Our last days in Cambodia

We left Koh Kong on a bus in order to get ourselves across the country a bit...with only five days left in Cambodia we wanted to make our way to the south coast. The bus ride was uneventful--no squashed-in-a-3-ft-high-bathroom-puking episodes and we clammered off around noon to follow up with a few hours of riding.

Kampot was nice medium sized city, with the main attraction being Bokor National Park and the Bokor Hill Station--ruins of a palace from the French colonial times. We decided to do a tour as they've made it almost impossible to see on your own. Excited, armed with lots of enthusiasm and a group of 6 others we left for the day...a day that went horribly wrong!

Bokor National Park Hill Station--I don't think the guide knew what it was at all actually...luckily we had our trusty Lonely Planet!

The tour guide had never been to Bokor before and it was clear he didn't know what we should be looking at. While we had a good 1.5 hr hike up the mountain (not without our guide going double pace so that our group was straggling behind him by miles), the top was fun to explore though we all wandered aimlessly while the other tour group, whom we came to envy, had a guide explaining the details of the ruins. Lunch was a mere two scoops (without exageration) of curry and a baguette...we were all starving to pieces and drooling as again, the other group was asked if they wanted seconds of curry and rice, and was there enough of the hundred loaves of bread available for everyone? We finished a couple hours early, despite going on a sunset river cruise and our ravinous gang decided to get a meal in the time we had to kill. Note: the group was on their tour until the boarded the boat for the river cruise. Our meal fit the theme of the day, it was terrible too...moldy cheese, cold soup, forgotten orders, miscellaneous nasty tastes and overly expensive. Blah! We all enjoyed relaxing on the boat cruise and went for drinks at the end of the day to celebrate a failed tour, but a great day with great people. Cheers to that!

The group bonding over a little mutual moaning session

A short cycle to a nearby beach town, Kep, made for our last nights in Cambodia. Kep is slow going with the main highlight being the famous peppercorns. We biked out to a peppercorn plantation and we both surprised--did you know pepper looks like a teeny tiny cluster of grapes?! Our dinners there were stunning--the other highlight in Kep is the crab market and we had fantastic meals of squid with peppercorn, grilled fish, crab cooked Khmer style, and celebrated with a glass of wine!

Kep reminded us of Stanley Park and was just stunning in the evening

We've now cycled to Takeo and ride our last 50 km out of Cambodia tomorrow, entering Vietnam for the next month.

Goodbye Cambodia, we had a fantastic time!