Of crabs and flame trees and snakes

23 Dec 2013

I reckon it takes about 3 weeks to settle down in a place. When we first arrived in Kep everything seemed strange and unfamiliar and slightly scary – or at least worrisome. What are those strange smells? Is it safe to walk along the seafront in the dark? What creepy-crawlies are living in the roof? Am I going to break my ankle in these potholes? Can I trust that man to tell me the truth? Will that unusual tasting food make me ill? Worry worry anxious anxious.

Quite suddenly after a couple of weeks those fears subside and everything feels comfortably familiar. We know every section of the path along the seafront like the back of our hands and feel quite happy to stroll along there in the dark, saying hello to the shadowy fishermen as we pass by. We’ve found our favourite restaurants and cafes for breakfast, fruit shakes or evening meals. We know where we can get a cheap beer at sunset. And we like our little bungalow home.

I don't quite understand the architectural priorities of the Cambodians yet. Sometimes quite modest dwellings have massive, imperious gateways and entrances like this! Odd.

We even went in the sea this morning! The advance press for Kep Beach was not inviting – “a small, rather dirty, stony beach, popular with locals but too shallow to be good for swimming”, so we were pleasantly surprised to find it’s clean and sandy and great for swimming.

No caption required.

Apparently, up until about six months ago, the road into Kep was a beautiful, tree-lined avenue with hundreds of magnificent mature “flamboyant trees” producing stunning red blossom in April. Then the regional authorities decided to widen the road into this huge inexplicable six-lane highway. The avenue had to go! But to their credit, someone somewhere decided that the trees should be saved and although they uprooted them, they did it with care – removed the branches, dug them up with a big rootball and replanted them further back. And amazingly, most of the trees have survived. They look a bit odd now but they have already started sprouting feathery leaves. Hundreds of new young trees have also been planted and are watered with care every morning. I find this interesting. Such care, when other areas are such a mess!

One of the trees that didn't make it. But you can see the rootball.

This one is doing well - sending out new leaves.

and here is the new road which replaced the avenue. It will recover in time but I'm not sure who they think will make use of this massive highway.

Yesterday we ate breakfast at the crab market. It was fascinating to watch the people at work. The crab market restaurants are a row of bamboo and tin shacks on stilts on the seashore. You can sit over the sloshing water, drinking your coffee, watching the fisherwomen haggling over their sales. The crabs are kept in bamboo cages in the shallows and the women wade out to sort them or bring in samples for their customers.