Feb 27 - I got up early to try and use the internet. The Mekong hotel is cavernous - the hotel corridors are ten meters wide, and about the length of a football pitch. It gives it a really spacious feel - the architect obviously wasn't worried about economy of space. The receptionist gave me some bad directions to the internet cafe, and I wandered off into the town.

Walking through the Kompong Cham market was an eye-opener. There seemed to be a stall for every concievable type of goods here. I'm not sure what the main industry in the area is (maybe logging, like the rest of Cambodia!) but there's a lot of commerce going on. One particular stall was selling sewing machinges. There were brand new Elna knitting and electric sewing machines, but they stocked everything new and second hand, right through to old hand-cranked Singers from 1947. Their display was like a picture of technical evolution; with tens, if not hundreds, of machines from each decade - all lovingly reconditioned. Looking around - there were little niches covered in every stall - bikes, kettles, old tin cans. It gives a weird sense of efficiency - there's not a lot of waste here, as almost everything gets recycled. The clear exception being the plastic bag - which litters the whole of Cambodia, and is making a serious bid to be the national flower!

Anyway - I wandered around, lost, for about half an hour before finally finding ABC internet cafe. The connection was seriously slow, so I didn't have much success, but managed to send one email before it was time to head back. Got back to the hotel just in time for breakfast with Cheryl, and we packed up and set off. The receptionist had told us to get to the Hua Ling bus station for 8:45, as the bus was apparently leaving at 9AM. We hung around for a few minutes, and then asked around - discovering that the bus was only leaving at 9:50! We ducked into a different internet cafe we'd seen around the corner. This seemed to be a lot faster, and we finally managed to get a few emails sent off - it's amazing how you take this for granted in other parts of the world.

We met a French brother and sister, Zilia and Baptiste, who were also heading to Sen Monorom. We got talking to them, and they pulled out their tickets - just to check they had the time right, as the bus hadn't yet arrived. "Oh look," said Cheryl. "We've got the same seat numbers!" And we did - apparently all four of us were squashing into seats 25 & 26. We asked the ticket guy, but all he said was "Yes, yes. You change buses at Snuol." This was apparently the standard answer to any question!

The bus turned up at about 10:30, and we all piled on. It was another bodies-in-the-aisle job, but the four of us managed to get the back seat, which was great - we had a bit of extra space and the only two windows in the bus. Eventually, at about 10:45, we took off. The first bit of the journey was pretty uneventful, and we chatted to Baptiste and Zilia on the way to Snuol. They were both physiotherapists, both studying osteopathy, but lived in totally different parts of the France. We talked a bit about Siem Reap, which was where they were going to finish up, and in an hour or so, we arrived in Snuol.

Snuol's a bit of a grim little town. We disembarked, and asked around to see when the bus to Mondulkiri was leaving. "About an hour," the guy said, and so we sat down to have a beer at the local restaurant. The food didn't look amazing, so we skipped it. We also met up with another traveller, Rainer, who had been waiting there for the Sen Monorom bus since 8:30AM, having got in early from Kratie. We'd just finished our drinks when the guy waved us over. "Sen Monorom - you go now!" We ran over to the only bus in the lot, but it was full, and apparently going to Stung Treng. "No, no," said the guy, laughing. "Bus broken down. You go in that." He pointed over to his right. 'That' was a heavily loaded Toyota Hilux pickup truck, already completely fully laden with people and luggage. "You must be joking!," I said. "Even if we wanted to go on that, there's no room. Either sort us out a proper ride, or give us our money back, and we'll hire a driver." Apparently it wasn't that easy: there were no drivers, he couldn't return our money, there was no other bus or pick-up. Did we want to spend the night in Snuol, as the manager would be back tomorrow and could give us a refund? You bet we didn't. We argued and negotiated for a while, but we didn't really have any cards to play. "OK," we said eventually, "if you can fit us in the back of that truck, with our luggage, and you give us a discount, we'll go," thinking that would never happen. Needless to say, five minutes later, we were roaring eastwards, 28 of us packed in the truck (20 in the back, 8 in the front!) with 6000 riel (about $1.50) of goodwill money burning holes in our respective pockets. The last thing the guy shouted to us was, "Don't worry - four people will get off in Khao Si Ma!"

