"Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world"

Three days in Kampong Cham City recovering from bad water or food or both and it was time to hit the road again and head north, up the Mekong.   Eastward over the Mekong down state highway 7 for thirty eight uneventful kilometers, where we should turn north and start following the river to Laos.
The turn is where for me the days entertainment began and for Neil hassle and embarrassment.  We left the road and entered the forecourt of a crowded petrol station in a hopeful and futile search for refrigerated drinks, the stop looked very promising.   As I set my bike against a bench and headed inside there was a crash and rumble of voices, mostly angered Cambodian supplemented by genuine but unhappy "sorry! sorry! sorry!"  Neil had knocked over a cooking pot full of dumplings and the vendor was clearly furious and demanding payment of $10 - not an outrageous sum but probably double the actual selling price of the whole pot.  Safely uninvolved I admit that I did little to help Neil out of the ever growing crowd of women demanding money and young men standing back mimicking Neil's plights of apology, but what could I do.  After much bargaining a price of 7$ was agreed upon and I loaned Neil some of my small bills and we managed to depart with only slightly more grace than that with which we arrived. Onwards to Kratie 
Looking back to that junction my only real regret is that I was not sharp enough to pull out my phone and start videoing.

From the turn is probably the point at which the quality of the road started to seriously degrade.  No longer was the road nice sealed tarmac but it became a surface that is riddle with potholes or worse completely unsurfaced corrugated and dusty from kilometers on end.  From Kratie to Stung Treng was probably the worst stretch and having read Mr. Pumpy's 2001 description and know the road is so much better now I can only imagine what the journey would have been like 12 years ago, especially if it was wet.

In the end though it all proved to be a worthwhile journey and apart from the pot quite peaceful as Cambodia took on and especially rural feel as we headed to the boarder.   Unlike our departure from Thailand leaving Cambodia was easy and the only hassle obtaining our visa on arrival in Laos was the $2 stamp fee (on top of a $42 visa fee) that the border guard demanded to grant us entry.  Sometimes it is easier to just pay rather than argue.  An exiting Dane whom we met in no man's land had clearly tried to argue about the fee for his exit stamp but only succeeded in frustrating himself.

Arriving in Laos both Neil and I had expected more roads like those we had traveled on up from Kratie and we were pleasantly surprised to find Highway 13 to be in excellent condition with very little traffic.  30km from the border we reached the ferry for Don Khong and for a mere 5000 kip were motored across to the island where we found good accommodation a that had the added benefit of treating us to a magnificent sunrise over the Mekong.

From Khong, the road has been pretty straight forwards with 3 days of travel up to Savannakhet by way of Pakse.  Nearing Pakse at the days final drink stop we managed to have a top notch encounter with some local truck drivers who didnt seem to care too much that we still had 25km or so to go.   They quickly exchanged our iced teas for tumblers of beer and it became a competition (for them at least) to see who could get the most down the quickest.  It was quite a bit of fun and we managed to engineer an escape after about 30 minutes but that last bit of riding was more demanding than one would have hoped after already covering 100km.

The final day of riding marked the hottest temperatures we have seen and by great coincidence the start of Lao new year - which means everyone is out throwing water at each other, I cant think of a better way to beat the heat. 

The party ends today with the first day of the new year but it has been a wonderful 3 days.  

Sohkdee pbee mai