November 3, 2012

• Kampot/Rabbit Island

  We boarded our shuttle bus from the dock back into Sihanoukville and Kiel made a split second decision to get off at the bus station to Kampot. We ended up sharing a taxi with a kid (20 year old) from Vegas and a Welsh 20-something year old girl that were traveling together. After the couple hour taxi ride, we arrived in Kampot and the first thing we see is a giant monument of a durian fruit. That has to be one of the strangest monuments I’ve ever seen and doesn’t make sense to me for them to have. Kampot is known for their pepper, and damn proud of it. For good reason too, it’s absolutely delicious. Anyway, we ended up getting settled at the same guesthouse as our new friends and had a couple drinks at the guesthouse bar. Kiel and I went off to do a little wandering around the city. The funny thing is, we didn’t wander to the one site that, come to find out later-on, was worth going to. Instead we walked down near the river-front and finding an English restaurant (The Rusty Keyhole. Now that sounds like some sort of dirty innuendo to me, I don’t know about anyone else), and feasting on some local steak. We headed back towards our place, and on our way we saw a group of guys playing what Kiel explained to me as Chinese hackey-sack. We got video of it, and if I can ever figure out how to edit it and get on the site, I will. I can’t think of the words to describe it at the moment, just wait for the video. We got back to our place, grabbed a couple drinks and met another American that knew Vegas in Phenom Penh. A few more rounds, some card games, and a ton of bullshitting later, we called it and went to bed. The next day we were shuttled to Kep to catch a boat to Rabbit Island. Rabbit Island was instantly 1000x times better than Koh Rong. Just the vibe of the island was more welcoming and relaxing. We had a nice little bungalow just off of the beach. Kiel and I decided to do a little walk about a quarter of the way around the island. We stumbled upon a couple of seaweed farms just off of the beach. Very cool to see, since I had never seen something like that before. A little farther around the island and we were treated to some locals playing some sweaty volleyball in their boxer-briefs. They kind of looked at us like, “What are these whiteys doing on this side of the island?” But we decided to turn back since it was getting sort of late. Since we had such a horrible time on Koh Rong we figured we needed to treat ourselves with a Khmer massage on the beach. Khmer massages are similar to Thai massages, just with less stretching (thankfully). They were absolutely magnanimous until the sun disappeared and we each got about 14 mosquito bites in five minutes. We decided to call off the massages and finish in the morning. We grabbed some dinner at our bungalow’s restaurant, which was an amazing decision. I had ordered the crab in Kampot pepper sauce, these Kampot people were not joking about their pepper. That had to be one of the best dishes I’ve had on the trip so far! We sat around and bullshat (shitted?) with our three other backpacker friends until it was completely dark. That’s when the fun began. No crazy party or anything, just us (Kiel and I) went back into the ocean to see the bio-luminescent plankton. That by far was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my life. So not content with just playing around on the surface, we grabbed our snorkel masks and checked it out underwater. Talk about mind-blowing! No need for mind-altering substances to fully enjoy what was going on in the water around us. Unfortunately, our little camera couldn’t pick up on the glow, so you’ll have to take my word on it. Satisfied with hanging out with some glowing plankton, we headed in for the night. The next morning was filled with all the sound that we’ve become accustomed to in southeast Asia. Roosters crowing, bugs chirping, and an Asian man projectile vomiting in front of his bungalow for about 10 minutes straight (I really think he may have set a world record. Impressive and revolting at the same time). We had a little breakfast, finished our massages and got on a boat back to the mainland. We parted with Vegas and Wales, and were own our way back to Phnom Penh to catch a bus to Kratie.

  • 11:29 am
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