2016 - Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City by Bicycle: Day 18: Sat 03 Dec

26 degC, 81% humidity, headwind for most of the way

Listed: 85km; actual: 110km; total: 835km

Another 7:30am start for a quick tour of the crab markets - not really Wendy's favourite food but she went along anyway as it was only 2.5km from the hotel. Little did we all know that we had to cycle back past the hotel to get to Takeo! Oh well, what's 5km when you think you’re only going to do 85?

Although the road out of Kep was busy, it was a good road and we made pretty good time despite the headwind. We made a left turn and continued on a very rough dirt road probably because we wanted to visit a pepper farm. None of us (apart from Greg) knew that white, red and black pepper came from the one plant; the colour is all to do with the time you pick it. We also didn't realize how expensive it is - $40/kg for the white and red and $36/kg for black. It is very labour intensive farming though as each peppercorn has to be picked individually. The farmer also grows durian, oranges, mangoes, nashi pears, and maybe a few other things.

We continued on the dirt road for another 7km or so and then it was onto another busy road. The roads from then on were a mix of decent highways but busy, to roads in bad need of a lot of TLC. And the scenery was largely more of the same: rural, rice paddies, cows on the road, etc, etc. Although Wendy found the pace a bit punishing at times, she completed the distance. We all had our moments when we were not enjoying it so much, but all made it to the end and enjoyed the long ride. Lunch was had at a very local roadside restaurant which had no menu, you just ordered your favourite dish and it came! The kitchen was "rustic" at best. One unusual sight on the ride to lunch was a family doing some net-fishing from the side of the road in the creek. They caught a fair bit so they must have had a good Saturday night dinner.

We checked into Alice Villa Hotel about 4pm, and showers and washing was followed by a relax in the air-conditioned room. Pre-dinner drinks were taken a little later than usual due to the long ride and later arrival. We were picked up at 6:30pm and driven all of about 800m to the restaurant for dinner. We all had good meals again and the beer was cold. It was not a late night and we were back home and ready for bed by 8:30pm. However, as we have an 8am start tomorrow we stayed up a little later to ensure we did not wake up toooooo early.