Stairway to Heaven revisited

On Sunday 19th we walked the National Park Trail.

Kep National Park is tiny - less than 5 square miles in area - a precious patch of dense green forest on a hill overlooking the coast at Kep, Cambodia. That there is a well-marked 8 km trail round the park is largely testament to the work of one man, a French ex-pat with a passion for nature called Christian Debenath.

Apparently he first came to Kep in 1992 and set up a popular cafe called Led Zep. Then starting in 2008, he single-handedly devoted many hours to mapping, creating and maintaining trails through the forest of the National Park for visitors to enjoy. Some of the steep, narrow paths were only accessible in dry season with the help of ropes. Without this work, I doubt that the national park would've remained protected.

Led Zep cafe had a wonderful frieze of 1960s album covers on the walls and a fascinating display of photographs from the heyday of Kep Sur Mer in the 1960s.

Sadly, we only met Christian once, about 8 years ago. He died in August 2017, aged 61. We were pleased to see that the local authorities have decided to recognise his work by placing a memorial (albeit a pretty hideous one!) on the trail in the park. And many of the named paths remain, although we failed to find the broken steps that used to mark the start of the Stairway to Heaven - the steep way up to Sunset Rock.

The trail has been widened and resurfaced with concrete since we were last here but the views and the sense of immersion in nature remain.

One annoying niggle: Google calls this new structure "Toucan Viewpoint"! That's like calling someplace in the Arctic "Penguin Pass"! Obviously it should be "Hornbill Viewpoint". Toucans live in South America - they don't live round here! Hornbills and toucans are a wonderful example of convergent evolution. Until a few years ago there was one lonely male hornbill living in Kep National Park. Sadly no more.

Trevann likes to blend with the landscape

The newly surfaced path isn't as picturesque as it's former gravelly, rocky incarnation but it does at least mean you can look up and around as you wander along

Looking down on Kep

A few pix from earlier this week

A little puppy getting lots of love

How bizarre to see this familiar brand here!

This grand palace has been "in process" for as long as we can remember. It started as a 1960s Modernist ruin, then suddenly sprouted pillars about 8 years ago. Since then abandoned. At last it's getting near to completion. It's in a great spot with wonderful views

Dramatic skies for our sunset beer