Krong Kep

The bus journey was surprisingly uneventful until David panicked, having realised we had underestimated how far we had to travel once getting off the bus by a margin of around 100km. We buried our heads in the sand and went back to sleep to then be woken in Sihanoukville by 4 locals crammed in the single bed opposite. We departed the bus in the pouring rain with the plan to find another bus to get to Kampot, part of the way we needed to go. Due to being tired and wet we instead bartered with the local taxi mafia and secured what we thought was an aircon car. As we were led to our next mode of transport we realised the last 5 dollars we bartered got us the downgrade to a new form of tuk tuk - the modified car tuk tuk - for the three hour drive, which included a stop to pick up a mysterious white bag from a lady and a second to drop it off next to a temple, at this point realising it was a large dead bird in the bag. No words were exchanged to explain this.
We finally arrived to our next home, a wooden shack on stilts with open windows and cracks, only cold water and a non-flushing toilet. The bed had holey mosquito net around it which we hid our bags under. We headed for the shower to find a family of frogs occupying it...we were unsure if we were laughing or crying.
After cooling and cleaning off we headed out to explore the new town. Kep is a cute sleepy seaside town famous for its crab market. We wandered through the main stretch of the town to find breakfast/lunch - stopping at the first decent place this time, filled with locals watching a Chinese movie and one other tourist group.
By the time we got to the end of town we had acquired a young follower - a local girl obsessed with saying hello and goodbye to us - who we said our final bye to as we hopped into a tuk tuk back to our bungalow. Despite our bodies begging for rest, we then headed back out on a hike through the national park to a temple on a hill which gave us a perfect view over the town and sea. We got back before dark to cool off again before having a drink before dinner. The owner of the place arranged for us to get a free pick up to one if the famous crab restaurants that had a seaview. David got 3 crabs with local black pepper and sweet chilli sauces, which he smoothly ate with a little help from wikipedia. Kerry was more cautious and got the chicken with the local green pepper sauce. We headed back to our wooden shack to get some shut eye ready for next day of surprises.Read more