A few days ago we arrived in Kampot, a sleepy little riverside town in southern Cambodia with French style architecture by the river, mixed amongst the ruble and abandoned buildings from the war. The town has recovered well, but the evidence of the hard times can not be missed, and parts o fit remain a ghost town. Nowadays Kampot has a really chill vibe to it, just the right proportion of expats to locals, and it is obsessed with papasan chairs, everywhere you look! We found a relaxed guesthouse that costs us only 3 dollars a night for the 2 of us with a beautiful garden, good food, and a large communal area. I love this place! It is totally one of those places that you could get stuck in! After a few days of lazying around and hanging out with other travelers, we set off for a caving outside of town. As soon as we pulled up the little kids of the community jumped on our tuk tuk and named themselves our official guides. They had decent English skills, complete with words like "watch your head" and "stalagmites and stalactites". The cave was pretty awesome, but the children leading us through there and making really funny jokes was the real treat! Today was a Cambodian style spa in honor of 1 month of travel, and then we got a motor and took off 25km to the beach for a sunset crab dinner on the water. Cambodia, you have treated us well so far! We are now chillin in the garden with other people at our guesthouse, about to learn a Khmer card game and steal some sweet music to replace my played out ipod. Company includes Australian, German, Swedish, English, and Norwegian friends. It always blows my mind that we are here with all these people from around the world, and speaking English, my native language, but it is not their first language! How freaking spoiled we are!!!
So, after escaping Bangkok last week, Leah and I headed down to Ko Samet, a gorgeous island in the Gulf of Thailand, with a few expats, but mostly Thais on a holiday. The beach was white and soft as powder, and the water crystal clear and warm. I love love love little restaurants on the beach, and I swear, I am meant to live in Thailand because I love sitting on the floor at a bar, restaurant, or wherever. My home in the states one day, shall I ever return, will be full of floor pillows, short tables, and triangle pillows! After baking on the beach for a little while, Leah and I got a motorbike to explore the island. I am becoming quite the expert motor driver, up and down rough, rocky,muddy, sandy, hilly, dirt roads with a passenger! We found an awesome lookout spot by a rock cliff, and no one was around so we climbed down for a swim, and took advantage of the privacy to tan our whitest parts while swimming. ;) Ko Samet ended with some partying with a cool travel group and a little extreme chillin out at a utopic resort with plenty of hammock time, badminton, table tennis, good music, and pool.
From there we caught about 5 different modes of transportation to get across the border to Koh Kong, Cambodia, a town in the Cardemom mountains. We had an adventure filled 2 days there, 26 hours of which were spent in the jungle. We had 2 native Khmer guides take us trekking through the depths of the unspoiled jungle, tracking monkey calls, searching out wild life, and flicking off leeches every few minutes. I have a nice little leech hickey on my foot, and a blood stain on my sock from one of the bastards who got in! We made our way through a rough path to get to a powerful river with several large waterfalls, where we hung out, had lunch, enjoyed the awe of the waterfall, and watched the monkeys play in the trees! At dusk we made our way to a stream in the jungle to set up camp. The guys put up some kickin hammocks and we cooked BBQ on the fire, drank to a fun night in the wild, and boiled some Cardemom tree, for some good Cardemom tea, in the Cardemom mountains! It was perfect. That area of Cambodia is one of the places that is still unspoiled by tourism and capitalism in general. I have no doubt though that in 10 years from now we will return to see some huge eco tourism in those mountains, they just have so much to offer that there is no way travelers searching for something fresh can stay away for long! One of these days it will be impossible to travel the "road less traveled", and I am blessed to be enjoying exactly that right now!! :)
Off to Siem Reap in the morn!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment