Continuing in Cambodia ...

Here we go again. Starting the further adventures of our three months in SE Asia. Not really an adventure - more like sitting in a tropical garden reading and drawing.

Trevann at work already. Lovely legs.

5 Dec 2013

Just to get the prelimaries over - we arrived safely in paradise via Bangkok (no political unrest at the airport thankfully). One night in Phnom Penh at the curious gated Cambodia Country Club hotel - complete with Pony Club, golf course, gym and volleyball team (fit young men in t-shirts, shorts and muscles) was enough for us. 

View from our hotel balcony.

Our driver picked us up as promised in the morning and drove in relative comfort across the flat plains and rice fields, south towards the coast, arriving 3 hours later in Kep.

Typical Cambodian countryside as we passed.

We were met  by Swiss owner, Michael, who showed us to our bungalow. It’s slightly smaller than our place in Laos, and made of concrete and thatch rather than bamboo, but otherwise very similar. Just a simple room with bathroom out back and balcony out front. The setting is a lovely tropical garden with bourgainvillea, bananas, frangipani, hibiscus, etc. A wooded hill rises steeply behind into Kep National Park.

Our bungalow (left). Peaceful.

We can walk along the shore - a bit like Sandbanks really!

Kep is a sprawling seaside town that has obviously seen better days but has aspirations. Ruined colonial French villas peak from the undergrowth along the sea front and from time to time you come across a grand, gleaming, newly built hotel complex.

There are masses of these ruined burnt-out villas.

Smart 1930s villa being restored.

People collecting water for washing.

This weekend the second annual Cambodian Festival of the Sea is being held here for the first time. Last year it was in Sihanoukville, along the coast. A massive new road has (almost) been completed, the Prime Minister is going to visit and the town is braced for 20,000 visitors. No-one knows how it will pan out. It might be fun, but it might just be a pain in the arse with closed off roads, petty officialdom and sky-high prices. We’ll keep out of the way.

Looking out over the Gulf of Thailand.

Weather is great (sorry). Breezy and a balmy 26-ish.

I suppose we knew it was never going to work –Trevann going to a fish restaurant in the famous Kep Crab Market! Not his favourite choice of food at the best of times. As disasters go it could’ve been worse. And we learnt something - it’s never a good idea to take your doxy anti-malarial pill on an empty stomach before going to eat. I’m sure the fried crab with green Kampot pepper – a speciality – was delicious, but it’s so damn hard to get at! A plateful of slippery sauce-covered exoskeleton delivered with a pair of chopsticks. And both of us already feeling queasy! Still, it had to be done!

Not many wats.