The Blithe Traveler

The Durian: Because You May Not Know

As much as I loved Cambodia, I am bored to tears writing about it. Jeff is working on a guest blog on the Killing Fields, but I am feeling like I have beaten this topic to death and turned my Favorite Trip Ever into something akin to Aunt Lola's Four Hour Slide Show On Her Trip To Vancouver.  So, we digress for a moment into a Fruit Lesson.

The Durian.

Anne B. is out there jumping up and down right now waving her arms (which she does periodically when we discuss fruit). "Yes! The Durian! I know the Durian!" One of the other Anns, the one who lived in Malaysia, can probably dredge up the olfactory nightmare that is the Durian from the recesses of her brain. Although she might be cursing me right about now for reviving it.

You, dear non-Ann(e) reader, should thank whichever merciful deity you chose if you do not know the Durian.

The Durian is a fruit that defies all laws of natural selection. By which I mean, that fruit should be appealing. Fruit should be appealing, of course, in that the point of fruit is to distribute seeds. In order for seeds to be distributed, generally, some critter or another carries off the fruit for consumption. From my perspective, the Durian loses on all counts. 

First off, the sucker is huge and covered with spikes. People who harvest these things are recommended to wear construction hard hats to prevent accidental death by Durian + gravity. So, few critters on earth are big enough or tough enough to carry one of these spiky puppies very far.

And, second, well, remember that mention of an "olfactory nightmare?" Let's let Wiki share this charming bit: "the edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the Durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust.

Here's another take:

British novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating Durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmangein the lavatory." Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions." Anthony Bourdain, while a lover of Durian, relates his encounter with the fruit as thus: "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."

Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says: .. "its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia."

But, check out these photos! People all over Asia eat these things! While these photos are all from Cambodia, the Durian is available in my local Suguo during the Durian season! They are popular! And beloved! AND, as it turns out, I am also dead wrong on the natural selection bit. There are many animals who find this stuff delectable! Largish animals who manage to paw through the spiky exterior, swallow the seeds and re-deposit them far, far away from the parent plant. So, despite (some!) human deep disgust, the Durian does seem to be getting its seeds spread around to propagate the species.

And just how bad does it smell, you might ask, wrinkling up your nose in disgust? Bad. Really, really bad. I confess, I don't know how it tastes. I do promise that at some point I will pop one of these bad boys open and try it. Because, how can you not?? Aren't you curious?? And yet, I have not worked up my nerve to date. Probably around the same time someone finally convinces me to give Nanjing Stinky Bean Curd a go, I'll break open a Durian. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Backpacker Heaven

Reading for comprehension is not my forte. Actually, as I ponder these pages, I wonder what my forte is. Clearly, I will not be writing a book called, "Carefree Travel with Your Wee Children."
I will confess publicly that when I read that Sinhanoukville was billed as a "beach resort" town, I took that at my American, Myrtle Beach-y aesthetic kind of face value. Huge mistake in southeast Asia. I mean, really.

When I read "beach resort," I pictured bright lights, fast food, stuffed animals on the boardwalk. There were animals on the boardwalk, alright, but they were stuffed with Khmer cooking and tequila. <giggle>


So, Sinhanoukville is a backpacker kind of beach resort. The kind of place where if you are traveling around Asia for eight months living in the same shorts day after day with your hair in dreadlocks and loving the idea of staying at a place on the beach where you rent a hammock for $5US and share a bathroom that you have to be drunk to use, this is your kind of town. It's very similar to many places in Thailand and Vietnam, and there is absolutely no reason on earth for me not to have known this. Except that I can be a bit blithe about this travel business. Oops.
Random shot of the local marketplace. We did stop in and I got such a deal on some Ray Bans!

And when I categorize the place as "backpacker heaven," I should qualify that with "mostly." I do think if I had done a bit more research, there are areas of Sinhanoukville where we might have stayed and been a bit more at home. I don't think the town will be billed in our lifetime as "The Perfect Family Getaway," but there are bits of it that are a tad more remote and maybe a little tidier and less heavy on the party atmosphere.

Although, at the end of the day, we were staying in a beach town on the Gulf of Thailand where the food was divine, our hotel was perfectly fine and reasonably priced (nice pool!), and the sea water was like taking a salty bath. What, oh, what could I possibly have to complain about??


What, us complain?? Although I think they have the right to complain about tragically bad photoshopping.

We arrived in the late afternoon and spent about a couple of hours or so doing reconnaissance. Our first stop was on the beach where we met Mr. Tiny Bikini.  That beach was an easy enough walk from our hotel, so we decided to keep walking. Excellent choice, if I do say so myself. Some quick research revealed a beach *just* a bit further on that was part of a fancy schmancy resort. The fancy schmancy resort people clean the beach daily, including sweeping off random backpackers. This sounds like a great place to park your family for the day, except for the fact that one qualifies as a "random backpacker" simply by not staying at the fancy schmancy resort. Unfortunately, that meant they were going to sweep the likes of us off, too.

