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Published: March 5th 2010
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We left Sihanoukville a little reluctantly and with a promise to meet up with Birgit and Lukas in Vietnam. Then headed for Kampot, having heard about it's famous pepper and intending to take a look at Kep, a nearby coastal old French town as well.
Having not booked ahead a place to stay (tsk tsk, we should have learnt our lesson in KL), we inquired at the first place we found, 'Mea Culpa', which was pricey but had a room free, so we settled on it. The up side to Mea Culpa being a wood fired oven that did great pizzas!
Kampot is a very relaxed fishing village that has somehow attracted quite a legion of expats, or 'Pot pats'. One of which produces a rather zany (there's no other word for it) publication called 'Kampot Survival Guide'. While there were quite a few expats in Sihanoukville, the ones in Kampot are more noticeable. Now, we've met many great expats so far, but after Sihanoukville and Kampot, finally the expat thing dawned on me....if you're an older man of European decent, perhaps you're no oil painting, perhaps you're single and perhaps got a bit of moolah stashed away, then
Haircut
Phoebe's first Asian haircut...done with incredibly blunt scissors. Cambodia is looking like a pretty smart idea. With even a meagre sum of cash you can set up a business, then sit back and relax while the locals run it for you at $80/month, and you oversee proceedings drinking very cheap beer and trying to beat back all the hordes of local women throwing themselves at you. Ooooh ok, bit sound harsh, but it happens! And it happens quite a bit in and around Kampot.
One of the reasons we really enjoyed our stay in Kampot was the lack of traffic (there are no traffic lights), and the ease of getting around, which translates to ease of finding a French bakery. Happily, we stumbled upon one within the first hour called “Sisters II”, owned by a Vietnamese lady who had an assortment of freshly baked goodies out the front. After a piece of chocolate pie she told us how she came to cook such nice things. She was orphaned in the Vietnam war, and told by a man that her mother was in Cambodia and he would take her with him to meet her (lie detector anyone?). During the journey she hurt her knee quite badly, was discarded
Crabs!
Crabs are fresh and plentiful in Kep. Phoebe and Nick tucked in. by the man(/pig) and found her way to a hospital. The nurses knew of an orphanage run by an American woman and asked the lady to pick up the Vietnamese girl (who by then had had her leg amputated). One good-news story among many not-so-good I'm sure. She grew up in the orphanage and her 'mother', the American lady taught her how to cook. So in fact it was actually American fare we were feasting on, not French-inspired as we'd assumed.
Another day in Kampot we headed out to visit a pepper plantation and also Kep. I wasn't feeling too enticed by Kep as I'd heard rumours about tourist pricing for everything and it's lack of any nice beach. However, it was also rumoured to have big amazing French villas that had been abandoned since Khmer Rouge times and now stood in a dilapidated state. Perhaps I was in a bad mood, perhaps it was the heat, or perhaps Kep really isn't that great. Nick seemed buoyed by the day trip, and Phoebe was happy enough to get into the ocean for a dip, but for me, Kep just didn't cut it. The tuk-tuk ride to and from was
Bakery treats!
Outside Sisters II a highlight though - the scenery was fantastic.
Before leaving Kep, we asked out tuk tuk driver to take us past Salt and Pepper Bakery, which we knew was somewhere between Kep and Kampot. When the driver stopped we were somewhere in the middle of nowhere, next to a bamboo shack shop selling phone cards (and this is hardly civilisation as phone card shops are to Cambodia what pubs are to Australia - there is one in anything remotely resembling a settlement), there was Salt and Pepper bakery, set back from the road in a modest Khmer villa. Out came an amply built German woman and her young, blond daughter trailing behind her. She said she was closed but happy for us to buy and take away. Out came mango cake, apple cake, Turkish teacake and Danish cookies. Not the usual thing you think stumble across in the middle of Cambodia. We left with an armful feeling slightly confused and pleased at the same time.
The bugs situation seems to have come under control, or at least we are continuing to make efforts in that direction. Nick spent close to a day soaking all his clothes in boiling
French Villa
It might be a French dive, but it's still a dive. water to kill the fleas which seems to have worked. Phoebe and Nick have both had haircuts to make our combing routine with head lice more manageable. I have also sent out an SOS to my Dad in Melbourne to post a metal comb to us. You can never too old to hassle parents for help!
Overall Kampot was definitely interesting in many ways, and one of our more enjoyable stops so far. Now we're heading North back to Phnom Penh and then onto Siem Reap to see the famous Angkor temples!
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anonymous
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thanks for a another well written blog Alex which makes me fell you three are not too far away - love Mum xxx