all of this I decided to move. There is really nothing to do in this town and if it was going to be raining for a week then this was my chance.

I oiled the chain and went out to check the weather situation. I had a shower and went to check on the weather situation again. I packed all my stuff and did a last check that could still change my plans. No changes – the black clouds are still all around but it was still not raining. OK, I was off.

As I pushed my bike out of the dining room where it was housed and sat on it I asked the young owner of the guesthouse – Mr. T – which road would take me to the border. To my surprise I fist had to cross the river. Immediately I had an offer to arrange a little boat for me and my bike. “No way, I’m not putting my heavy bike on a little boat! It is not the same as the little bikes of yours, you see. My bike as VERY heavy.”  was my immediate reaction. I thanked and headed to the ramp where I saw a big ferry operating when I arrived here as well as yesterday. Little I knew…

At the ramp I learned that the ferry was not going any time soon as it was broken. I saw the ferry being dragged by a big and cumbersome wooden boat yesterday afternoon and now the ferry was on the other side while the pilot boat that is supposed to carry the ferry across was docked on our side. “You will have to take the small boat. It is OK, we can help you carry the bike on the boat.” I hear.
“No, thank you, I am not putting my bike on this boat.” I reply with conviction. “I’ll wait for the ferry. When will it go?”
“Oh, long time.”
“But I saw it being dragged by the big boat!?” I’m still trying.
“Yes, but it has to be full before it goes. No cars from Lao…”
“Oh….. OoooKay….. Uhmmmm….” My brain was now working on 150% to work out a solution to avoid putting my bike on the flimsy small wooden boat, unfortunately with no better idea whatsoever. I needed to get across before it would start raining because otherwise I would have to return defeated back to the guesthouse.
“OK then…” I decided while fear of loosing my bike to the river filled my whole body.

Before I decided the boat has already left with full load of people on board. Then it apparently had to wait on the other side to get enough customers wanting to get to our side before returning back, which was 30 minutes later in this case.

All people boarded the boat and now it was my and my bike’s turn. My heart was pumping like if I was running and the brain was playing all the possible scenarios of “What if…?”. At least I took off all the panniers while I was waiting for the boat to come back from the other side, so the loss would not be total. OK, here we go… A plank was laid across from the concrete bank to the wooden platform at the tip of the boat where they usually stand the little motorbikes (only one fits) when transporting them. Rear wheel first and then the front. So far so good, but now the things were becoming really scary. The whole of my Kawa’s 200 kilos was now on the tip of the little rocking boat. From there I would loose it for sure, so the next step was to get it lower where the people sit. With the help of another couple of planks and four other guys we got it there. I extended the stand, sat on the bike and spread my legs so that each foot got support against the sides of the boat. The bike seemed to be safe for the moment.

When we started moving the boat started rocking some more and I was getting scared again as the bikes weight was being transferred more and more to either of my legs, which was subsequently making the boat to lean to the sides even more. Eventually we landed with everybody and everything still on board and after some more scary moments for me where nobody was helping to support the bike on my side while unloading which could easily result in me falling of the boat between it and the steep rocky bank on that side and having the bike landing on the top of me, we managed to unload it without an incident.

Of course it started to rain as soon as I put my helmet on after I got to the opposite bank. Well, there was no way I was putting the bike back on the boat two more times. I am not taking any more minutes off my life due to being scared.

The first ten or fifteen kilometers of the road were actually quite good. I even started to suspect Mr. T that he tried to scare me only to keep me in the guesthouse for few more nights. Then the potholes and deep muddy pools appeared and I had my first few little scary moments, mostly caused by the rear wheel being stuck in a muddy hole or hopping over invisible obstacles at the bottom of the muddy pools and sliding to the sides along them.

The light rain from earlier had had stopped soon after it started, but about 30 km into my today’s trip it resumed with bigger intensity. I was now zigzagging the road from side to side among the now very numerous pools spreading accross the whole width of the road. I was surprised about it but even in the rain it was actually quite fun – probably because the surface was not clay but little rocks.

The last section of this road after the last (and first at the same time) village on this road before the border was the worst. It was very muddy and the quite nice circular pools that were so numerous on the previous section has changed into irregular mess of water and deep mud wheel ruts. At places there were attempts to compensate for this with some makeshift log crossings but they were so disrupted by the heavy vehicles that obviously go through here that it only made things worse for a motorbike. Once I had no other choice than go into at places very deep water in between two logs, where I risked that my rear wheel would be lifted off the ground by my panniers that would get caught on the logs lying from each side. It almost happened twice.

Many times I was also wandering how deep water does it take to flood the engine. I had to go through a few ponds, which depth was around ¾ of a meter and fortunately the bike did fine.

I had reports that one has to pay around 5 bucks to be let you through the unofficial border. I was also told that I would need much more since I was on a bike. I was prepared to give them USD15 with two 5 dollar backups at two other places. When I finally reached the Cambodian side of the border an officer who uniformed himself for me processed my passport while I was talking to another officer. They didn’t want a cent. Couple of hundreds of meters further in the middle of the forest there was a smaller building for the Laos immigration officers. They also gave me all the stamps they needed to and at the end, when I already had everything I needed they told me that there was a tax of USD1. Normally I would challenge that and ask what tax, but this time this demand seemed more than reasonable to me so I gladly paid. By that time it was raining heavily again so I was offered some water to drink and we talked a bit. Then, as I was leaving, I got an offer from them that I could stay for the night and watch the Euro football championship with them. I’d love to do that but it was only 3PM so I could still clock much more kilometers. So I refused politely and with a bit of regret I left them. I was in Laos now!!! Hurray – no problems, no major expenses!

(276km)