But, no worries! Clever people that we are, we devised a Very Excellent Plan (in two parts). Fancy Schmany Beach Invasion Plan Part 1, the evening we arrived, we ordered drinks at the bar. Voila! Free beach and playground (check out the background to the right) access!

Me, having a margarita. No, really! That's what I had! It was divine.

Fancy Schmacy Beach Invasion Plan Part 2, the following day, we arrived just before lunch and as the security guards asked us to leave, we announced that we would be buying lunch at the bar. And drinks! So, please, sir, can we stay?? And they let us. Not without a bit of further negotiation, mind you, but we are used to that and have no problem using our adorable children as leverage. Although, given that it was the off season and the fancy schmancy resort was basically guest-less, I think in some ways we were doing them the favor. It was an expensive lunch, but when you consider that we were actually buying a day on a gorgeous beach and got lunch tossed in as part of the deal, it was worth it.

I would like to point out that this is actually a photo of Jeff swimming in the ocean. So you can't say I never take photos of him.

Totally worth it.

Wouldn't you say?

There, that's a better shot of Jeff.

Yes, that is a French Fry. You have got to love a Fancy Schmancy Resort that can deliver French Fries to the beach.

More tomorrow: We are nearing the end of our Cambodia trip and considering that it has taken me twice as long to document as it took to actually live it, I would say it is about time!

Wasting Away Again in Sihanoukville

Well, what do you think??

(A) Dude! Awesome! I am so there!

(B) Wait. A bikini overslung by ones own flesh can't be a good thing, can it?

(C) Did you cover the children's eyes??

(D) Moobs; they are so over-rated.

Sihanoukville, its own brand of fun.

More: tomorrow. Pre-view for those who might be concerned:  of course we had a nice time! In fact, quite a nice time.

Pepper and Salt

As much as I wanted to set down roots and spent the rest of my natural life at the Kep Lodge, I knew deep down there was no chance. There was just way too much of the country left unexplored for the more wayfaring member of our party. That coupled with the fact that the Sihanoukville beaches are described in all of the literature as being far, far superior to Kep, we agreed that we would hit the road and spend a couple of nights a bit farther north on the gulf.

Jeff booked a hotel on line (with pool!) and we agreed to tuk-tuk tour the Pepper and Salt fields in the morning, have a last lunch a the heavenly Kep Lodge and then hit the road for our next stop.

The ride to the Kampot Pepper farm was about half an hour. You may not know this, but Kampot pepper is quite famous among the epicurean elite. I am an epicurean philistine, so I know not of what I speak. I can only tell you about our Pepper Experience from my lowly view as someone who eats to live instead of lives to eat.

But first, our drive through the countryside. It was beautiful and cool; there is something about the wind in your hair as you lean back in your tuk-tuk, taking in the local sites. This is a barber shop:
Petrol station on the left with a delivery vehicle front and center. Petrol delivery works as follows: there is a 55-gallon drum filled with petrol with a hand pump attached. There are empty liter bottles of Pepsi (or Sprite, really, the brand doesn't matter - what is really important is that we are talking about liter bottle). A customer comes up, pays for a liter of petrol, dumps a Pepsi bottle of petrol into their tank and leaves. The attended then refills the liter bottle via the hand pump from the 55 gallon drum. Voila! Easy volume control as well as a great re-use of Pepsi bottles.
Close up of the 55-gallon drum set up
Dining Establishment

 

Monks collecting alms. I'll let Wiki elucidate: "In Buddhism, alms or almsgiving is the respect given by a lay Buddhist to a Buddhist monk or nun. It is not charity as presumed by Western interpreters. It is closer to a symbolic connection to the spiritual and to show humbleness and respect in the presence of normal society. The visible presence of monks and nuns is a stabilizing influence. The act of alms giving assists in connecting the human to the monk or nun and what he/she represents. As the Buddha has stated: 

Householders & the homeless [monastics]
in mutual dependence
both reach the true Dhamma.... —Itivuttaka 4.7"

And then, the Pepper Farm! Pepper grows on trellises, taking several years to mature. The pepper can be eaten green (it is quite good raw, and we had it with some dishes in Sihanoukville that were quite divine) or dried and ground as we typically imagine pepper to be used. Jeff and I were quite taken with the stuff, so be bought a kilo or so, some to be used in our kitchen and some to be given away to lucky family and friends.

"I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?"
And that was about it. The Pepper stop was short and hot; the stuff is good but it does leave a longish sort of afterburn in your mouth. Then we were off to the salt fields.

Salt, as you know is the stuff of life. And as you also probably know, most of the salt we use is harvested from the ocean. We have this great book called "I Wonder Why is the Sea is Salty" that explained long ago to our wee children exactly how salt is harvested. But now, they would get to see it in real life. Yippee!!

