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Happy dolphins, wobbly boats, bike washes in the middle of the 200m-wide river and rejoining with an old cycling companion – Davide. Not much cycling, though..

Bike cleaning

Dolphin viewing was on the menu today – in the early morning before it got too hot. After travelling for about 30 minutes, we reached a broad, calm spot in the Mekong. And there they were, blowing out air, diving majestically – circling the boat at about 100m. I counted five, playing with us – always faster than us as we rotated the boat to see them.

Coming back from seeing the dolphins

I returned to the boat place on the opposite side of the island. There was no apparent activity. I asked some locals when the boat was leaving, pointing to the other side of the river.
‘No.’
Well, that was clear.
‘When? How long? How many hours?’ I ran it through Google translate.
I got a stream of Khmer language.
‘How many minutes?’
Laughter.
The guy wrote down what he was saying – in Khmer script.
‘One o’clock?’
No – I gathered from their Khmer.
‘Tomorrow?’
No.
Finally, the woman there pointed to a little rickety old boat and went down with her 15 year-old and 5 year-old sons. After almost capsizing when putting the bike on the boat, we made it across, for which I am grateful.. ☺ Thanks to the lovely Cambodians who helped me out!

My humble mode of transport across the Mekong

After some contact on Facebook, I realized that Davide was in town. We had cycled together in Iran, and met up briefly in Luang Prabang. We’ll cycle together to Siem Reap. While sitting on the banks of the Sekong River, we saw a curious site. A parade of motorbikes riding into the middle of the river for a clean. Time to do the same.. ☺

Motorbike wash