Hello again! A few days after we left Siem Reap (chess club was AWESOME!!) we stayed in Otres Beach for four days and four nights, I think. During that time we did something really cool! We went out into the ocean at 10pm when it was pitch black. We walked out to the level between Jay’s knees and waist and disturbed the water so that bioluminescent plankton spark and light themselves up. They look like underwater fireflies! We also skyped my friends at James W. Hill and Grandma Netty which was fun! I also had like seven coconuts sometimes two a day! We also met a couple from Mississauga (Brian and Linda McGregor) for dinner one night. They follow our blog and knew we were going to be in Cambodia at the same time as us, so Jay and Linda organized a meet up. We had a lot of fun! They asked us some questions like “what is your favourite thing so far on this trip?” which I answered as the Great Barrier Reef! Another was "what are you looking forwards to the most?” and mine is probably seeing our cousins in New Zealand!
When we arrived in Kampot we headed for our Guesthouse and then we went down to a Tour Information place and went on a sunset cruise where we saw like fifteen fishing boats heading out into the Gulf of Thailand. They were all built the same and painted the same colours with one person on each so we assumed they were all the same company. We also saw the fireflies in trees and the light was so much brighter than I thought! Almost like a lamp! The next day we went on a tuk-tuk tour of rural Kampot! Sadly it wasn’t time for the salt fields to bear salt so our guide showed us some pictures on his iPhone and it looked like the fields had been snowed upon! He also showed us the building where the salt was stored and when we looked through the cracks in the boards the salt was like small hills piled up! It was actually the biggest salt field in Cambodia!!! When we left to go to our next destination we saw this small newborn dog chasing it’s mother and it was smaller than my head!
Our next destination was to go the caves!! We had an amazing time in them! Our first cave we went in was HUGE!! The roof is like 100ft tall!! I was actually pretty scared but the whole time I was thinking omigosh this is SO much like Minecraft!! Our first cave was where we saw natural formations of what looked like an elephant, the back end of a crocodile an eagle and a pig! After our first cave we climbed down into the darkness with only our guide’s iPhone and our eyes!!! We should’ve worn our Keens because it was pretty slippery. Thankfully though our guide was experienced! Sadly the builders who made two vital bridges weren’t! Jay may have gotten some pictures of one of them and the second was INSIDE the cave and over a pond! Wait a second! If you are currently experiencing WiFi lag or other problems and can’t see the pictures I will describe the structure (more like a few fallen logs!!) now! So first imagine a couple of three year old tree trunks then I want you to picture about four of them… but made out of bamboo and all bundled together like a wrap of twigs! See where I’m going? Now imagine your bamboo trunks about 1.5 inches thick each and now lay them down over a two foot drop into an unknown and possibly polluted and therefore contaminated body of water! Also picture another trunk held up by .5 inch thick sticks at about three meter intervals and make the bridge ten meters wide (approximately!) and now can you see me running (for my health possibly!) down the thing?!
Anyways the next place (and last) we visited on our tour was a Kampot Pepper Farm! Now all of you have probably heard of Kampot pepper before in different ways. Maybe your eyes saw it. Or maybe your ears have heard of it! Or maybe deep down in the stomach the people in there have probably heard about it (that’s my case!) as it’s world famous! Well anyways we shipped some back home and also ate some pepper corns right off the trees! Though one of the most memorable things of that pepper farm is this; you know Cambodia had a civil war right? Well imagine walking among the plants when all of a sudden out of nowhere and for no reason your guide says: “they cleared this place of land mines ten years ago.” what would be your first thought? Well mine was 'AHHH!!' Then 'get outta here!' Then wait a second slow down if you run you could blow your legs off!’ Then ‘step EXACTLY where Max is stepping there’s no room for error!’ And finally ‘wait a second Cambodia is a third world country right? So what are the odds that they missed one or two when back then their ‘technology’ was worse than it presently is??!!’ So thankfully we hit none and got out alright!
Anyways the next day we traded in our books at a secondhand book store (WARNING do not do this it is a ripoff!!) and I could’ve gotten about $50-$60 CAD but the riper-offer gave me $5.50!!! Heres what they do; If you come in with a book that’s worth $10 they give you $1 so if you come in with a $5 book you got yourself fifty cents! Basically they just take away the zero so instead of getting $55 I got $5.50!!!!!! Big difference huh? Anyways we then headed down to a restaurant when it started to rain. Also keep in mind that the rare times in Cambodia it does rain it RAINS like there’s no tomorrow!!! The next day we went to a bus station to get a bus to Phnom Penh. We waited for 1 hour in the heat and FINALLY a bus came!
But Jay knew something was wrong because the moment the bus stopped the passengers rushed off and the wrenches went flying! We waited 2 hours and Jay then cancelled and asked for our money back. We booked with a different company, but one that was leaving 2.5 hours later!! 1.5 hours later….. After sitting in a café for an hour and a half we saw those people from Mississauga that we had met at Otres Beach! Remember them? Well anyways they sat down with us and we talked for like 45 minutes about how the husband Brian had nearly lost his wallet (Jay had the same thing happen to him on the San Fransisco-Sydney flight!) and about Karma! Ha, talk about Karma! If the bus had’ve been in fine working order we wouldn’t have met them at all! When it was time to go we said goodbye (AGAIN!!) and took a bus to Phnom Penh where we are currently staying! (lotsa traffic!!)
Really is a small world!!
Sullivan