Except for one small detail. Did you know that there is a season for the salt harvest? Like, maybe the dry season? When you slow the tuk-tuk down long enough to actually think about this sort of thing, it would be fairly obvious that you don't harvest salt during the rainy season, since the harvesting of salt requires e-v-a-p-o-r-a-t-i-o-n. But, let's look at some photos and discuss the process and you can decide for yourself if you would have been, all like, "Dude, of course you will not see actual salt harvesting, because it is the rainy season!" or if you would have been thinking that maybe you would see salt production because you were on a Salt Field Tour.

The salt fields are large, flat areas that appear to be a clay base (seen here cracked and dry), covering many, many acres of land not far from the ocean. The process, as explained to us by "Why is the Sea Salty" (as opposed to our tuk-tuk guide who seemed to have either (a) no idea how salt was produced or (b) insufficient English to explain it), is that you dump sea water onto a flat surface, let the water evaporate and then scrape up the salt. Hard work in the hot sun, but basically pretty simple.

The clay base makes sense, of course. You want the water to evaporate, leaving the salt on a dry base. If you just dump water onto soil, the water will seep into the earth, not leaving behind a tidy pile of salt. The clay creates a water unfriendly environment so that the water is basically forced to evaporate rather than try to make a run for it deep into the earth.

When we asked why the salt wasn't being harvested right now, our tuk-tuk driver mentioned something about the rains. We were able to put 2 and 2 together and come up with the aforementioned explaination about the dry vs rainy seasons.  But we were puzzled by the activity of the children who seemed to be putting dirt on top of the clay base. And they did not look like they were doing it "for fun."

We could get no kind of an answer to that question, so we worked out our own theory. The hypothesis is this: they are prepping the fields for the rainy season. Rather than having rain sit on top of the clay base, the rain will be absorbed into this dirt "cover." Then at the end of the rainy season, you scrape off the dirt cover and your base needs very little time to dry and prep again for salt production. Nice hypothesis, no idea if it is in fact what they are doing.

These two young ladies seemed wise beyond their years. They probably could explain exactly what was going on, if only we spoke Khmer.

And, that was that. End of the salt tour. We headed back to the Kep Lodge to luxuriate in our last remaining moments in paradise. All I want for Christmas is a tuk-tuk and a license to drive it!

Knitting in Cambodia before we left.
The rains came during lunch. When it rained, it rained hard, although luckily, not for too long. This lasted maybe 20 minutes and had stopped by the time we hopped in the car to head to Sihanoukville .

Tomorrow: Admit it, you're curious. What is Sihanoukville like??

Tonle Sap

Which means, Rabbit Island in English. This trip is one of those things that every single tourist who comes to Kep does. There isn't much else to do, so it's high on a noticeably short list. And it is a nice trip. If maybe a *little* hairy. You would think after our experience in Hawaii that I might ask a few questions about the boat and the life vests, etc before agreeing to a journey by water. I'll let you in on a little secret: I am a slow learner. Although, really, if you are spending a week in Cambodia with your wee spawn, it is possible that your safety parameters are not always exactly in line with the majority of the western world.

Anyhoo, we went and had a great time, so what am I complaining about?

The Mystery Man who rarely appears in photos. The real tragedy about this photo is that I did not even take it. No, poor Jeff had to resort to handing his camera to a vertically challenged human, resulting in a less than flattering angle. But at least he makes an appearance. It was a gorgeous, bright sunny day, as you can see by the brilliant blue sky (*le sigh*).

The conversation boarding the boat went something like this:

"Look, little ones! Look at our fine vessel! Don't you feel safe and secure, seeing this fine seafaring boat?

"No, mama! No! I am tortured by visions of our experience in Hawaii when you let that crazy man take us out in the open sees in that puny boat! I do not feel safe and secure!"

"Come now, my little one, all will be well!" (Which of course it was, witnessed by this very post).

 The boat rocked and rolled quietly the all of twenty minutes it took us to get to Rabbit Island, so no drama.  When we arrived, I was a little surprised. It was not exactly the most gorgeous exotic beach I had ever seen. The word "scurvy" keeps climbing up my frontal lobe. Contextually, this is a totally incorrect usage ("scurvy" of course being a disease related to Vitamin C deficiency), but roll that word around in your mouth for a bit and tell me it doesn't give you the feeling of this beach?

The children expressed their unmitigated delight in Rabbit Island.
But, wait, there's more! Thank heavens, the trip is saved!! We hiked about a half a kilometer through the palm groves and popped out on the developed side of the island! Yeah, Gulf of Thailand! This photo is a little grayish, as it was actually taken during the rainy part, later in the day, as opposed to the bright, blue sunshine part when we arrived.

