Laurie's World

Boarding to Vancouver in moments.

See you soon!

This travel day to get back to Bangkok was not as smooth as things usually go for us. We had a taxi booked for 9am pick up at our hotel in Khao Lak, and that apart went great. He was there early even. So we were down in Phuket at the airport by 10:20am, which was plenty of time to check in for our 12:15 flight on Bangkok Airways to Bangkok. Bangkok Airways even has a separate lounge for their customers with drinks, snacks and free wifi at the Phuket airport so we are feeling pretty good about all this until at 11:45am when it was time to board and there isn’t anyone at the gate. No staff at all. So I start asking questions. Oh, the flight has been delayed…..not a huge deal for us, until we hear it has been delayed until 2:35pm. We had made plans to meet friends in Bangkok at 5pm. Under normal circumstances when we thought we were getting in at 1:40pm, this gave us loads of time. But now Troy had to get in touch and change the plans to 6pm. They gave us a food voucher for 250 baht each for either Subway or Burger King. This sounds like a lot ($9 USD). But as we have discussed before, airport food is atrociously expensive. As it turns out 250 doesn’t cover a meal at either place, so after we pick something really basic and kick in another 20 baht. We get food from Burger King. And this is really only done to punish the airline….it’s not out of desire for fast food from an airport vendor.

So the plane loads up at 2:10pm as newly promised and we are off. Uneventful flight until it comes time to land in Bangkok. We had circled a bit in the air already which we sensed, but then something happened that I’ve never experienced before. There was a storm happening right over top of the airport but the plane was coming in to land and then what felt like right before we were to touch down (couldn’t exactly tell because the visibility out the side windows was zero-I am guessing the pilot couldn’t see anything either) the nose of the plane points back in the sky and we zoom back off upwards. There was one lady behind us who screamed, which didn’t help with the anxiety level in the plane. So up we go, and then a couple minutes later, the stewardess comes on and explains that we are going to “hold over the airport for 15 minutes while we wait for the weather to improve”. I’m totally ok with this given the trouble that planes have been having lately. If the pilot isn’t feelin’ it, he should just wait til he does. 😉

So 20 minutes later he tries again and brings us in just fine. But now it is 4:30pm and we are going to be even more late for our date. The plane bursts with applause after the plane has it’s wheels on the ground and we notice several (and I mean several) full barf bags as we disembark. There was a LOT of turbulence on this flight, the kind that does make you woozy.

Our bags took forever to come and then after waiting for the shuttle and the awful traffic getting to the hotel, we were now looking at 6:05 pm on the clock. So another message to our friends….how about 7pm?? Then the girl at the desk tells us a taxi will take 1.5-2 hours to get us to the city at that time of day. And she informs us the train is a much better option. OH?? Is it now…..we don’t know anything about the train, but if we are to hope to meet our friends and maybe have something to eat, we are going to have to figure it out. So for 60 baht, the hotel takes us to the train station, 45 baht each for a train ticket on the airport line, then a transfer to the BTS and another 22 baht each, we are at Siam Center. Then believe it or not we literally just run right into Spencer and Chrissy on the street we chose, right as they walk up too. The whole thing took 45 minutes start to finish and cost 194 baht. So that beats the 2 hour plus 500 baht taxi ride! We were very proud of ourselves too actually.

We went to Siam Somtam for supper and Mango Tango for dessert and had some wonderful conversation. Spencer is a childhood friend of Troy’s from Dawson Creek and he hadn’t seen him in 20 years, but through the beauty of Facebook learned we were all in Thailand at the same time, so figured it would be fun to meet up. Glad it worked out!!

Then we did the whole train thing in reverse to get back to the hotel. A short 4.5 hours sleep was ours for the taking before the 5am wake call came to catch the shuttle back to the airport to start our trek home. Which is where we are now…..

See everyone soon!

