Living Lightly in Laos - for a while: November 2023

Thursday 16 November

Day 6 since we left home and I still feel a bit jetlagged. Finally, this morning I woke at a reasonable hour - 7:30 - but then dropped off to sleep again and found it was nearly 11! Oh dear. Slowly getting there. Trevann takes Nytol or he would never get to sleep at all.

Otherwise all is well. Ben and Ellie waved us off from Victoria Crescent on Friday for the 3pm coach to Heathrow, which conveniently stops at the end of our road.

It's a long old journey - 11 hour flight to Bangkok , 2 hour wait there, then another hour on to Phnom Penh, arriving 10pm Saturday. We had booked a hotel overlooking the runway that we had stayed in many times before. It's reassuring to look out of the airplane window as we land, and see the big lit-up sign "You Eng" on the hotel roof! Small room, big bed and sleep beckons. Nevermind the dead cockroaches in the bathroom.

Next morning our taxi driver arrived to take us to Kep. It's less than 3 hours now that the road is fixed. Most of the way it's dual carriageway with just a short dirt road section at the end. Very dusty if you're following a truck.

Our guesthouse, Casa Kep, is a small establishment, just along the road from where Bacoma used to be. Run by an Canadian/American called Kate, it's a peaceful, shaded plot filled with trees, palms and bananas. We have a little bungalow at the back with bathroom and kitchen attached. There are plenty of places to sit in the gardens, with roaming cats, cockerel and dog for entertainment. Kate has three rooms to let out in the house and a small cafe so it's quite quiet (apart from the inevitable construction site next door!)

And what of Kep? How has it changed in the 3 years since we were here last? Not too much considering! The crab market restaurants are still there; the beach itself is unchanged; the sea, sunset views and green national park mountain remain.

Yes, there has been construction. A few years ago the government decreed that Kep would be developed into a "World Class Resort". We thought this charming little crab fishing village would be spoilt and that we would never return. Three-lane highways were built, replacing the beautiful flame-tree avenues, and multi-storey buildings started to appear and the burnt-out ruins of the 1960s Modernist villas were demolished. Most bizarrely, truck-loads of stone and gravel were poured into the sea to create huge areas of land reclamation. Where did all this material come from - and why!? The old Sailing Club with its pier went overnight. It's now several hundred metres inland!

However, it's all starting to make sense. There will be big new beaches (if the storms leave the imported sand alone!), lovely walks along the shore and some posh new restaurants (not for the likes of us!).

And yesterday, our friend Dara came to visit.