The flattish table you see front and center was quickly covered by a reed mat by our host who helped settle us on a sunning table, complete with our own hammock. Cool!!!
The bungalows you see in the background are available for rent for $5US a night. There is a community squat pot, or you can actually rent a bungalow that has an attached squat (!!). There is no electricity on the island, of course, and we had decided that our cute little bungalow back at Kep Lodge would more than meet our needs for the evening (by the way, we were paying $50US a night for the two rooms; electricity does not come cheaply!). A night on a dark island covered with mosquitoes, dogs (and their offal!), chickens (and their offal!), and relatives of our largish insect the Many Legged Whats-it back at Kep Lodge with a medium length walk to the squattie pottie was probably left for braver souls with children old enough to pee on their own.

I do think it is full of awesome that your five bucks includes toilet paper. It's the little things that make all the difference between a 4-star and a 5-star experience.
This is our host, the fellow who I mentioned put out the sunning mats for us. He is hauling in lunch. Kep is famous for crabs. I am unfortunately allergic to shellfish, but he and his family also served chicken at their dining establishment on the beach, so I was happy enough to pass on the local specialty.

This is Hope meeting lunch.
She was startled. I think when we told her "lunch is in there, go take a look!" she was imagining something more along the lines of a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

The skies opened while we had lunch. Not bad timing, all in all. Jeff had fresh fish while the children and I indulged in some lovely chicken with ginger. It was the "roughest" preparation of chicken I had in Cambodia, with most of the chicken still chopped on the bone. But considering that it was likely that the chicken I was eating had still been a consumer in the food chain earlier in the day, I'd say it was a pretty good meal. The weather cleared in the afternoon, so we spent our time alternating between collecting shells and playing in the lovely warm Gulf of Thailand.

Alas, the time came to pack it up and head back to Kep. The boats do look gorgeous in the afternoon sun. Safe, maybe not so much, but rather pretty. 

Here, Hope is making wee friends, which she is wont to do wherever she goes. You might notice that there is quite a bit of garbage washed up on the beach. This is not unusual in the southeast Asia beaches. I think the majority of locals complain that it all washes up from China.
 
And my favorite photo of the day. At the heart of it, I am a little afraid of boats. This photo makes me feel all a-kilter, which is about how I feel when I am smashing into waves sitting on a narrow wooden bench, in a narrow, wooden vessel, clutching Hope as though there were a real chance that she could get flung into the deep and lost forever. Maybe this is why Hope seems a little afraid of boats, too.

We arrived back at the dock in one piece, nicely replenished in our stores of Vitamin D and longing for a dip in the pool and a lovely dinner at the Kep Lodge.

Tomorrow: we leave Kep and head for Sihanouville.But first, we visit the Salt and Pepper Fields!

The Call of Kep

There's isn't much in Kep. The ruined villas are interesting, of course, but not the sort of thing you build a vacation around. The beach by the gulf is only so-so, with a darkish, thick sort of sand beach which is nice enough, but not exactly awe inspiring (spoiled lot that we are). The biggest local attraction is a day trip to Rabbit Island (where there is a somewhat nicer beach, but it requires a rather note-worthy boat ride and an all day stay, even during rainy season; we shall explore this topic in further detail, dear reader), followed by a salt/pepper tour to the pepper fields where they grow pepper and the salt fields where they harvest salt. Interesting, n'est-ce pas, but not life changing.

So, maybe Kep is not exactly Tourist Action Central. But we are not the sort to require Ocean Water Simulation Slides With Real Life Dolphin Sound Effects on our beach vacas, and since we rather prefer the quiet, deserted beach over the one with a board walk, rides, and snow cones, Kep seemed like it might be our speed. Particularly given that the current hot spot beach resort town in Cambodia, Sihounakville, sounded a little more, well, shady.

Kep is quiet and unspoiled because it is a bit off the beaten track (ha! that would be the Cambodian beaten track! ha!), not to mention that there just wasn't anything that we read that suggested that there was much of anything going on. Sihounakville seemed like it might be a little too bright, too populated, too developed, maybe, for our liking? Hard to know, really, but we settled on Kep for our first stop with Sihounakville in reserve as a place to go should Kep not quite pan out.

Kep did pan out pretty well for us, although, I'll toss in a little foreshadowing just for the heck of it, maybe there are members of our party who have, shall we say, itchy feet. And while maybe hanging out in a hammock is nice, hanging out for the same hammock too many days in a row leads to a strong desire to hit the road Jef ... er Jack. Anyway, we really did like Kep.

On the first day, we hung by the pool in the morning watching the children swim and fry in the sun (sunscreen! it must be applied to function!) and then headed off on a couple of hour hike around the area in the afternoon, checking out the ruined villas as we went.

I find this stuff almost unbearably fascinating. I can stand peering over the fence at a ruined villa for way longer than the attention span of of a six year old child just imaging what these villas must have been like in their heyday. We're talking the period from 1900 to 1960s, so imagine the clothing styles, the food they would have served at their tropically languid afternoon teas, the nannies caring for the wee neglected children (wait, I think I have fallen into a Gatsby-ish daydream ... ), but you get the picture. I can just imagine how divinely fabulous it all must have been.

