Daytrip to Kep by scooter

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Our hotel, ‘Gecko Village’, is further out of town than we had realised. Fortunately they provide free bikes and have scooters and kayaks you can hire so it’s not much of a problem.
The advantage of being slightly out of town is that it’s much quieter in the evenings and we have lovely views. Breakfast we enjoyed sitting on decking overlooking the river in their pretty garden.

Hiring a scooter to share we decided to head over to Kep today (we found the scooter much easier to drive than the ebikes we had in Bagan). Kep is a small seaside town where the French used to go, before Sihanoukville became popular. It doesn’t really have a centre which is a bit odd but there are lots of old colonial buildings to see when you wonder around and plenty of bars and restaurants.
We walked along the short beach, consisting of golden sand imported from Sihanoukville.
We then went to the crab market where all of the days catch are sold. You can eat there but Stephen decided that BBQ fish cooked on sticks wasn’t that appealing, and I was inclined to agree when you could see piles of other fish and shellfish still alive, struggling to breath.
Instead we enjoyed some food in a seafront restaurant.

In the afternoon we drove up the hill behind Kep and around Kep national park. It’s a little odd being able to take your motorbike into a national park and does mean there’s not much chance of seeing any wildlife (although the monkeys don’t seem to mind). We went on a little walk into the jungle and enjoyed the views. The track is very rutty and quite difficult to drive along, especially on the steep bits. Fortunately Stephen is rather good at off road scootering. Even when we managed to loose the path we were following and ended up at a dead end. There’s supposed to be a loop you can follow but we managed to loose it - we met another couple who had the same problem so it’s not just us!

On returning to Kampot we enjoyed some coffee and our books before finding a restaurant with Khmer food for dinner. In the restaurant was a short book, ‘call me vodka’, about a young mans experience growing up in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge. He’s about my age and it’s very sad, the ongoing land grabs by the government and difficulties in getting an education so he could try and escape absolute poverty. The guidebook talks about the fact Cambodians eat everything (frogs, snakes, ants etc), this book makes it clear that in many cases it’s from necessity, not choice.

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Photos

View from Breakfast
Looking out over the river from Gecko Village, Kampot

View from our lunch spot in kep
You can see a fisherman checking his crab baskets in the background