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Published: January 15th 2011
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We left the relative comfort of the Chhlong guest house at our usual shortly before or at sun break point and our travels today took us through our first real exposure of muslim Cambodia. The differences were subtle but firmly entrenched and it was an interesting contrast to the Khmer villages that has punctuated our travels so far, one noteworthy difference being the relative absence of the family dog pack. The lack of hello's was also eerily felt. The agriculture also changed along the way and a new harvest, tobacco, was now stretching itself across the landscape and mats upon mat of drying fish, sesame seed and green peppercorn.
Along the way the kids have always been keen to engage with us. Today was no different. In a particularly difficult time in the day, the kids were on their way back to school. The cycled up and started to say 'Hello!, where you go? The answer always brings laughter and giggles from them. Running in a strange mental no man's land, they changed that. As the 15 or so kids started to pass Mombo and I (Jeff), taunting me to go faster, I could not help but take them up
quietly on the challenge. As they pedaled past, I fell in behind them and slowly made my way up to and then next to them and shouted 'sua s'dei'! This caused laughter from those behind watching and a shock to the ones I was now next to. I paid for the pace but it got me out of the fog and put the smile I've been carrying along the way, back on my face. Thanks kids!
Nat here, because we share the writing and at this juncture an “outing” needs to happen I take the next chapter. The reason Jeff lost his smile and then found it again in the joy the children bring us everyday is that after days of running on cambered roads and tripping in a gully when contemplating some stunning landscape feature (as opposed to running away from water buffaloes which I was certain would be my demise at some juncture along this trip) I have managed to acquire a gimp of sorts which now demands icing and compression every 20km or so …
So my story today is about the rice farmer on an oxcart. The elderly gentleman was sitting high on a
pile of rice hay and intent on reaching his destination, failed to notice he was loosing part of his load. I was in the truck icing my leg in order to be able to resume running later that day and when I noticed this, Bunna our fearless and ever so adept driver decided to do “the right thing” and drive up alongside to advise said elder of his increasing loss. Well I guess he was also suffering from a bit of hearing loss as he kept on asking Bunna to repeat. While he was doing this, he was not looking forward and his ox team, unnerved by our truck, drove right under a low hanging branch mango tree and just about took out grand'pa who fell over backwards on his pile of hay, hauling on his rope trying to haul his team to a stop which they did of course just as he was getting racked over by the biggest branch of them all. We were just trying to help and the karma wagon had an evil oxen team on that day... Editorial note, lovely old dude is still alive and we think relatively o.k.
The day progressed and
we reached our ferry crossing to the west side of the Mekong. It's a quiet little place that you'd 'run' right by if you did not know it was there....after days of 'looking' at the river it was nice to be 'crossing' it. Our little ride brought us to the dusty little riverside town called Stung Trong. Now there's not much in the town from a tourist point of view but it does sport a beautiful little area to sit and watch the goings on and it happens to be our stop for the night. Now we were warned by Bunna that our 'guesthouse' was nothing like we'd had so far. He could not have been more right....welcome to the Mexican Jailhouse....photos and video tell all that needs to be told...
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