Siem Reap to Kep - fed up of the bus now!

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One day more in Siem Reap, enough of the temples, after a night out at the Temple Bar in Pub Street, eating deep-fried tarantula (disappointingly chewy and not crunchy as hoped), having our feet massaged by 15-year-olds, which felt slightly wrong, although they had left school and this was their job they said (but a lot of muttering and snide giggling in Khmer to each other, so we didn't really enjoy it), we had a lovely day by the small pool at the River Garden Hotel - no charge if we ate, and the food was v good. Then up at 5am to wait for our pickup. The hotel had made us a packed breakfast of sandwiches, bananas and water - very welcome, as the minimarkets were a bit of a challenge. Most people buy food fresh here, so snacks are a bit tricky, unlike in Saigon.

Dreading the bus, but although it was fairly basic, there was plenty of legroom and the rest stop places were much better than the ones from Saigon. Whichever eejit wrote in the Lonely Planet that the road from SR to Phnom Penh is good was having a laugh, though - it was very much not good, with very few sections not under construction - hence it took 7 1/2 hours. Got off the bus in PP at the Sorya bus station - jeez, what a place! There is a system, not immediately obvious and very unhelpful staff, but by sticking together with the other westerners and helping each other out we managed to get our seat numbers for the next bus - right at the back, next to the toilets, no legroom and bouncy as hell - we were right out of our seats and shrieking in a number of occasions! And very annoyingly, it was the same bus which had dropped us off and made us unload our bags, wait in the hot sun and load them back on 45 mins later!

The next leg to Kep took an bone-jolting 4 hours, sitting on the back row - what a pain, but next to a very chatty Cambodian tour guide on his way to a job - lots of interesting facts about the politics here, and why so many people live in poverty. There is only one rice harvest a year, unlike Vietnam where there are 3, as the government won't supply powered irrigation. Apparently the thinking is that people are easier to control if kept poor!

When we finally arrived in the dark we got a tuktuk to the guesthouse, fending off offers of trips the next day, and it is a delight here. French owners, rooms tiny and although I had asked for an extra bed they hadn't read the agoda thing properly so Sam ended up on a squishy campbed at my feet. 2 French girls on the bus with us asked if we'd booked anywhere and followed us here - lots of French spoken - Up early, breakfast and then we got a boat to Rabbit Island, feeling like Robinson Crusoe. Very basic huts, booked one for tomorrow at $12 a night with sort-of bathroom, think we were possibly done on that one. Had crab for lunch, which the guy hauled out of a crab prison kept in the sea in front of the restaurant, bless- there were loads of them in there, all with there legs tied with elastic bands. We had had our room changed when we got back for one with twin beds, bit of a squash, but we are going to leave our stuff here tomorrow and sleep on the island, so no probs! Great to have downtime after over 1000k in 4 days on local transport - we still feel like we are bouncing along on the bus!

Love to friends and beautiful girlies!xx

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