This is a route I have been searching for on & off for two years. It is a route that heads Northwest across the large expanse of water to the east of Sangkom and provides a shorter circular route around Sangkom as well as providing a shorter route to Phon Phi Sai. Although shown on some maps in reality the routes shown have always ended at the waters edge with no way across and I had virtually decided that no such route existed. I decided to give it another try taking a new track out of Thon lab. At first I thought I had find it as I hit a new tarmac road and ignored a right fork which headed in the right direction but continued straight on into the next village. The village looked strangly familiar and once through it the road disappeared into a small muddy track. I then remembered I had been here 2 years ago and the path as always ended at the waters edge. Obviously the road to the village had been tarmac’d since my last visit which is why I didn’t remember it at first. I retraced my steps back to the right hand fork and set off down that. This looked more encouraging , although there was no trafic it was wide and showed car and lorry tracks, After a few kilometers the road ran between large expanses of water on both sides and continued in the right direction. Eventually it emerged in the back streets of a village which I had passed through many times before on my rides and from it was a tarmac highway which went to Phon Pi Sai. On this occasion I decided to return home by another route leaving the bike ride to the Mekong for another day. I arrived home covered in mud as it had rained all the day and the red dirt roads had turned to mud and were heavily pot holed.

Using this new route will cut yet another 5 kilometers of the journey reducing it to 45k a big saving on my original route of 60k.