vagablonding

In Kampot on the morning of Tuesday, February 23rd, there was a giant monsoon rain storm with super loud thunder and a lot of rain that flooded the streets for a while. Mom and I trudged on to breakfast anyway. I can’t go without coffee! We went to a guesthouse called The Magic Sponge. They had a restaurant/bar, free internet, and minigolf. Weird, I know.

We took a short 2 hour minivan ride to Sihanoukville. 20 minutes after leaving I realized I had forgotten my computer charger in the hotel room 🙁 Alan, our group leader, called and arranged to have it sent to our new hotel on another van that was about to leave. It showed up in the afternoon and only cost me $2, how awesome is that? Thanks so much Alan!

When we arrived in Sihanoukville we had an included lunch at the Starfish Cafe which is part of the Starfish Project, an NGO that provides access to social services to Cambodians in need. I had some fantastic fruit salad with muesli and yogurt for $3.50. Best I’ve had so far. I also bought a shirt for $6.

In the afternoon mom and I went to Ochheuteal Beach which I have decided to rename Guilt Beach. It is very crowded, like Hawaii crowded, and you are constantly getting hassled and harassed by kids and adults selling crap. It’s not an enjoyable place to hang out, at all.

The next day, Wednesday February 24th, mom and I took a tuk-tuk to Sokha Resort’s private beach. We hung out there for an hour an a half till we were kicked out. The beach was nice, but definitely had an uppity resort vibe.

Next we took a tuk-tuk to Independence Beach which was AMAZING! It’s a lovely wide white sand beach with plenty of lounge chairs, very few people, and a nice restaurant where we had lunch. I highly recommend this beach. We spent the rest of the day there, swimming, sunning, and reading.

For dinner we went to a place called Moon Shack III where I had bbq tofu with fries, salad, garlic bread, peanuts, and 2 beers for $3! It was very tasty and so cheap because there’s a bit of a restaurant price war going on.

Tomorrow we are boating to some of the nearby islands!

We had a looooong travel day on Sunday, February 21st. First we took a 4 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh, the highlight of which was me eating a fried spider and washing it down with a beer mom bought me cause I earned it 🙂 They taste just like weird greasy french fries. Kind of good actually.

We had a 3 hour break in Phnom Penh and mom and I spent it at the FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club), an excellent but expensive place to hang out. We had a nice lunch of beers, rice, vegetable spring rolls, and free wifi. We were back on the bus for another 5 hours to Kampot.

On Monday, February 22nd, we went to nearby Blissful Guesthouse for breakfast. Finally, a big cup of coffee!

The rest of the morning and the afternoon was spent going on a tour of the Kampot countryside with an insufferable tour guide that could not stop repeating himself. First we saw some salt fields but there wasn’t much to see as they were flooded from the rain we had that morning.

Next we went to the Phnom Chhnork caves. Inside one of the caves is a well preserved brick temple that was built in the 7th century.

We had a herd of preteen schoolboys following us around during our hike to and from the caves. It was cute, but they were just following us around trying to be our tour guides so we’d pay them money. One picked me a flower, how sweet.

The view of the countryside from the cave was nice, but I’m sure it’s much better on a sunny day.

Next we went to a pepper plantation. Kampot is known for it’s pepper, and back when the French were in control every restaurant in France had to have Kampot pepper if the were to be consider of any quality. By this part of the tour some of us were getting fairly hot, hungry, and irritable. I tried to liven it up by eating a raw pepper seed off the plant. It tasted like pepper, surprise! Mom was so sick of the tour guide by this time she said “If I had a gun I’d shoot myself.”

Finally we went to Kep, a deserted old resort town that was quite the place for Cambodia’s rich back in the 50s. It has since been mostly abandoned and there are crumbling buildings everywhere. The beach isn’t very nice either, but apparently it never was. Back in its heyday white sand was shipped in from Sihanoukville to make its beaches nicer. We had a large included lunch here that was quite tasty. I spent the rest of our time in Kep reading in a hammock.

In the evening we went on a boat ride down the Kampot River and watched the lovely sunset.

Living on the river doesn’t mean you can’t have DirecTV!

Afterward I got a Seeing Hands massage for $5. Seeing Hands trains blind people to give massages and you can find one or two in almost every city. It was better than the massage I got in Siem Reap for sure.