Sihanoukville & the South

This week's lesson: everything takes longer in Cambodia.

So I've been patiently waiting for my laptop to be repaired, and worrying that it won't be finished in time before we leave Phnom Penh. To my delight, I received an email yesterday (Saturday) that it was ready to be picked up, office closes at 5:30. Our bus was scheduled to arrive in town at 4:30 so that would be enough time to pick it up and have it for the weekend, before leaving on Monday or Battambang. Strike 1: Our bus from Kampot to PP, a mere 2 hours on the highway, is actually a 4 hour bus ride because it goes via a million small towns. In addition, when we hit PP outskirts, traffic was at a STANDSTILL and we didn't get into town until 7pm. i.e., well after 5:30. Strike 2: when I got a moto taxi over to the repair shop this morning (Sunday) I discovered they were close for the weekend - something she'd neglectged to tell me via email. So now we have to get a later bus to Battambang on Monday so I can go get my laptop first thing in the morning.

Just trying to be zen about it but the cracks are starting to show.

Ok, now that the rant is out of the way...

Mum and I have just come back from the South of Cambodia. We went to Sihanoukville first for some beach time. It's quite a nice place despite everyone saying it's really average. We parked ourselves on beach chairs and ordered cocktails, and within 2 minutes we were attacked by lots of girls selling pedicures, bracelets, all sorts of stuff. That's one thing that is really bugging me about Cambodia, you just don't get 2 minutes rest from all the beggars and touts and it ruins your holiday. After chatting to some girls for a while, we got talked into having our legs threaded - where they use a piece of cotton to remove body hair. My girl did my armpits as well (I felt quite embarrassed lying there on the beach while this was happening) and did quite a good job actually :)

The following day we took a boat trip to 3 different islands, did some snorkelling, and had a lovely bbq fish lunch. We even caught a few little reef fish and chucked them on the barbie as well. Fantastic chilli pizza for dinner that night at an Italian place on the beach, and watched the most amazing sunset ever.

From Sihanoukville we went to Kampot, a town famous for the pepper that is grown there. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the afternoon and he took us to a pepper plantation. Not much to see at this time of year, the pepper hasn't grown yet, but there was a nice lady who was absolutely thrilled that mum and I were travelling together. So cute!

Stir fried chicken with ginger & kampot pepper... delicious!

Here are some snaps of our drive through the countryside. It was really pleasant, we went slow enough to take in all the sights.


Last stop was Kep, the seaside town famous for seafood, its specialty being crabs. I'd been looking forward to this for ages! There is a strip of shacks right on the water that have their cages out in the ocean, when you order a crab dish they swim out and fetch them for you. Straight from ocean to plate - it doesn't get any fresher than that! Eating the crabs was quite an odyssey, I'm glad Mum was there to give me instructions. Lots of work for not much food, but it was an experience (and a great photo op!) Pretty tasty too :)

NOM!

In Kampot we had a cool little bungalow at the Orchid Guest House which as perched over a lotus pond and had orchids in hanging baskets. Here's us carrying our packs:
We're going to watch the World Cup final tonight at the Dutch restaurant, it's completely decked out in orange already (has been for weeks). We got matching orange Adidas shirts at the market today and will be wearing them with pride tonight! Hup Holland!

And, provided all goes according to plan, we will be heading to Battambang tomorrow and on to Siem Reap to see the famous ANGKOR WAT (and do a Khmer cooking class, watch traditional Khmer dancing, all sorts of cool stuff).

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ML