It was our plan to relax poolside for our last full day of vacation before we start the trek homeward. Fingers were crossed for good weather, we ended up with great weather. It is 7:45pm at night now and it just started to pour, but we saw it coming when we had supper down by the beach. The whole rest of the day was fabulous!! Sunny and warm. We really did have a nothing sort of day which is a great way to end things. We have arranged for a taxi to take us back to the Phuket airport tomorrow at 9am. Costs 1200 baht….she went to great pains to describe what we should do if the taxi driver doesn’t come. So not sure if we should worry about this or not. It would be bad if the taxi didn’t show up as we fly out at noon! Not a lot of wiggle room there!

Anyway we had a lovely supper down by the beach, last Kaho Lak meal of chicken with cashew nut for me and Pad Thai in an omelette for Troy. Can’t exactly remember what the Thai name for this dish is….

Possibly my last coffee shake… 😥

There were these super cute puppies (7 I think) that live with their momma and daddy (I assume) at the restaurant we ate at. We ate here last night also and it was quite good, so we came back hoping for a nice sunset. Last night there were a lot of clouds, tonight also, but got a couple nice pictures that captured our view.

So after a really good nights sleep, we decided to get ourselves up on the early(ish) side and try to head out in a little timelier fashion that yesterday in case the weather only lasted as long as it did yesterday! (Noonish). So we were off by 10 am, which is pretty impressive for us!

The weather looks darn near perfect. Some small cloud cover but no rain. Perfect!

We decided to make our way up to that ferry to Kho Khao island without any side trips so as to outrun any bad weather that comes from the south. Ok there may have been one small side trip to the beach, but it was so small there aren’t even any pictures!

We got up to the area where we suspected the ferry was in Takua Pa town, and after realizing it wasn’t quite right and some challenging attempts at communication with a nice Thai lady and her friend, she just felt it was easier to show us where to go than to try to explain it. So she led us right there with her bike. We had been told by a fellow at the hotel that they would put our motorbikes on a longtail boat and ferry us across the 1km or so across to Koh Khao island. Sure enough there were a couple longtails there and they were more than happy to load up our bikes for 40 baht each 😃😃 they have these long planks they throw down to drive the bikes on and then a couple seats for us, and we are off!

Very nifty and in true Thai fashion, everything always works out.

We got across in a few short minutes and everything happened in reverse on the other side. Once we were on land again, we stopped at a road side map and got the lay of the land. Other than at the ferry dock I’m pretty sure we saw less than a dozen people the whole 4 hours we drove around this island. It was very very quiet! I’m sure this is due to a few factors, one being it’s the low season here. From what I read on the Internet, this area was heavily devastated by the tsunami in 2004 and many locals moved away after rather than rebuild here. Anyways, it made for very nice riding, no traffic to worry about and the one main road that goes north/south is very good quality. Flawless road actually. Now that did not hold true when we got off said road. Which of course we are highly inclined to do. We went pretty much down every side soi we could find, each and every one leading to the beach. And in every case, the beaches were deserted. And quite lovely.

Absolutely stunning beaches. If we had known, we could have brought suits, towels and a picnic and just stayed right here on any of these beaches for the day. Will have to remember this for another time 😉

Thought this corner was appropriate (I certainly was happy)

When we got all the way to the most northern tip of the island on the one main road. We found this interesting situation. We discussed whether we thought it was something that was abandoned after the tsunami, or something more recent that was damaged by some other storm and left as an unviable project. We will never really know….but I thought it was eerie. If it had ever been inhabited it would have been a lovely location for a resort, but maybe just too close to the ocean! With no protection from storms?

So we come back down from this area and see a sign to go east on the island, our map has indicated the are a couple waterfalls over there! It is 12:30, so we feel like we have plenty of time….and you already know we are suckers for waterfalls. So we head off. All is looking good, it is not quite the quality of the main road, but certainly passable, mostly concrete, with a few gravels patches where the concrete has washed out perhaps. I’m starting to feel like I would like a cold water could be in order and maybe a washroom? We see the signs for the two waterfalls, but I believe we are heading toward a town, so I say to Troy, when we get there maybe we can stop and find those things, then come back to this road to go to the waterfalls. He looked at me a little funny and said “don’t count on too much”. So we go around one more bend and find ourselves at the ocean with a nice shrimp farm on our left. That’s the total sum of the services offered here.

Hmmmmmm

So we turn around and decide to hit that “goat trail” to the Toan Thong waterfalls. The first one lays at 3.5 km and another at 5km. Not sure which one is the Toan Thong waterfall but I’d be satisfied with seeing the first one, and I reserve judgement on whether to head to the second once we get there. I use the term goat trail loosely as I don’t think some goats would have ventured on this path. Maybe a mountain goat with some skills….maybe.

We bumped and lumped our way through ruts, mud, rocks and boulders all the way to something that barely resembled a waterfall in my books. Maybe my expectations were too high. But I’m not sure how this warranted a sign, let alone a call out on a map as something you should go see.

I took some pictures so that no one could ever doubt me that I accomplished this feat. But it was hilarious, and certainly the adventure became more about the ride than seeing the actual waterfalls.

Took this picture right after my bike fell over when I stopped to take the picture and was hoping I could turn around, take the picture and hold the bike up with my thighs all at the same time. (In hindsight, I should have just used the kickstand)

All in all it was a great ride, we made our way out of the jungle and back to the ferry dock and caught the longtail system back to the mainland. There was a car ferry loading up beside us at the same time and I really feel like when the kids complain about the Washington State ferries, they should keep this in kind. It could be a lot worse girls!

We did stop at a place that looked like a bit of a mechanic shop after we got to the mainland to see if he could reattach the license plate on Troy’s bike. It had lost one of the screws and our feeble attempts to solve it ended up with it flapping in the wind and causing several locals who flew past us to motion to him that he had a loose plate. After that we decided to head back to our neck of the woods and actually go right past our hotel in search of the Briza and some of our old stomping ground for when we were here in 2009 with the girls. The road got a lot more exciting as we went south past our hotel. The road was still great, but a bit more windy than the northern part. So that made it fun! We found the Briza and discovered many changes. It is way more built up than when we were here. The empty field across from the Briza that used to have elephants roaming in it is now a brand new building. It’s the expansion to the Briza that I saw online. There are a tonne of shops, restaurants and services on the road to the main highway. BUT the Turtle mart is still there! 😘😘 so at least that hasn’t changed.

It was only 4pm so we felt a little early for supper, but we wanted to go down to Jo’s Seafood to have a shake or something for old times sake. But alas, Jo’s was closed (for the season I assume), Pete’s next door was open (this place was closed last time we were her-so maybe they take turns 😉) and we had a delicious mango shake while we watched the comings and goings of a massive amount of Chinese and Korean tourists. 3 tour busses pulled up in the time we were there. Somehow Pete’s and the beach got on the “tour”! We also found where the elephants had been relocated! Another nice field by the beach. The Chinese tourists were eating this up! Getting on for rides etc. There were grown men doing their very best hello kitty pose. It was wack!

Still an unbelievably gorgeous stretch of beach and it brought back many many wonderful memories of when we were here with the girls when they were little and still thought it was so much fun to play in the sand for hours.

With tomorrow/Monday being our last full day of true vacation, we are planning on taking it easy and sitting by the pool. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous ☀️☀️☀️

We weathered a couple rainy days here on Thursday and Friday, which ended up being a blessing so my “overexposure” to the sun could rest. On Saturday the weather looked promising to cooperate so we decided to get bikes and head out to explore. It is 200 baht ($6 usd) to rent a bike from right here at the hotel for 24 hours, so we went ahead and did that. Super easy….just passed the money and they passed the keys. No passport required. Maybe that bcz it is a hotel and they know where I live. Hahahahahahahaha

After getting my nerve up to ride on the wrong side of the road, attaching the go pro to Troy’s bike, gassing up (170 baht- $5.50 total), we were off!

We headed north on the main highway (hwy 4 I think) with the intention of hopefully getting to a ferry that would take us to an island just off the coast about about 40 minutes north of here.

We took side detours of some beaches and saw some places we wouldn’t have otherwise.

We found this deserted little spit that was so stinking hot I thought I was gonna pass out!

But it was lovely….there were a couple longtail boats parked there. I’m guessing for the season.😳

We carried on to the next beach….White Sands beach

This is my view from the cabana where we sought shelter as the little monsoon passed by. (Or so we thought) quite a lovely beach and a lot of the people frolicking in the ocean stayed out and played through the rain (which was warm enough I’m sure). Given that we were not in our suits….we decided to try and stay dry. Took 30 plus minutes before we felt like trying our luck on the roads. We went back to the highway and continued north. (Away from home)

I saw a sign for a waterfall (I always fall for these thing). 2 km off the highway….we decide to give it a go! We went the requisite + mileage and after trying a few different routes we couldn’t find anything other than goat trails, so we conceded and turned back. Sure enough the rains returned, I panic and in my quest for cover, drive right up onto someone’s porch and stop. Troy is much more politically correct than me and he uses a tree for shelter.

ME……

TROY…..

So we waited for this one to pass then headed out again, now feeling like we should head closer to home given the fact that the weather wasn’t cooperating with us in the slightest.

We got back on the hwy and less than 5 minutes the darn skies open up again. I peel off at the first opportunity, and we find ourselves at a place where I can get a mango shake. ❤️❤️ It’s like it was meant to be. We enjoy that for a bit, then bust out as soon as there is a break. We high tail it home and watch the rain from our balcony the rest of the day.

It was nice to have the bikes to run back down to the hwy for supper though as there is a really good market here on Mondays Wednesdays and Saturdays. So that was our supper plan. We decided to keep the keys for the bikes to see what the weather was going to be like in the morning. We were open to trying agin and the weather forecast looks favourable for sure! We enjoyed some ribs and chicken, a donair, some corn and a mango crepe (and maybe some walls ice cream from 7-11). Love street food!!!!!

I would like to be able to tell you about all the amazing adventures we had today! But alas, I can not. Due to my over exposure to the sun yesterday, I’m not very comfortable today, so it was a big enough effort for me to get myself up and to breakfast (such a yummy breakfast it was). Came back to the room and spent up until almost 3pm reading my book! Had to finish that 😃😃 once that was done, we made the supreme effort to get ourselves out the door for a walk to explore some more. We ended up finding the other half of our resort (there is a seaside part also in addition to the courtyard part we are in). I must say I’m glad we are where we are, the other seaside part is much smaller and quieter than where we are. And those folks have to get shuttled up here for breakfast (which doesn’t seem like any fun). It is indeed on the beach, but the beach isn’t really a great place to hang out this time of year. There are very dangerous riptides so you can’t play in the water and it is extremely windy, so there are wind screens up in front of all the bungalows and I’m just not a big wind person.

We wandered down the main(ish) road to get to the highway that runs through the actual town of Khao Lak. Always scoping out places for supper as we make our way along as we will be coming back right about the time that that becomes an issue.

We found the police boat that we saw with the girls in 2009 that was swept inland by the water over 2kms when the tsunami hit. It is a nicer more official park now. It is called the 813 Tsunami Memorial Park now and the boat has been righted and is set in concrete stabilizers. When we saw it before, it was just in a field on its side. I guess they have been busy in the last 5 years.

There isn’t much else to see out on the highway, but we did have to make our way around this poor St. Bernard. He looked absolutely wiped….and I was impressed with the flexibility.

We stopped at Mali seafood after checking out several places. Had a nice meal of Phad Thai and chicken with cashew nut.

I’m surprised to see how much more expensive food is here than Chiang Mai. I don’t recall this from before in 2009. Thai dishes are running around 150baht. We pay 70-90 baht for the same dishes in Chiang Mai! It’s still cheap enough compared to what we pay at home, just more than we are used to paying…I guess this balances out with the much less expensive hotel room. I was able to get 5 more nights at the Fanari (with our upgrade to the pool access room) for $27 a night 😃😃 can’t beat that!

We have had pretty good luck with hotels so far on this trip. Aside from the insect drama at the first place, every place has been very pleasing! BUT all that being said….this place we at at now in Khao Lak takes the cake for awesome! We slept very well, the beds are not soft by any stretch of the imagination, but they aren’t any harder than anywhere else. The room was quiet and the air com was perfect. Then we got up and the breakfast was fantastic. The first really good buffet breakfast we have had this summer. Most places have had a set breakfast of egg, toast and fruit. Here they have real bacon, French toast, all kinds of fruit, cereal, croissants, eggs made to order, yoghurt and granola, chicken nuggets??, some Asian food too, green curry and rice. Anyway, it’s great! We had our fill then hit the pool. Great weather day. I (we) may in fact have gotten a little too much sun as I was out until 2:30 😳😳 before I realized it.

Loving the pool access room. I think I have secured an additional 5 nights and hopefully will not have to change rooms. I guess we will see when the time comes.

The view from the room….

And our balcony…..

Our traveling companions are delighted!

After we had our sun and pool time we thought we should go for a walk and explore the beach. We are close by an area we walked through when we were here with the kids in 2009. We stopped at a place where we stopped for a drink back then (and had an ice cream 😉) maybe they will recognize it?

There are many places here that have markers that show how high the water got back when the tsunami hit. This road has several. It’s a reality check….

The clouds were rolling in by this point, it hadn’t rained, but not sure what will occur this evening….the beach was lovely though.

Troy has gone across the street to get a massage and I think after I’m done blogging, I’ll find a place to get the laundry done. That’s the extent of my work today…..I guess we will have to find somewhere to eat supper too, but I’ve heard the restaurant here is quite good….so we may not have to wander far 😊😊

TTFN

Tuesday was a travel day! Got up, had brekkie, caught the GiantIbis (I’m not making that up) to Phnom Penh at 8:30am sharp. Tickets were $8 each again. We asked the driver to drop us off at the airport since we remembered from the way down that the bus goes right by the airport. We figured this would save us a $10 tuk tuk rude BACK to the airport from downtown Phnom Phen. He said sure sure and we felt encouraged when he motioned to the luggage guy to set our bags to the front of the pack. Half way to Phnom Penh, the bus pulls over and we see another GiantIbis bus pull up across the road going the other direction. Their driver gets out and comes over. He had a red bull in his hand and I was thinking he was just going to give it to our driver, maybe they are pals. But nope, our driver gets out and they switch busses. So now my first thought is “hey….what about us getting dropped off at the airport?” Yes! It is ALL about me 😃😃 they did exchange a few words in Khmer, which of course I have no idea what they said, but at this point, what am I going to do?

We we buzz right along….making what I would consider record time! And as the clock approaches 10:45am, I feel we must be getting close to the airport. We are ready to jump right up in case he actually stops. By 10:55, I can see the airport, and sure enough, he slides over to the curb and stops on the side of the road and let’s us out right there. Guessing we aren’t the first ones to ask for this service 😉😉
Just shows I worry too much.

What this does now is give us LOTS of time to chill out at the airport since our flight doesn’t leave until 3:20pm.

We caught the flight to Bangkok without any problems, then after a 2.5 hr layover in Bangkok, transferred to another flight to Phuket. We arrived in Phuket at 9:30pm. See how a whole day can get chewed up in travel?

Now the next step is to get a taxi to Khao Lak. The negotiations start at 2000 baht. We get them down to 1500 baht and we are on our way. It is pretty clear that the driver and his pals there have no idea where the hotel I booked is, but we are off none the less.

Khao lak is about 1 1/4 hours from Phuket at that time of night. The taxi is a new hybrid, so very nice ride with Thai pop music playing the whole way. I was reading on my iPad so actually ended up feeling a little car sick with all the curvy roads! Had to stop that!

The poor fellow had to stop a couple times once we got to the area and ask locals where the hotel I booked (Fanari resort) was. But we found it eventually. We pulled up, and got checked in very quickly! He took us to our Room and lo and behold we must have gotten some sort of killer upgrade because we are in a giant pool access room! I booked this place because it had great reviews and was on a super promotion for $22 plays tax a night. I looked up this particular room again and it is a $150 a night room 😃😃 I Only booked two nights. Hoping I can extend our stay in this room at this price. Stay tuned!!

