After taking the bus from Chau Doc to Ha Tien, we hired two guys with motorbikes to take us all the way to Kep, Cambodia (even though they tried to get out of it by putting us on a tourist bus, which we kindly declined).
The change from Vietnam to Cambodia is remarkably distinct! Red dirt roads, awesome landscapes and people. I instantly took my liking to this country.
22-30.12.11
Funny thing with the money. The local official currency is Riel, which translates to 4000R/1$. Anyhow, US dollar is accepted as local currency everywhere. Even the ATM only gives out USD! So when you pay with USD, usually you get Riels back for any amount less than a dollar. Confusing in the beginning but I got hang of it quite fast.
I was feeling comfortable enough on a motorbike to shoot some views š This might just be my new favourite means of travel, for short distances anyhow. Nothing quite like hanging in the back of a bike, riding less than decent dirt roads and soaking in the scenery, the wind in your hairā¦
We were covered all over with this red dust after only 30 minutes ride.
Nothing quite like a cold Angkor to wash the dust out of our throats š My country, my beer!
We decided to chill out in Kep for a few days before we'd rent motorbikes to go to Sihanoukville.
Kep is nothing special actually. It is, however, a very peaceful and quiet place to relax on a very small beach with a nice bottle of Barroso banana whisky or super-whisky (featured on the picture). With 2$ a bottle, it will not put a dent in your wallet. (Unless the aftermath involves losing 40$ mysteriously. Just saying.)
I wouldnāt recommend them for taste though.
Kep is also known for itās exquisit seafood. Even though I never was a big fan of seafood, I wanted to give the seafood platter a try, and it was actually very good!
To this day I donāt understand why we rented the motorbikes from Kep, as we would have to return them to the same place. Also, they would have been cheaper in Sihanoukville. End result? 2 days of riding, 11 days idling. Very expensive indeed š Not going to repeat that mistake.
So we got to Sihanoukville on Christmas Eve! Checked in and head to the beach to enjoy our Christmas dinner. This year it was shark meat on the menu.
Judging by Anttiās face you can tell it was very satisfactory š
We made phone calls to our families and kept on enjoying the sunset on Serendipity beach along with some refreshments.
Serendipity beach is full of tourists. But it didnāt really matter because we had enough entertainment watching people and talking bullshit. Thatās what we do best (also we were the tourists).
The ingenuity of Asian people never ceases to amaze me ^^
During the week we kind of became regulars on this one beach bar. More often than not we had company from this cute puppy (and sometimes his friends). Antti dug this trap hole in the hopes we could stew some local delicacy āpit-dogā and what do you know? He actually got in the hole voluntarily!
On a side note: as soon as we left Vietnam, we started seeing adult dogs on the streets again. It canāt be a coincidence that in Vietnam you only see puppies on the streetsā¦
The plan was to leave Sihanoukville for Koh Rong island 3 hours south-west off the coast, but as always, our timetables bend a lot. It took us almost a week to haul our asses to a tour organiser and book the boat.
We were headed to Broken Heart Guesthouse (have to love the name!) on the non-touristic side of Koh Rong. And thatās where we found ourselves In the end of the year. (The broken heart guesthouse is now unfortunately closed due to private investors buying the whole island to turn it into another soulless island resort.)
Departure!
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(First published 30/12/2011 at LiveJournal)