 

The villas were not accessible for close up inspection. Mostly because at least some percentage of them had people living in them. I was shocked by this, because, as I pointed out to Jeff, the inhabited villas lacked basic stuff like doors! windows! and in some cases ceilings! and walls! (let alone those western niceties like electricity and running water)! He quietly pointed out that most of the wooden housing we had seen was pretty basic, and was this really all that different? Of course not, if you think about it.

These houses are all private property, by the way, with or without squatters. Apparently they were all snapped up for a song in the 1990s by those dwelling in the murky corridors of military and civilian power.

This was a new villa appearing out of the ashes of the old! Sort of. It's more "next too," rather than "on top of." Which really made me wonder. Why in the heck wouldn't they tear down the old before building the new? No ideas on this one. We saw this "quite a bit," by which I mean, if we saw half a dozen new villas being built, they were likely being built on property that had a ruined villa on it. And often the new villa was utilizing something from the old - often an exterior fence. Jeff wondered about the French families who had lost property during the Khmer period and if they had been able to recover anything in subsequent years. Given the above bit about "a song" and the "murky corridors of power," it seems likely they didn't get much in the way of compensation.

This one is particularly lovely, don't you think? It's actually not an abandoned French villa! King Sihanouk (the current retired King of Cambodia) built this home in the mid-1990s overlooking the Gulf of Thailand, but it was never occupied and now sits empty. Mid-1990s?? Amazing what a little salt water and time will do! The grounds are meticulously maintained, though, and it is a puzzling thing to behold. 

We had walked quite a bit that day, starting up through the jungle, ending up a on a dirt road circling around the largish hill the Kep Lodge was lodged up against and then meandering back down into Kep proper (although there wasn't much of anything in "Kep proper" excepting maybe a small tuk-tuk stand and a restaurant or two). And then ran into the Gulf of Thailand and the aforementioned not so grand sand. 

Or maybe sand is just grand, no matter what color it is?

Tomorrow, we venture to Rabbit Island

Kep

When we arrived at the Kep Lodge, lo, about sunset and settled by the pool with a wee before-dinner adult-sort of beverage, I looked around and announced that I would not be leaving. Maybe ever.

The plan for Cambodia, as I have previously articulated, was at best loosey goosey: a few days at the temples, a few days at Kep and/or maybe Kampot depending on how we felt about Kep, and maybe if we weren't loving the Kep/Kampot thing, maybe a quick swoosh up to the "resort town" of Sihanoukville with our final stop being Phenom Penh, the city from which we were flying back to China, allocated as many days as were left. Like I said, loosy goosey. 

But now, I was firm. While I am not the sort to fall in love with a hotel, this one had me at hello. There would be no leaving the Kep Lodge for me. Would you like to see more? 

Here was our bungalow. It was two separate rooms adjoined by the porch that you see the young man standing on. Each room had a reasonably appointed bathroom (for a jungle, people! You can imagine maybe not 5-star but quite adequate for our needs) and four poster beds covered ever so romantically in mosquito netting. I realize that not everyone associates mosquito netting with romance, but  it is possible that one of the reasons I was so very in love with this place was that it bore a resemblance to the bungalow Jeff and I had on our honeymoon on Kosrae.

Here's an interior shot. Of course Barry and Lambie were with us! Traveling "lightly" means different things to different people.

So you can see it was fairly simple and unadorned (there is that jungle, rainy season thing to seriously consider when you are decorating), but it was quite perfect in my eyes.
The children were pretty happy, too. Pools and hammocks are right up their alley. I did a lot of reading to them on this trip as we are working our way through all fourteen books of the original Wizard of Oz series. We were on book 7 or so when this photo was snapped. I *love* my Sony Reader! Being able to carry half a dozen books around weighing only a few ounces makes the whole Barry/Lambie thing a little easier to bear (ha! ha ha! bear!).

Our bungalow was set a bit back and behind the restaurant from the "rest" of the lodge, which consisted of five or six other smallish bungalows. Which is really great if you have ever traveled with children. Segregating the noisome little ones from what turned out to be a otherwise grownup sort of place was a bonus.

Here's the restaurant. That overlooks the pool. That, as you already know, overlooks the Gulf of Thailand. I am sniffing little sniffles right now; I can feel the love right though Picasso.
We even got our own Many-Legged What-sit Pet with the place. I have no idea what this thing is (Julie, Platinum Star for the day if you can ID it for posterity!), but we ran into him/her/it or maybe him/her/it's friends, cousins, spouse, whatever, quite a few times while we were there. Him/her/it completely freaked me out on the inside (can you imagine the cracking, squishy, squoshy sound something like this would make as you stepped on it??), but as all moms know, being able to channel that sort of fear into an educational moment is the pinnacle of SuperMom over-achievement.

