The bumpy bus ride down to Kampot took about 5 hours on a “local” bus, which meant that Rich and I were the only two white people on it and no one spoke English. Half-way through the trip we stopped for a bathroom break and were mobbed by dozens of little Cambodian children selling pineapples, mangos, and sticky rice in bamboo leaves. I had already eaten two huge bowls of steamed white rice before we left on this trip and my stomach was so full full, but the little relentless kids were hard to avoid so I gave in and bought from all of them… mango, pineapple, and sticky rice in hand I defeatedly walked back onto the bus.
Another few hours of bumpy riding and we arrived in Kampot, a city in the south of Cambodia SE Asia work that you have to pay more for some amenities like AC and hot water).
In the morning we rented manual motorbikes from our guesthouse (this time we were professionals) and with a hand drawn map in our possession, made for us by the guesthouse owner, we set off to explore the land between Kampot and Kep. Our first stop on the map was to see some salt fields, yup- salt fields. Didn’t even know those existed, but here we were, looking at acres of pits of water. Exciting. From there we rode out another 5k looking for a big lake and mountains. On the dirt road drive we passed by a couple of cops who were resting off to the side. When they noticed us coming the stepped out into the road and raised a flag in the air, waving us to stop. I was driving in front of Rich and remembered hearing about how the cops always try to stop foreigners to scam some money out of them, so I just pretended like I never didn’t them and kept driving. I checked my rearview mirror and Rich had done the same, we were safe from the crooked cops.
As we kept driving we passed school children playing with garbage on the side of the road, women carrying bundles on their heads or bamboo poles on their shoulders, men pushing wheeled carts, and a few roaming cows, chickens, dogs, and cats. In Thailand , stray cats were everywhere and here in Cambodia
On the side of the road I noticed some high school boys playing volleyball and stopped to watch. I wanted to get in on the game and started taking off my watch and bracelets to prepare myself. None of the boys spoke any English more than “Hello”, so I just kept pointing to myself and then to them over and over again until they figured it out. They finished their game and then I joined. It was a 4-on-4 game at 1:00 pm when the weather was hot and sun was high in the sky. As we played, more and more townspeople came to watch and soon we had a pretty large crowd standing around. I don’t think girls around here usually play volleyball and the Cambodian townspeople seemed pretty impressed that a westerner knew how to play their game. Plus, I was a few inches taller than all of the guys, so every time I jumped to spike the ball, they would all go- “OOOUUUUUU!”
My team won twice which I was excited about, but I felt so dizzy by the end of the game I had to sit down. I think I was having a bit of heat exhaustion because it was so hot out and I hadn’t had anything to drink all day, plus I had been jumping around in the heat for about 2 hours now. I had some water and rested up for a few minutes until I felt hydrated enough.
One of the volleyball boys decided to skip going back to school in the afternoon and instead, sprung onto the back of Rich’s motorbike as we rode off to find the lake. About a mile after we passed the lake we realized that that little bit of water we had passed WAS the lake. So, we turned around to head back to the main road. We dropped off our new friend and set off in search of a cave nearby that was drawn on the map.
We turned onto a side road which looked like the right way to go for the cave, but all we found was a pagoda and a school yard. A few monks were hanging around but there was no cave in sight. Rich and I decided to turn around and head back in the other direction and I took off first back towards the main road. I waited at the entrance for Rich but he didn’t show up. I figured maybe he had stopped to talk to a monk or something, so I drove across the street to buy some water and snacks from a little side-road cart.
About 10 minutes had passed now and I still couldn’t see Rich. I didn’t know WHAT he could be doing. I rode back through the gate and on the dirt road to find him but didn’t expect to see what I saw-; Rich was surrounded by monks and other people and had dirt and scratches all over him. He just looked at me and started explaining… “Well, a monk walked up to me to give me directions and then he leaned on my accelerator and the bike went flying forward and fell over on top of me, and this side piece broke off and we bent this piece straight again, and these two mirrors were already broken before I think…”. I was just in shock standing there with my mouth open in disbelief. He asked me what we should do… I mean, it wasn’t really his fault that the bike was broken, but then again, how can you ask a monk for money to repair a motorbike he accidentally wrecked? Monks don’t even have money, they live off of donations. So, we just left.
