July 20th, 2014
Woot woot 😏😏
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 😘😘