"Wellll, nice thing," you might be thinking to yourself, "to fall in love with a hotel. A little weird, but these things happen. But surely you didn't travel all the way to Cambodia to park yourself by the pool for a week? Surely there is some reason you are in Kep? Something interesting sight you might want to tell us about before we wander off and find a travel blog that might actually be about travel, as opposed to plunking your butt in a hammock and waving your arm periodically for another bevvie?"

Well, if you insist. There isn't a whole heck of a lot going on in Kep, but it is a fabulous, fascinating place, in a ghost town under revival sort of way. Let me elucidate, with some help from my pal, Wiki.

Kep was a rather fabulous beach resort: from 1900 to the 1960s for the French and Cambodian elite.  Kep is located  in the southwestern area of Cambodia, only a few kilometers from Han Tien, the border with Vietnam. Huge clue right there as to why there is a stopping point on the whole "fabulous beach resort" period. Things went south during the Khmer Rouge years, and the villas were abandoned and then ransacked. Anything that could be sold was, and Kep is littered, although perhaps a more appropriate word would be, "haunted" with the shells of long abandoned villas. 

With that, I'm done for today. Photos of the abandoned villas, and the beginnings of Kep resurgance tomorrow.

Onward to Kep!

First, let's say goodbye to Seim Reap. What an interesting place! It is clearly on its way to becoming Tourist Central. But it's not quite there yet. I am so grateful that we were able to see it when we did. Although I have a friend who was there ten years ago, who just shakes her head. "It was really beautiful then," she says. Which is probably true. It is still beautiful, but indoor plumbing is now far more plentiful, and our little band of travelers really appreciate that sort of thing.

Here's the view from  the Kool Hotel. While Siem Reap is cleaning itself up and building larger, fancier hotels closer to the airport, it is still a town a bit scruffy around the edges. Our hotel was a smallish, lovely place, serving fabulous western gluten-full breakfasts by the pool. Every morning the children and I would order cinnamon muffins, pancakes, oatmeal or yogurt and muesli while Jeff was able to have a nice, tasty omelet with bacon.

Which brings me to the topic of Food in Cambodia. Yea gods, it was good. All of it. Everywhere. The menus are diverse, in that many restaurants, you can chose between Khmer style (similar to Thai, although less hot, milder and maybe more flavorful, hard to explain that one, but it is different), Thai, and western. There tended to be Chinese dishes on many menus but we skipped those. Amok is meant to be a typical Cambodia Fish Dish. Jeff ate it twice and it was a totally different experience from one to another, so I don't have too much to say about that. I'm a bit of a Curry Freak, so I ate a lot of Thai style curries, both red and green and all uniformly delicious. The children were able to indulge in the Best Chicken Nuggets EVER (they were home made, and I confess to asking for the recipe, trying to simulate it at home and failing as utterly and completely as I have ever failed at anything in my life), as well as Better (fill in the blank: French Toast, Pancakes, Pizza) Than Mommy Makes.

I failed to mention that our meals at the Temple complexes were pretty fabulous; food fried in a wok over a wood fire with lots of ginger and basil and other stuff that my tragically inept palate cannot identify, but that were all fantastic. Since the dishes weren't too spicy hot, the children ate chicken and some noodles, and even once French Fries. I confess to ordering food that will fill their bellies and keep them from complaining of hunger more than I am strict about insuring that they experience a 360 degree cultural immersion. 

So it was with sadness that we bid goodbye to Siem Reap, and yet, since we were beachward bound, maybe sadness tinged with giddiness? Jeff had booked us a room for a night or three in Kep at the Kep Lodge. Which only meant that we needed to get from Siem Reap to Kep. A distance that was undetermined, but we figured would take us all day.

All of the tourist info suggested that even if the Siem Reap airport offered a flight, don't take it. So, no flying. There was apparently a train that ran. Maybe. But that could apparently take days, assuming you ever arrived. The best plan offered was a combination of bus and hired driver. So, we booked a bus from Siem Reap to Phenom Penh (the capital of Cambodia a four or five hour drive). Then we planned to transfer to a bus to Kampot (maybe two or three hours?). Then in Kampot hire a tuk-tuk to the Kep Lodge (maybe 45 minutes?). We booked the first bus through the Kool Hotel, and figured the rest would work itself out. Believe me, in a country like Cambodia, this actually does qualify as planning.

On our way to the bus station (tuk-tuk!) Jeff was able to indulge in one of his favorite hobbies: collecting unusual motorcycle photos. 

How to move a mattress when you only have two wheels. It requires two people.

Ditto ladder moving.

Strolling monks

Interestingly enough, "bus" turned out to be a bit of a misnomer. When we were buying "bus" tickets I imagined a largish sort of vehicle that would hold a largish number of people. Turns out the bus was actually a van. Which was great, because when Hope suddenly needed to pee about six hours into our four to five hour trip, I could ask the van driver to pull over without feeling like we were creating too much of a disturbance.