By the time we made it to the Kep beach we were spent! I was still a bit worn out from volleyball and Rich had scratches all over him and an exhaust burn on his arm. We hadn’t eaten all day and just wanted to crash. We ate some noodle soup at a little soup shop near the beach and then fell into some hammocks and rested for over an hour. Our friends Emma, Will, and Russ would be arriving in Kampot at around 6pm so we left the hammocks in time to make it back to Kampot for them... only stopping to take one picture of the sunset and not for the cops who tried to flag us down again!
I made a sign for our friends and gave it to our guesthouses’ tuk-tuk, driver so our friends would get picked up from the bus station and be brought directly to us, it read-“EMMA, WILL, AND RUSS, Follow These Tuk-Tuk Drivers, They Know What They’re Doing. See you soon! Love, Lauren and Rich”. As Rich and I waited we each had our 4th banana milkshakes from our guesthouse, the best banana milk shakes I’ve ever had and only at a cost of 50 cents.
When our friends arrived we talked about our different time schedules for a while and decided that we each had time to check out an island close by for a couple of days. Rabbit Island is a very remote island just one hour from Kep; off the south tip of Cambodia
The boat ride over was slow and surreal as we coasted in water surrounded by mountains. We had a group of 8 with us in the boat- Rich, Will, Emma, Russ, Nancy (a girl we had just met at our hostel), Ann, and David (a couple who met each other while backpacking and were staying at our hostel too). It felt like we were exploring new land as we pulled up to the secluded beach. A few bamboo-hut bungalows were located on the north tip of the island and the rest of the coast was deserted (except for a few fishermen who live just inland from the coast on the other side of this small island). We booked a couple bungalows and spent some time exploring our new rooms. The huts were made from bamboo with spaces visible through the walls and floors. Each bed had a mosquito net on top of it to protect from mosquitoes and other insects and the bathroom/shower/toilet was semi-outside, all inclusive, and a very wet place to be. The water was cold, the island was hot, and we loved it.
We started our day by ordering fresh coconuts and lying by the beach on bamboo platforms that were stretched across the sand. We pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves so we just spent the afternoon relaxing and reading our books. There were a couple island dogs and a little puppy so I quickly had some new friends to play with.
As the sun set and night came upon us we decided tonight would be a good night to party. We bought a bottle of tequila from our bamboo bungalow owner and we spent the night taking shots out of bamboo shot glasses and playing card games. We went into the water later when it was pitch black and we saw lights everywhere! The luminous plankton was here too! We swam out pretty far and everyone loved playing with the water lights for their first time.
The following day was Thanksgiving back home and another relaxing spent on our private island over here. Will, Rich, Russ, and Nancy decided to take a walk around the island while Emma and I laid in hammocks and lounge chairs to enjoy the beach. About an hour later they were back from circling the island and reported that we didn’t miss much… “the place is deserted”.
Once everyone found out it was my first Thanksgiving I’d be spending away from my family, they decided we’d make it extra special. At some point while our friends were walking around the island, Emma and I started to make some Thanksgiving decorations. Emma made hats out of magazine paper and I cut out little turkeys, using the skills I learned in elementary school when they taught us how to make a turkey by tracing your own hand on paper. We taped the turkeys to the hats and were ready to party!
Earlier in the day our group decided we would catch our own chickens (because wild chicken were roaming around the island) and we would make a fire and have a Thanksgiving the way the Pilgrims did… but after a few attempts to catch a chicken, we decided it would probably be a better idea to ask our bungalow owner if he could catch a couple chickens and cook them for us. We put in an order for 2 chickens, 12 baked potatoes, 6 servings of stir-fried vegetables, and a couple portions of steamed white rice; we were in Cambodia
Our 9am long-tail boat awaited us in the morning and we sadly said good bye to our little private island. Tom, our guesthouse Owner from Pepper Guesthouse, was waiting for us at the pier and brought us back to Pepper so we could pick up our big bags and hop onto a mini-van in route for Sihanoukville, a beach town on the south west coast of Cambodia
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