Today we rented a scooter to gad around Kampot the main tourist town and visit a pepper farm, which, apparently, Kampot Pepper is world famous for - who knew.
Glenn was given quick instructions in pigeon english about how bits may or may not work on the scooter but at least we had helmets, although they didn’t fit and the visors were split in two so we had a little protection. However, around Kep town it’s a sleepy speed, if only we could tell what, but the speedo didn’t work.
Off towards Kampot we took it steady along the road out of Kep, parts proper road, parts dirty track and everyone was keeping a good distance away whilst overtaking us. The main road became busier but everyone keeps to a very slow speed so there was no need for any panicking by the pillion rider. Passing homes, street vendors, loose pigs and cows and all manner of shanty shops we made it to Kampot without mishap. Parking the scooter in the shade to avoid leaving a layer of skin on the red hot seat later in the day, we hopped over to a cafe for a quick slurp and began our walking tour around Kampot.
It’s a bit of a hippy place and well known for good nightlife, not only in the clubs and bars, if you know what we mean. The strip of cafes and restaurants along the river proclaimed ‘English breakfast’ and, as it was Sunday, ‘Roast of the Day’. We were very pleased with ourselves we had made the effort to stay in Kep.
Enough of little England, we trekked back to the scooter just in time for the seat to be in the full sun and of course, impossible to sit on. Wobbling our way along the river side trying to avoid getting the backs of our legs anywhere near the seat, we caught the sea breeze and quickly enjoyed a more comfortable ride.
Glenn now being more competent raced through the town towards the Cham (the indigenous folk) fishing villages where the Kampot lifestyle hadn’t invaded yet. Time stood still here with houses on stilts, highly decorative and colourful fishing boats, long canoes and the shanty shops selling everyday needs, with people asleep in hammocks or lounging around in the shade, all being quiet and peaceful.
Turning back we returned through Kampot and retraced our route towards Kep with a slight detour along a boneshaker dirt track to the Kampot pepper farm. It is a popular tourist attraction and sufficiently busy for us to mingle in with a guided tour to learn all the secrets of growing, harvesting,drying and sorting green peppercorns to become black, white and red peppercorns we purchase in the supermarkets without a thought to the highly labour intensive farming this potent product needs.
We were getting affected by the heat of the sun now and with reddening protuberances, nose for Glenn and chin for Yvonne, we scootered back to the hotel with thoughts of the lovely swimming pool, not before Yvonne had a go at driving the scooter along a couple of back roads and wishing she had driven it around earlier in the day. Handing over the scooter key to hotel reception they made the comment to Glenn “you have changed colour”. Tee hee!
Cooling off with a big splash and a few half hearted strokes around the pool, we noticed it was happy hour and made our way to the restaurant by the pool for our favourite cocktails and another excellent meal. We have enjoyed our stay here so much, even with the array of insects, lizards, mice and the something we never found what it was but made a loud squeezy toy calling noise, all scurrying around the open roof and across our ceiling during the nights, even with these, we have fond memories of a great time in Kep, Cambodia. We leave tomorrow for a couple of days travelling, catching the bus back to Phnom Penh staying one night and the next day onwards to Vietnam, Ho Chi Min City (HCMC) or Saigon as the locals still call it.
Potentially nothing much to blog about for a couple of days especially if border control goes smoothly. The Vietnam Government has restrictions on the internet which may prevent us blogging so regularly and certainly we need to be mindful of the content.
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| The river front at Kampot |
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| Not quite a Harley |
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| A Cham fishing village |
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| Boats on the river |
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| The most laden moped ever. That is the wife riding pillion on top of the bags! |
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| Peppers drying to the black peppercorns we buy in the shops |
Some amazing sites to see.
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