Friday dawned with no rain and clear views of the hill tops.
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We climbed aboard the bikes from the homestay and cycled to Mua Cave. We were less interested in the cave than the viewing points on top of one of the limestone karsts. The steps were steep and uneven but the view was well worth the effort. As often is the way when you are travelling, we sat down for an iced coffee and found ourselves chatting to another couple who offered us some good tips. Including that we will need to be able to demonstrate an exit from both Cambodia and Laos with the warning that border control will be stricter. They also had a lot of experience of overlanding in Morocco, something we are thinking of doing in the motorhome.
We stopped for lunch at a beautiful riverside restaurant where we had beef pho. Essentially a stock soup with noodles, vegetables and the meat of your choice. It makes for a tasty and cheap lunch.
We cycled to the UNESCO site of Trang An, where we caught a boat with a Dutch couple for the three hour journey down the river and through the caves. One of these was over a kilometre long and very low, leading to repeated shouts of “bend your head” from the lady rowing the boat. Traditionally women row these low bamboo punts. They use a technique which is opposite to Europe, pushing the oars through the water, rather than pulling.
All went well until our lady checked our tickets and said we had access to a separate area. We didn’t think we did, but she ordered both us and the Dutch people off so we wandered round to the entry for a re-production prehistoric village and of course were told no go back to the boat. We protested that the boat had gone and we were now stuck on the island but to no avail. In the middle of being firmly shushed away the security people suddenly stopped and pointed to the rocks to show us some wild monkeys climbing over them. Then they began shushing us away again. We found someone in charge who rang our lady rower and she came back to get us. All went smoothly after that.
Saturday dawned dry and became increasingly hot, close to 30°. We had booked ourselves on a “VIP” night bus where we are led to believe we can lie down. Deciding we wanted to be ready for a rest when we boarded the bus, we embarked on a 36K bike ride which was quite tiring given there were no gears (or breaks really). We cycled to an huge a temple complex with a large Pogoda but didn’t go in. It all seemed a bit commercial and the ride was great fun in itself, round a large lake with temples everywhere.
We are now waiting for the car to take us to our night bus hoping we get some sleep as we have worn ourselves out.
This featured blog entry was written by SearlesTravels from the blog Exploring the Far East.
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