Day 68 Cambodia, Kampot/Kep

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Hello People,



It was between hiring a moped to explore Kampot and Kep or to book a tour, as the roads are mainly dirt tracks we decided to pay for a tour through our hostel. It was $15.5 for a day trip via tuk tuk, who we also shared with two Swiss guys who had booked on to the tour.



We woke up early to have breakfast before hand, and where we had also arranged to meet Martina (from the Trans Mongolian trip), who was passing through Kampot. It was a flying catch up unfortunately that only lasted 30 minutes because our tour started at 8.30am. Martina had been to Vietnam once leaving Beijing, so we picked her brain’s, she was flying to Australia in the afternoon for NY in Sydney. It was great catching up!



The tour started at 8.30am, the tuk tuk picked us up from the hostel. The Swiss guys were nice and spoke a bit of English. The tour included and stopped off at the following places:

· A drive through the extensive countryside and farms before stopping off at the salt fields, explanation about the harvesting.

· Phnom Ch’nork ancient caves.

· Secret Lake

· Kampot Pepper plantation

· Kep’s old Royal Palace

· Angkaul Beach

· Lunch-rice and chicken and a cola

· Local market

· Fishing village, with monkey nut harvesting

· 2.5 hour sunset river tour with fire-fly spotting and beer



The day was packed full! It was great going through all the back farm roads as the children were coming out of school so they all waved and shouted hello as we passed. The Kampot pepper planation was also interesting, there is red pepper which is the sweetest, white pepper is the spiciest used for fish and then black pepper. At the market I finally tried (pure) bamboo juice for 25 cent- it was delicious!! I also bought a bamboo ring for 25 cent. - Neil was catching fire-flies from the trees and was showing people his cupped hands.



A brilliant day, definitely worth doing a tour like that, as we wouldn’t have seen half as much if we had gone by ourselves.



We ate in an Italian restaurant next to our hostel, it was owned by an Italian couple and the food was so food. I had white wine and Gorgonzola and cashew gnocchi and Neil had a glass of red and spicy, tomato and bacon penne.



We got back to the hostel and watched the controversial film that’s been in the news about the Americans and North Koreans ‘The interview’. It was really funny and definitely worth a watch!





Xxx V&N xxX

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