Cambodia day 1 – to Kampot
Crossing the border was uneventful – even if it did take the better part of an hour – exit visa check and stamp in Vietnam, entrance to Cambodia, quarantine check – with lots of questions, and a bit of stress because I didn’t have my vaccination booklet with me – and we were there. Within the first 200m Jörg got chased by dogs already (didn’t happen once in Vietnam)…..
Lots of subtle differences in Cambodia – hardly anyone wears helmets or surgical masks, the cars are a bit more run down, the “tractors” seem to be self-made pimped up Mad-Max style mega motorbike/tractors, the roads are a tick worse, and the adults greet you less (though the children are still forever screaming “hello” from some corner or other).
The entrances to villages/ estates are a lot more ornate (if sometimes quite run down) and the Khmer language is incomprehensible – well, to be honest, the Vietnamese language with its multiple accents and double accents on letters also not really understandable, but pattern matching was a lot easier given the use Roman letter – Khmer is just plain difficult to match. What we did notice though, was that there was a lot more written in English – something you didn’t see to much of in Vietnam outside the big tourist areas.
Cycled to Kep and around the National Park peninsula (including a shortcut, that was, well – “a not very well maintained road”)
Kep itself seemed quite dead – until we hit the beach where then everyone was enjoying the Sunday.
Lots of mini resorts and renovated building – very nice and getting more common with backpacker crowd
Made it to Kompot.
Kompot itself has a large Backpacker section of town, as it seems quite popular with the younger tourists – we just cycled through as it was hot and we were tired.
Ended up in a mini resort with half dozen bungalows and a pool run by some guy from the Giessen region of Germany (very close to where Jörg lives and where I used to live) – he’s been in Cambodia for 17 years now and talked to us about the 40-odd Ex-pats who live here in the region.
The pool was small but WONDERFUL!!
(68km / 120m)