Well I may just have the bug now. When we woke up and saw that rain appeared unlikely, we decided to go ahead and rent bikes again! We wanted to go up to Bokor Mountain. We heard it is a nice ride, great road with some nice curves and a couple cool things up there to see. We went to the same place as yesterday to rent the bikes since we didn’t get ripped off, it seemed like a good bet. Same drill as yesterday, just different bikes (both bone dry again). I think that must be how they make a little extra off the rental (let’s be honest–at $5 a day, no one is getting rich off these rentals). I think they take the bikes back at the end of the day and siphon off all the gas except for enough to start the bike and get it to a station. We noticed this with the car rental in Thailand too. That car was also given to us on fumes. Anyway, we went straight to the gas station and fueled up ($9 exactly again). It is still a good deal over taking a tour which would have cost us $26, and we would have been in a minibus on someone else’s schedule.

We went to the Ecran movie and noodle house for lunch as we had heard their fresh made noodles are very good! We had a serving of dumplings (12) and an order of fried noodles with chicken ($4.50 total) for one of the best lunches we have had! What a deal!

We stopped along the way and took pictures and enjoyed the view. It was clear for probably 75% of the way up! Then we got into the clouds and it got really cold, windy and wet. I’m not complaining…it was a nifty experience!

The were a lot of these signs as we went along. Makes me laugh because 10,000 riel is $2.50usd. Hahahhahahahahah I think the fine for littering at home is $100. But in all fairness, I did not see any trash! So maybe it is a deterrent.

At the top of Bokor mountain is an old abandoned Catholic Church, a Wat, an abandoned casino, and waterfalls. And if the clouds cooperate, then a view. So the clouds were very very heavy, so no view! We decided to bail on the abandoned casino bcz we (I) was too miserable and cold and the clouds were only getting worse. But we did get to see Lok Yeay Mao monument, the Popokvil waterfalls and Wat Sampove Pram (5 boats Wat).

The Wat was shrouded in cloud which made it very cool.

The interior of the Wat was all jazzed up like it was Las Vegas or some thing! We see a lot more mini-lights in temples here than in Thailand.

At this point, I cried Uncle and got out my emergency rain poncho. I was hoping the wafer thin plastic would keep me drier and hopefully trap some body heat in so I don’t get pneumonia! I have never been cold here….so this was first for me.

I don’t have any pictures of this stage….Troy probably does….maybe I’ll ask him for one (or maybe I’ll just try to forget it happened….by looking at Troy’s face watching me, I don’t think it was very flattering)

We made our way down the mountain when the temperature got back to normal….about halfway down….I scrapped my poncho and things got back to “normal”!

I was about 4:45pm when we got back to Kampot. We did a drive by of our favourite food places to see what the specials were….then back to hotel to freshen up and drop off our days bags. We ended up at the Rusty Keyhole 2 for our last supper in Kampot. Had the pizza (of course) and I remembered my camera this time.

Dominos eat your heart out!

Plus cheesy fries of course….seems like we might be carb loading for the big race….

I had a iced coffee with sweet milk for good measure too!

Then we had to go over to return the bikes….say good bye for now dear bikes….but the dessert WAS delicious 😉.

Feeling pretty good about life today! We woke up to sunny skies today! So this bodes well for our plan to rent motorbikes and go down to Kep. We scoped it all out yesterday and had found we could rent bikes from the place where we got our fabulous dessert. So after breakfast we headed on over to get the bikes. We knew we would have to leave our passports which we have heard so many times is a bad idea…but there is really no other way to get a bike here. They deal in cash only too. So we decide to roll the dice and see what happens. We walk up and ask for 2 bikes, automatic please. The nice lady skittles away and makes a call. While we are waiting this little cutie was flirting with me….

After about 5 minutes, 2 guys on bikes pull up, she asks for our passports. I gave her both and the guys hand one back. So I take this as a very good sign. If they were going to do something bad with them, I think they would have taken both. She says “good bye and have fun” to us. I’m like…..uh…..don’t we have to fill anything out? There is literally no paperwork, or payment or anything. I guess they feel that the passport will get us to come back with their bike. 😳😳 which of course it will! I told Troy he had no worries as it was my passport they kept. If something went awry, he would be fine and would be able to leave the country. She looks at our hesitation and perhaps thinks we have never ridden? So she says “do you know how to ride?” I said yes, but could you just show us what THESE bikes are all about. 😉 She have us a 30 second overview and then I asked her to take our picture, she gestured we should take pictures of the bikes if we liked. I took a bunch!! This is the big scam we have heard happens with bikes, seadoos, cars etc here. When you come back, they insist that damage on the equipment was done by you and don’t let you leave until you pay big money. So I took a lot of pictures.

