It’s our third day in Cambodia. Crossing the Loas-Cambodia border was a little less straight forward than usual. 30 day Cambodian visas are issued on arrival at a cost of US$20. US$21 if you include the ’stamp’ fee which we declined to pay (There was no argument from the immigration guy, just a resigned look). Customs clearance was a different story… Firstly, there was no customs form available (unless we picked one up from Phnom Pehn ), so we were forced to use our Carnet de Passage (CDP) although it’s not required in Cambodia. Then when we declined to pay the US$5 ’stamp’ fee, the customs guy said we can go back to Laos, after which he proceeded to eat lunch and drink whiskey with his mates. We had no choice but to pay. Stamps must be very expensive in Cambodia…

Heading south we again detoured from the main road (this one a new ‘contribution’ from the Chinese) and tracked along the Mekong river. Our map showed the road as a good quality secondary route, but in parts it resembled more an ox-cart track. The surface changed between hard packed clay, gravel and deep mud. Without any road signs we made plenty of ’side trips’ to fishing villages, finally reaching our destination (Kampong Cham) at midnight.

Here we met a very interesting french guy - Gilles - traveling the world for 5 years on a BMW GS1150 and researching/consulting on the techniques of bee-keeping (www.worldbees.com).

Cost of fuel in Cambodia is US$1.25