11&12.12 - Days 331-2 - Kep, KHM
Wednesday 11th & Thursday 12th December - Kep (Day 331 & 332)
Wednesday and Thursday at the Saravoan Hotel in Kep follow a broadly similar routine. We start with breakfast in the open air restaurant, feeling extravagant with avocado, chorizo, feta and egg on toast. Stewed apple and maple bacon on toast for Sienna and Seb, Omelette for Kate.
Schoolwork for Seb in the room, back in the restaurant for Sienna.
Then it’s across the road to build sandcastles and pools, into which ‘Thorn’ the crab is placed. Meanwhile Kate crafts a picture in the sand, while I collect some rubbish off the beach; the casual discarding of rubbish is pretty disappointing when it wouldn’t be hard to keep a clean beach.
For lunch we wander up the road to Slek Por Restaurant, a family’s kitchen doubling up to serve the handful of customers - no curse of too much choice here, it’s either pork & rice or chicken & rice - we get a couple of both and they’re very tasty.
The rest of the afternoon is spent in the pool where we chat to a couple of people also lounging around. It highlights the kinds of interesting people you meet in slightly different places - the French couple from St Tropez who were back in Cambodia with their 25 year old son they adopted in Cambodia on their last visit in 2000.
The group of Australian school children on a two week missionary visit from a Christian College in South Brisbane who we meet on the beach.
Or the German couple in a sturdy looking campervan having driven 25,000 kms in the last 5 months to get here, as A1 sized world map affixed to the back of the van including a segment cut out where the Chinese border officials disagreed about where the border with Nepal lay.
It’s more card games of President, Phase 10 and Uno also scattered throughout the dayand when the kids declare they're a bit hungry for dinner we grab a few pancakes from one the mobile sellers by the beach.
Thursday the kids are keen to spend more time at the pool then on the beach, though there is the obligatory walk out to get mango smoothies from the same cafe due to kittens lounging about.
I sample one of the local snacks; a banana covered in rice, baked on coals wrapped in a banana leaf. This is washed down with cane juice, the three canes passed through the fast rotating discs to squeeze out the juice, served over ice. One mango smoothie equals two baked bananas and a cane juice equals 5000 riel which is $1.80.
After more swims and card games overlooking the beach we walk along the seafront past multiple food trucks parked up each day and pass the ladies trying to flag down cars to have them use their cafe and hammocks, and onto a mobile pizza van who serves up a couple of delicious pizzas for us. It starts to drizzle as we walk home, but it’s still warm enough that we dry faster than the rain can wet us.