Then we were off! We did great (if I may just brag for a minute) not a single accident or even close call (except for the one baby chick I almost hit right at the end of the day). It was WAY easier to ride this scooter than the 250 cc manual bikes we used in our class last fall! So I guess that is good right? Better than it being the other way.

After filling up at the gas station, 4L for each of us ($9 usd total) and a complimentary pop we were on our way. When we pulled up we didn’t know how to get to the gas tank. The attendant sweetly took the key out of the ignition, unlocked the seat, flipped it up and exposed the gas tanks. I’m sure they LOVE foreigners! Gives them something to joke about when we aren’t around. I guess they could joke about us in front of us too, it’s not like we would know!

We then got ourselves on the road to Kep with no trouble. I even got comfortable with the horn. It is used totally differently here than at home, and once you figure it out, it works very well. The horn is just a small courtesy that folks use here to indicate they are going to pass. Remember there are no lanes and no apparent restrictions on how many vehicles can be lined up on the road. So if you are going to pass someone, you just give a little honk, pull out and go. It is also used to notify oncoming traffic…who must also feel free to get out of your way if they don’t want a head on collision. Works well!

We got down to Kep in about 45 minutes and found the beach where they fish, shrimp and crab. Kep is famous for its seafood. Too bad I don’t like seafood.

😋 So they have all these crab traps etc and are working like crazy, then the market where they sell everything is right there….some raw, but many folks are cooking it up for sale too.

The market was busy busy!

But look what I found❤️❤️❤️❤️So I won’t starve!

The beauty of the bikes is that we can go wherever we want and can go places a car or tuk tuk can’t go. So we went off the main road up some smaller side roads that become dirt roads, then paths, then unpassable….so we stop then and turn around.

We checked out a deserted guest house, a couple Wats, and the countryside where all the abandoned estates are from when the Khmer Rouge came through and did what they did with the wealthy educated people who lived there. It was eerie. I wonder who owns them now if they killed all those people and all their families. There is some rebuilding going on, but it is few and far between.

We did a nice loop road down in Kep province that brought us back up towards Kampot eventually. After a a quick stop at the hotel to use the washroom around 3pm, we headed back out to check out Koh Try (a small island just south of Kampot), reachable by bridge. Primarily there are fishermen, rice paddies and salt paddies on this island. We saw water buffalo too, they look happy!

Most of the salt we have seen is kept in sheds or barns, but perhaps sometimes that isn’t necessary! Not sure, but there were a lot of outdoor piles of salt in this area. Not sure how that works if it rains, but maybe it just dissolves a bit, then when it dries out, it’s there again?

The roads on this little Island were not great…but they were that super red soil that we see here in some places.

So with only one rain shower at the end of the day, that we pulled over and waited out, we had great weather today. May have gotten a little too much sun in fact 😳 We got back from this adventure about 5:30 or so and we went to drop off the bikes. Not sure what was going to happen, but were pleasantly surprised when we pulled up, the nice lady was still there. She asked us if we had fun and were we done? She made a call and then less than 5 minutes later three guys pulled up on a motorbike, two hopped off, they handed the lady my passport got on the bikes and were gone. No discussion. I gave her $10 and I ordered Vietnamese coffee with sweet milk and poutine! Seemed a fitting way to celebrate the day!

This was just a little appy as we wanted to go to Captain Chim’s for the famous red soup. Which, when we got there, we discovered they were out for the day 😩 so I ordered a coffee shake and lok lak and Troy ordered chicken amok (decided to give it another try down here). Both dishes were delicious (amok has been redeemed- not at all sure why the hotel couldn’t make it!)

Folks can only look at so many pictures of mountains and rivers, but everyone loves to look at food 😘😘