Day 6 - the penultimate day of cycling on this challenge. It starts with leaving the hotel at 0700 and due to the considerable numb bum situation yesterday they have changed the coach to a 45 sweater coach which is far superior and more pleasant on the derrière. A 3 hour journey further into Cambodia will get us to our destination but not before stopping at Skun or also affectionately known as Spiderville. Why Spiderville, i will give you one guess, yep, the speciality of this place is fried tarantula spider. As well as the fried version they also have the live version as well. It was very warming to see so many macho characters in the group screaming like little girls when they had the spiders put on them, what a bunch of wimps, oh I forgot to mention that I was one of those screaming wimp girls. Once we had been well and truly Arachnid we were off again to our cycling starting point.
Before we go we see our new set of wheels for the first time already fitted with our own seats and SPD's (remember that these are not to be mistaken for STD's) and them we start the first of our four 15/16Km sections of the day.
Today is all about road riding which requires some concentration and again just like Vietnam the Cambodian children run out to the road to wave and shout hello with even bigger smiling faces which is great to see. So one section done, 2nd section done with the road lined with 100's of rubber trees with what looked like coconut shells with a tube or tap in the trunk of the tree catching the liquid that was coming from it and every so often there would be a man in a hammock who presumably is responsible for collecting all of the liquid. An interesting site never seen before.
At the end of the 2nd section we stop at temple and we have a packed lunch comprising of sticky rice, sweet and sour vegetables, chicken satay and some fruit to finish, not bad actually. Lunch finished and we are back off down the road in the usual A, B and C formation completing sections 3 and 4 by 3pm.
Penultimate day DONE!!!
Back on the coach, quick stop at a Cambodian Stonemason's to take a look at all of the big and little Buddha's that they make and then onto our hotel in Campong Phong.
Our guides have spent most of the day apologising for the quality of the hotel tonight but it is not too bad, we have only had one power cut so far.