Blog / Aeolus's Revenge

4 February 2012

After an easy, smooth day yesterday, today's the opposite: highway 5 is rather bumpy, and I'm going into the wind for most of the ride.

Fortunately, it's a short one: another transitional stage before the run west to Pailin, just short of the Thai border.

I immediately get a good feeling about Battambang, and as I've got a couple of days in hand, I decide to take a rest day here. It seems there's plenty of good places to eat and drink, my hotel is good value, and there's a few sights around town that I'd like to check out. Plus, the place is called Battambang!

The Thai visa situation has been bugging me a bit. I applied for a 60 day tourist visa before I left Kunming. If I didn't have this, I'd be given a 15 day visa upon arrival at the Thai border, meaning I'd need to renew somewhere along the way. A right faff, in other words.

What I wasn't expecting was an 'enter before' date stamped on my visa, namely 8th February. If there is a positive side to this, it's been the encouragement to stick to my itinerary and keep moving. But now this matter is nearly resolved, why not relax a bit and have some time off? I've booked a tuktuk trip for tomorrow with a charismatic chap named Boon who does a fine line in trotting out stock English slang.

71km, 20.7km/h, 3hr25min, 5350km

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