Dear all,
We woke up early and we were able to start cycling at the sunrise, slightly after 5AM.
As these guesthouses are no more than a place to sleep, we cycled untill we find the first place where we could buy some food.
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| Marta & Peter, still sleepy, at a local market |
We found a place to sit at the other side of the road, at the front of a shop that was not yet open.
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| Peter & Marta having breakfast |
The breakfast was orange juice (25% juice, they probably add water and it is quite sweet, so I assume that they add sugar too), and a set of fried sweets (one was for sure banana, my favourite, the others we were not sure what we were eating).
Back to cycling, our pace was not that good, so we were cycling slower than usual and the kilometers did not seem to flow as we were used to.
When we passed through Pursat, which is the capital of the region we were cycling, we stopped for a bit and I found exactly what I was looking for, a place to cut my hair!
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| The hair advisor saloon |
The guy did not speak any English, so I adressed him with my good Cambodian skills:
- Susdai (I do not know how it is written, but it sounds like Sucedai, and it means hello)
After that, it was just mimics, but the conversation was sort of:
- how are you? Good!
- well, I came to cut my hair.
- would you like to be shaved as well?
- Sure, how much does it cost?
- 4000 Riels
- Deal!
- Have a sit.
- Okhun (means thank you in Cambodian).
So, to get this right: one hair cut and shave (old style, with new raiser) costs 1 USD!!!
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| The previous costumer |
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| Peter Lamb in need of an haircut |
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| Let the show begin! |
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| Yeah baby, cut it! |
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| Shaving time! |
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| Workstation, red bull powered |
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| The final result |
The temperature was quite high, despite of being early in the morning. We decided to cycle through the city, somehow leaving the road number 5 for some time and coming back for it at the other side of the city.
Finding the market was not difficult as the street paralel to the road 5 gets us through the market.
The market itself runs inside a building, but there are loads of vendors outside as well, making it almost as large as double of the building's size.
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| Market in Pursat |
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| Market in Pursat |
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| Fish vendors in Pursta Market |
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| Some locals buying their goods in the market |
What we found out to be interesting is that they do not run it by sections. What I mean is: one vendor sells meat, close to the next one that sells vegetable, which is close to another that sells fish.
The smell of somehow spoiled meat is very intense, as the vendors just have some shade over the products, they have absolutely no cooling or even ice. The products are just there, exposed to temperatures around 30 degrees and the products get spoiled very quickly.
Inside the market it is even worse, as the temperature is very high and the mixture of smell really difficult to stand (and I am not a picky person, at all)!
We tried to buy some grapes, as we were not eating fruits for a long time, but I inly found one vendor with grapes. They asked for 25 000 Riels per kilo, about 4€ per kilo, so we ended up not taking it. Later that day we ended up buying some grapes somewhere else and the price was 20 000 Riel per kilo. I do not know if the grapes are imported, or it is just not the season for it, but well, we really wanted to eat grapes that day, no matter of the price!
Back to the road again, Marta had a flat tire. My father's bike does not have a quick release on the back wheel, so it takes a bit longer to disassemble the wheel.
I do not remember the last time I had a flat tire and needed to fix it. To be very honest I do not even remember that I ever had a flat tire! Well, it is not rocket science, so lets get the job done! Taking out the wheel, take the tire off the wheel, look for the hole in the tube, scratch it a little bit, put some glue and wait 3 minutes and then press the patch for one minute. After that examine the tire and look for what it may cause the flat tire.
It was a tinypiece of metal, about 3 milimeters long that caused the flat tire! It was not difficult to remove it from the tire, so I assembled back the wheel and pumped some air into the tube. I have no idea how much time we took for all the process, but I would say that took us around 20 to 25 minutes. Marta has to take the bags the bike and put them on the bike as well after this, and that is somehow time consuming as well.
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| The place where we slept last night, only 35 km away |
Back to the road again it was difficult to build up some distance and I was feeling quite weak. We stopped and decided that the best would be to find a good spot to set the hammicks and have a rest. Maybe closer to the sunset we would feel with more energy.
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| Road 5 with almost no shadows, making it difficult to cycle |
Finding a good spot to rest is not always easy. First thing we look for is to go out of the mais road to find a place where we can rest from the traffic's noise. Sometimes you take some small roads that leads to people's houses, sometimes there is almost no trees...
This time we got lucky, althought we had to ride about 3 km off-road.
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| The road towards our resting spot |
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| Marta preparing our food |
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| The surroundings of our resting spot |
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| Peter Lamb blogging before his nap time! |
After our rest, we came back to the main road, but today cycling was not really what we wanted the most. As we would have more than enough time to make it into the capital, we decided to look for a guesthouse a bit earlier than usual.
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| Fully loaded truck with no windows or windshield! |
Summary of the day:
- Daily distance: 59,7 km
- Daily time: 3h38m10s
- Average speed: TBA
- Maximum speed: TBA
Total travelled so far: 489,35km
Total time cycling: 29h10m02s
And that is all for now folks!
Best,
Peter
Postado com o Blogsy
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