90km was on the cards, up earlyish and off, the Cambodians I have found are up really early, by the time I get on the road at 6am they are up and about. Headed off out of Kampong Thom towards Skun, not a big ride today so I relaxed into it and just took my time, the land since Siam Reap is pretty flat with vast expanses of rice paddy fields.
In Malaysia and Thailand the rice fields were all machine plowed and planted, here in Cambodia it is still done with Ox and cows towing the plows, and the men and women planting out the rice, and this is where my story begins, I was passing the miles away when I came across what I thought would be a good picture, A guy was dropping bundles of Rice storks out ready for planting. The green storks in the muddy brown water mad for a interesting picture, so too did the women planting.
I pulled over off the road and pulled out the camera, which is have issues at the moment, and started to take some snaps, then one of the ladies looked up at me and she kind of signaled that I should come and help, well what the hell, I don’t think she thought I would actually do it, I had a quick check of the time, yep had made good progress, shoes off, gloves and hat off and over I went, much to their amusement.
Waded through the water and mud and was promptly handed a bundle of rice storks, with a bit of instruction I was off and planting. My skills at planting were no match for theirs but I gave it a good go. In the time it took me to do 3 square feet they had done near 10 I would say. Just as we were finishing the row, one of the ladies found a crab in the mud.
Now I have never been a fan of crabs, they always get you on the soft parts of your feet and hands, if I had know there were crabs I probably would have been a bit more selective on where I placed my feet and hands, saying this of cause, like in the sea you only know there their when they nip you.
After we had finished off the row, will after they had finished off the row it was smoko time so I took my leave of the ladies in the mud and clambered back on the bike and hit the road again, as continued the ride I noticed I was being chased by some big black clouds and from the looks of them they were gathering speed.
I eased into Skun knowing I had beaten mother nature and made it there before the rain hit. I had just found a place for the night when mother nature showed her displeasure at my thwarting her, and she was pretty peeved I think. In fact I would say she through down a Minnie tornado. There was a building site across the way and for a start the metal roof was getting ripped one way then all of a sudden it was getting ripped the other way. Metal in the end gave way to the force of the wind so we had sheets of roof flying into the street.
The rain the whole time was thundering down and sweeping straight into the back of the hotel causing a flood which the staff were trying to contain with minimal results. It was all over in maybe 40 minutes but it had managed to wreak a roof and flood more than a few business and the next morning as I rode out of town it had ripped down a few trees to I noticed.
Skun is a place easily passed and will there is not really much there two main streets and that’s it. It is supposed to have tarantulas but I never saw one.
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