Days 7-11 On the beach!

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Hey all,
Here we sit listening to the waves crash on the beach a mere 20 feet from this computer! We are lucky creatures indeed. The ironic part is that the weather is stormy and coolish down here on the south coast. We are in Sihanoukville taking a couple days of r and r before heading back up to Phnom Penh and then flying to Vientiane in Laos. We were going to go overland into Laos but we don't have Visas yet and it takes at least 24 hours of wasted time in Phnom to get them processed. If we fly into Laos, we get a Visa on entry.

Since we were in Phnom Penh we travelled down to Kampot, a small town close to the Southeast coast. When we arrived we decided to try our hand at driving around on a moto. The traffic was pretty minimal so we were pretty safe. We found our way, thanks to a very rough hand drawn map, to some nearby caves where we were given an impromptu tour by 3 local guys. The caves were limestone so there were some cool formations inside; pools, stalagtites, etc.

The next day We took a day trip to see Bokor National Park.The park is mainly rainforest/jungle with beautiful palms. the vegetation is so thick that you probably wouldn't be able to see any of the wildlife (including tigers and elephants) even if you were standing beside it. The area was developed by the French colonialists in 1916 to be a chichi resort, complete with fancy hotel and casino. Since then , due to some dire political history, the place has become sort of a ghost town. Lots of dilapitated, seriously moldly buildings, churches, etc complete with creepy, rolling mist to add to the eerie feel. ANd the road up.....if you can call it a road. More like a collection of huge rocks, potholes and bits of pavement strewn together. The French had the road built in 1916 and it hasn't been cared for since. Needless to say, we broke down on the way back down. The truck broke a wheel joint and thanks to some creative mechanics and a rusted cleaver, our guides had us going again pretty quickly.

When we got back into Kampot, we decided to head to the beach. Two hours of driving through rainstorms made is happy to reach Sihanoukville. Our taxi driver dropped us at a place to stay and we crashed. Today, we found a nicer place to stay, overlooking the beach. This place is due to boom in development in the next few years. It is beautiful, but long stretches of beachfront are undeveloped.

By the way, Khmer food is really good!We are kind of getting our fill of curry and coconut milk, but thankfully there is a great selection of high quality international cuisine, all ranging from 2-4 US$ per dish.Angkor and Lao beer isn't too bad either, especially on a hot day.

Hope to hear from you all soon!!!! Dad and Karen Smedley, keep sending Lexy updates! We're off to stroll in the white sands..

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Comments

[D KinSEA]

thanks
thanks to those of you who have sent us lovely messages/comments about our blog and photos. we love to hear from you. cheers, k and d p.s. comments appear for all others to read, while messages just go to us.