The van was fairly comfortable, especially since it wasn't quite full and we were able to spread out a bit.

Unlike these folks. This is not an uncommon sight, by the way. People need to go places, they find the best way they can to go. Since our photos on this leg of the journey were shot out of a rapidly moving van, we're not talking serious art photography here. But you can get a general idea of the Cambodian countryside. We passed some towns, but much of what we drove through for something like six hours was countryside.

Lots of farmland, farmland workers (aka, the bovine pictured, I'm still working on id-ing exactly what these bad boys are. The white one above is not a water buffalo; the fellow below is.), rural housing, etc.
 
The stilt style housing makes a lot of sense in a hot, wet climate, of course. Higher up to catch the breezes and avoid things that congregate down below (I think things like water, insects, snakes, but that might be my fastidious western upbringing speaking: I actually have no idea if they build 'em up on stilts to avoid venomous vipers).
 
Local garage working on the tractor.
 
Schools out! This is the sort of thing that causes a four to five hour drive to Phenom Penh to turn into six hours. That and unscheduled pee breaks.
I don't have words for this, other than, I sure hope that box is secured. Jeff actually saw two people traveling on motor scooter hooked to IVs. I saw one of them, so I can verify that he's not telling tale tales.

We arrived in Phenom Penh just in time to discover that we had missed the last bus to Kampot. Ah, well. Plan B was to hire a car to take us; the trick was now to find someone who knew where Kep was (trickier than we would have suspected; everyone seemed to recognize Kampot, but couldn't figure out why on earth we were going past there to ... Kep, was it?), and was willing to drive us for a reasonable rate. The gang at the bus depot were very happy to hook us up with someone, for a price that was about 30% higher than we should have been paying. They were a tough negotiating crowd, so at one point while Jeff was working on them, I trotted outside and flagged down a tuk-tuk driver (this is not difficult by the way. Step 1: Walk outside and look like a foreigner. It's like magic, really.). I explained to Mr. Tuk-tuk that we wanted to get to Kep and did he have any friends who had something with a few more horsepower that could take us?

At the end of the day, we went with the bus depot fellows, but we were able to get a rate more in line with our expectations. And off we went! It was probably another 2 and a half hour drive to Kep, and the seemingly ubiquitous Honda Civic that all the Cambodia Drivers drive was a bit snugger than the fine van, so we were bedraggled and weary when we arrived.

So we rested by the pool for a bit. Nice way to end a long travel day, catching the sunset over the Gulf of Thailand, don't you think?

Maybe, You Had To Be There

So maybe our photos won't be winning the National Geographic Photo Contest this year. Jeff is very interested in photography, and has the skills, but alas, not quite the right camera. The problem we have is one of convenience. The better cameras are just too big. Too big to slip into your pocket, and if you have to chose between carting around your sleeping four year old and a Mega-Capture-the-Glisten-Dew sort of camera, I think he has made the right choice.
And I confess to be quite happy to live in the moment. Many years back, before children, and actually as a wedding present to myself, I took a photography course and bought my self a really nice Canon SLR. At the same time, Jeff purchased one of those new fangled "digital cameras." Hoo, boy, did I think that was a kick! He could take a million crappy photos while I was able to print our lifetime memories on FILM. Actual FILM. I mean, it was kind of sweet and all that we could look at his photos while we were traveling, but we had to wait, just like waiting to open those Christmas presents wrapped so beautifully under the tree, until we arrived back in the US to see what my creativity had wrought.
Interestingly enough, his photos ended up as 8 x 11s hanging on our walls. Mine did not. I eventually sold my SLR and inherited one of his older digitals and am quite happy tracking along in his wake snapping the occasional shot of him and the children. I mean, it's only fair that he gets to be in some photos, right?
 
But I have drifted off topic. As far as I am concerned, Documenting the Moment of Being at Angkor Wat at Sunset was less important than actually seeing it. And it was marvelous. Bathed in golden light, I only quietly regretted that I would also have loved to see it at sunrise.


 
And as we leave the temple complex in the blog-o-sphere, I am saddened. Saddened that you (whoever you are, including my mom, dad, Most Loyal Commenter-Debbie, and anyone else who happens to catch this post) didn't get to see this in person. That you didn't get to feel the cooling wind on a super hot day tuk-tuking through the countryside, see the people living and working, see the rice fields, stand in awe of the construction of the temples in person, smell the wood fires burning, eat the fabulous food that I have not even touched on!  I'm not sure why I so want to share this, but I really, really do.
 