What a ride... I was kind of squashed in the middle of the open back, doing my bit for our combined center of gravity. Cheryl and Zilia we sort of sitting on top of me. Baptiste had somehow managed to wax a ride in the front, with the driver, six other adults, and a baby. I still don't know if he was better off or not! The road was dirt, and tortuous. We crashed in an out of all kinds of bumps, as we drove past miles and miles of logging - much of it in the 'Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary'. Everyone in the back was very laid back about the whole thing, though, even the old Cambodian man who I sat on without realising it! There was a bit of good natured grumbling about fat barangs, but luckily one of the bus company reps was there, so we could just point and blame it on him! About 50 spine jarring kilometres later, we started to wonder if we'd come the right way, and also if any bus had ever come down this road. It would take real guts to tackle it without a 4x4. Shortly thereafter, we got into Khao Si Ma for a much needed leg-stretch and loo-break. I lay in the back, feeling slowly returning to my limbs, and hoped Mondulkiri was going to be worth all this!

After ten minutes, we dragged ourselves onto the truck, there were only ten of us in the back - sumptuous luxury compared with the first leg of the trip. The driver made best use of the reduced weight, and took off at a madcap pace. The road was still pretty rough, and we bounced and clattered over gullies and ruts in the dirt track to Sen Monorom. He really cranked it up down the hills, mainly to get us over the top of the next one, as we were still pretty heavy, and would sometimes get up over 100km/h. Just as we peaked on the way down to a bridge crossing, the guy in front of me snorted, and spat out a huge wad of phlegm. It spun into the slipstream, and straight back into my face, covering the left lens of my sunglasses with an opaque layer of goo. "Eeeeurrgghh!," I shouted. The guy looked sheepishly round, as I tried to wipe my face, already covered in dust. I cleaned most of it off, put my glassed back on and looked around. Everyone was looking pretty dusty, especially the foreigners. Suncream and 80km of dirt has combined to give us camo stripes and interesting red highlights. We all started laughing - for more photos of the cause, see Facebook!

The countryside after Khoa Si Ma was pretty scenic, and we drove through kilometres of real jungle for the first time since we'd got to Cambodia. The trees were huge - some of them over 100ft high, and it was weird to think that they'd been here for hundreds of years. The terrain was really hilly - Mondulkiri means 'meeting of the hills' and we wound our way further and further east towards Sen Monorom. As we approached the town (we could see the communication mast towering out of the jungle) the forest started to thin out. The Lonely Planey described it as 'a bit like Wales in the sunshine', but it was really just a bit windy and dusty.

We pulled up at the Hua Ling station - which doubled as the local Carlsberg beer agent, and dribbled out of the truck - we'd have kissed the ground if we weren't already covered in it. Everyone looked weatherbeaten, and that's being euphemistic! Cheryl's hairdo was particularly spectacular. The Nature Lodge was meant to send someone to pick us up, but there was no sign of them. As we were trying to make a plan to call, a local hotel manager, Mr Tree, turned up with his tuk-tuk "The only one in town!," he told us proudly. He handed round his card, which proclaimed him to be "General Manager of Phom Meas Guest House." Also "All round experience Trekking guide. (Free) Information." Strangely, his card also said "Car for Rent : Huge Square with Natural Wind", which we eventually translated as; '4-wheel-drive with aircon'!

Despite the card, his English was pretty good. "You like to come back to Phnom Meas?" he said. "I take you now. Only 5 minutes. Hot shower. We have good restaurant, and can do all kinds of trekking also. Rooms are five or eight dollar!" I'm afraid that was it for the Nature Lodge. We said "You had us at 'Hot Shower'", got in the tuk-tuk and headed off to get clean. Tree showed us to our room, and I suddenly hear a sound like a shrieking hyena coming from the bathroom. CHeryl had just caught site of herself in the mirror, and had burst into hysterical laughter. We showered, ate a great meal, and hit the sack for one of the deepest sleeps I've ever had.