1 Jan 2014
My dear brother Bill points out that I haven’t posted to my blog
since before Christmas, over a week ago. What on earth was I thinking!? Well,
to be honest, there’s hasn’t been a great deal going on! More relaxing on the
veranda, more magnificent sunsets ...
And then there was New Year of course. Seeing as I'm just recovering from that right now I thought I could spend a few minutes posting some pix.
We weren’t sure how a
sleepy little town like Kep would celebrate New Year so Roy hired a moto and popped
into Kampot to buy some Chinese lanterns and fireworks. Mindful of Michael’s
concern for his thatched roofs, we agreed that we would go down to the beach and
set them off there. There would be plenty of space on the deserted beach at
night!
So following a delicious meal, a couple of games of pool and
a few BeerLao, the three of us wobbled down the road armed with three Cambodian
rockets, five hand-held firesticks, 10 Chinese lanterns and a couple of
lighters. What could possibly go wrong?
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| A poor rendition of Kep Beach at midnight. See Trevann's pix for better views. Makes Bournemouth fireworks seem a bit tame! |
The beach was absolutely packed – with locals, visitors,
staff from the guest houses, children – the entire population of Kep spread
along the shoreline all with fireworks ready to go, bonfires, candles, smiling
faces. It was a spectacular show at midnight. Trevann’s got some better shots
of it.
A wonderful New Year celebration!
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| Trevann lighting a lantern. |
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| Roy and Trevann doing their utmost to get our poor-quality lanterns airborne. |
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| Local experts joined in the valiant attempts. |
Unfortunately our Chinese lanterns turned out to be duds and
despite our best efforts, patiently aided by the Khmers around us, who were
anxious for us to succeed – only two of our ten lanterns launched successfully
and soared away with the others over the Bay of Cambodia, taking all the bad
spirits of 2013 with them.
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| Oh dear! |
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| Fortunately Michael and Shri-Na then turned up with the bubbly! |
Other than that, Christmas itself was quiet. We studiously
avoided any tinselly celebrations and had a simple meal with local ex-pat Alistair
at Bacoma.
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| A quiet Christmas day. |
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| Boxing day meal at one of our favourite restaurants, Brise de Kep. |
Then a couple of days later we set out to do “Le Trek”, an 8
kilometer walk through Kep National Park, stopping off at the brand new Kep
Butterfly Farm on the way. We were joined on the walk by Mareet, a Finnish
woman who we met at Led Zep cafe. We had intended this to be our Boxing Day
walk but somehow forgot to do it on the day! Which day/month/year is it now!?
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| Trevann and Mareet striding out through the jungle. |
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| Fab butterflies |
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| A distant Wat. |
And then on the 28th our old friend Roy arrived,
on his travels between Indonesia and Thailand. Roy visited us last year in
Laos as well. He's staying for a week at Bacoma and as from today we're back there as well after our sojourn at Kimly Lodge (which turned out to be fine in the end1).
So life continues ...
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| Yes, another sunset. |
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