Hello Travelers!

So I bounced out of Siem Reap headed to Phnom Penh, where I was going to catch a bus to Kampot. I wanted to catch up with some peeps so splurged on a private taxi (running late, hungover, who would have thought?), which cost $25 for the 4 hour trip because I scored the front seat. The back seat was only $15, but I didn’t know that at the time.

The main attraction in Kampot is the Bokor Hill National Park, which features some buildings built by the French in the 1920’s, long since abandoned - a casino, a hotel, and the King’s holiday house. The main thing I wanted to see were the waterfalls, which unfortunately weren’t running as it’s dry season.  Reminder: the waterfalls in Kampot are not flowing in the dry season, which is October through April.  To get to the interesting stuff you take a ride in the back tray of an SUV, a 2-3 hour trip depending on how many times the SUV breaks down - which in our case was 3 times, between the bullbar falling off and the radiator boiling! To be honest, the abandoned buildings were much the same as abandoned buildings the world over, and really wasn’t worth bouncing around in the back of an SUV for 3 hours each way. The views from the top are spectacular though. Kampot itself is not worth mentioning, apart from the Bokor Mountain Lodge, a great little restaurant and bar on the riverfront run by an expat Englishman which does great Khmer food western style, try the Tom Yam soup!

Out of Kampot into Sihanoukville (Snooky to its friends) an awesome little town on the coast, which seems to be all that Phuket would have been, 20 years ago. It’s surprisingly quiet here at this time of year, given that the beach is at least as good as those in Thailand, and it’s much cheaper. According to Dan’s Bucket Scale of Affordability (being the relative price of a night’s accommodation and 3 buckets of vodka red bull), Snooky is about 20% cheaper than Thailand. The only drawback is that the nightlife leaves a bit to be desired, but that could be very different when the place gets busy. After a couple of days laying on the beach I decided to get be a bit more active and made my way out to an island about 12 miles off the coast, to spend 3 days living in a timber hut in a fishing village known simply as “23″. It was an awesome experience, the island is almost untouched, the locals were staring at the white people, all the kids were waving and saying “hello! bye-bye!’” cause it’s the only English they know. They have no phones, hot water, ice, showers, toilets, or cold beer (although we did scam some on the last night) and electricity was only on from 6-11pm.

The other advantage of being on the island is that a boat came past daily to pick up and drop off people for scuba diving trips.  So, I was again able to indulge my love of being underwater; although the past practice of Cambodian fishermen using dynamite for fishing means that a lot of the coral is dead, and strong overnight winds meant fairly low viz.  Nevertheless, diving is like pizza and sex - even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

Other highlights of Snooky include a new entry in my Top 10 Meals of All Time list. The Mlop Meng Restaurant is a proper Khmer restaurant, loud karaoke playing, plastic chairs, and when you order a beer it comes warm, with a bucket of ice. But they serve the most sublime seafood - Squid with Green Peppers, Prawn Tom Yum Soup, a whole snapper with garlic and chili and whole crab cooked with something I can’t even describe, washed down with a couple of Angkor beers (named after Ankor Wat) …. magnificent. The food was so good that decorum went out the window, my friends and I were gulping the food down as fast as we could. Sated, we called for the bill… I actually sent it back for them to recheck their figures - the whole lot was just $4.80 per person…. I love this country.

Having said that, all the money that I saved on dinner was blown on Serendipity Beach. The hawkers here are legendary, selling fruit salad, bracelets, lobsters, sarongs, hair plucking, pedicures, manicures…. these girls could sell ice to Eskimos and teach collective bargaining to diplomats. They start out by trying to guilt you into buying something at hugely inflated prices then offer a discount if you can beat them at Tic Tac Toe… you would be amazed how often they win (yes, fine, ok I lost, but I figure it’s alright to be scammed as long as you know it’s happening and you have fun doing it!)

Other Stuff Of Note:

* I stayed at the GST Guesthouse, it’s clean, safe… and I was going to say it’s not too cheap but at $7 for a double room with fan and private bathroom… I’ve clearly adjusted to SE Asia pricing!

* Every tuktuk driver seems to have a second career, selling…. “tuktuk, tuktuk? smoke, smoke?”

* I took a $10 day trip out to Bamboo Island for snorkelling, which was not worth it but the longtail boat ride itself and the lunch cooked on the beach made up for it

* There’s a cool little cinema in Snooky with comfy couches and great movies - I saw Pulp Fiction and Snatch

* Some guidebooks say that Victory Hill (AKA Weather Station Hill) is the backpacker area; however this is FALSE, it’s actually a seedy row of dodgy pubs sparsely populated by dirty old men and hookers

Oh, and someone asked me what my Travel Mantra is, the thing you recite to yourself when everything going wrong.  Mine is:  “Everything Happens For A Reason.”

Currently in Phnom Penh, just breaking the journey from Snooky… tomorrow Saigon,where I am meeting up with a mate from high school who I haven’t seen in 14 years, I hope I can recognise him. Vietnam will be the 14th country I have visited in 18 months… and I am only just getting started!

Until next time.

Peace and Happy Travels!

Dan