Interestingly enough, I forget why people in the US don't come to Asia for vacation. I forget that it takes an entire day of travel and flipping your world upside down to get here. And that once you are "here," you generally only have a week, or two or three at the most to take it all in. I was using the rest room in the Seoul airport when I came upon two genteel American Southern ladies freshening up. They were about as well put together as two people could be considering that they had just spent something like 20 hours on a plane and I wasn't sure that they had the functioning synapses to come up with the month, let alone what time of day it was. I asked them what (on earth!) they were doing there, and they said that they had come to visit for a week (!!!!). At that moment, I remembered. D'oh!
 
But, I do wish you could see Cambodia. It's beautiful, really, really beautiful.

Banteay Samre, Banteay Srey, and Preah Khan

I suppose it goes without saying for long-time readers that our plan for the next day was fuzzy. Actually, our plan for the entire trip was fuzzy. I had done a fair bit of reading and had some ideas of places I wanted to go, but we didn't book anything ahead of time. One of the joys of traveling in the off-season is that you get a little more flexibility in your travel plans. What you can also end up with is some serious indecision. Day 1 at the temples was great, but hot and tiring for the children. I really wanted to see Angkor at sunset, but planning for that given uncertain weather conditions was not so easy.

Indecision being the better part of valor, when the children got up the next morning, I took them to breakfast in their swim suits, we ate breakfast by the pool and then dove in. Very, very nice way to start a hot-tish sort day. Hey, we were on vacation, right?

At some point,  Jeff joined us and while he and I finished a leisurely cup of coffee or three, we decided to head to the temple complex again. The other Major Tourist Attraction Option was to visit the lake region and see the "floating cities" of Tonle Sap, but given that it was just at the beginning of the Hot and Wet season, the floating cities are apparently docked. Maybe not so interesting? We'll never know, of course, as we headed back to the temples.

Respectful of the children's wishes not to spend the entire day looking at temples, we took the "Long Tour," which meant more time hanging in the breezy, tuk-tuk (a very happy place) and less time slogging through actual hot temples. Ha! Can you say bait and switch? There was a faint hope that we would manage to hang around the complex until sunset to see the glory that is Angkor at sunset, but given that it could be raining, the children might have actually melted or any as yet unknown crisis that besets blithe sorts of travelers in southeast Asia, we had to be flexible (although since I mentioned yesterday that we did get to see Angkor at sunset, the suspense is not exactly killing you, is it?).

The first stop on our Temple Tour of the day was Banteay Samre. I think. This is slightly awkward to admit, but I'm not 100% sure. We didn't really stop at that many temples. And at the time, I was quite clear on which temple we were viewing. So I'm quite embarrassed that in hindsight, I can only say I think this temple is Banteay Samre. Most probably.

Gorgeous carvings, beautiful, out of the way place, probably never crowded even in the tourist season, it was well worth a stop on our way to the very stunning Banteay Srey. Good news, this one I am sure about.

"Banteay Srey loosely translates to ‘citadel of the women,’ but this is a modern name that probably refers to the delicate beauty of the carvings. The walls are densely covered with some of the most beautiful, deep and intricate carvings of any Angkorian temple."

The temple is made of red sand stone and is just glorious.
 

I am sighing quietly to myself now, as I view these photos and read my meager inept descriptions. Really, there is no way I can do justice to any of it. The vastness of the complex, the intricate detail work or the building and carving, the massive size of the structures (although not this one in particular, as it is known as being a more petite sort of temple), the age of these things, the notion that they were build with nothing but hand tools and levers, and built in the heat!

I find it astonishing that such complexity rose from a culture that lived in such a hot climate. One easily imagines such a culture have 46 words for "hammock" and 27 ways of saying "shade," but building such enormous structures while not dying of sunstroke seems impossible (although the pyramids of Egypt, Manchu Picchu and the Aztec structures were all built in hot climates, so clearly, I have no idea what I am talking about). 

And, again, this is hard to explain, but the photos and descriptions of the temple complex are so flat. We have traveled many glorious places in the world, but if I were given one last trip in my life, just one single place I could visit, I would chose Cambodia.

Maybe I would leave the children at home, though.
Jeff and I let them sleep while we did a quick walkabout of a smaller temple. We are thinking of using this photo on our 2009 Christmas Card, so don't be surprised if it shows up in your mailbox a few months from now. Just looking at this photo makes me long for a tuk-tuk in Nanjing. What a useful thing it would be to tour around on the weekends and do big shopping at Metro! Alas, we would need a drivers license to use a gas motor in China, so it's a non-starter

We did wake them up for this stop. One of the more interesting things about the temple complex is how often you trip over relatively minor structures just tucked away here and there. I do believe that the entire place is significantly more crowded during the regular season, so beware if you are planning a trip! We did manage to have a relatively quiet viewing of just about everything, but I do understand that it can really get crowded. By the way, if you were wondering about Hope's attire, her Regularly Scheduled Dress suffered from a Wardrobe Malfunction early in the day, so we picked up this shirt for her and fashioned a temporary sort of coverup for her.
 
Late in the afternoon the skies finally did open and we experienced our first Rainy Season Rain. It was that sort of sheeting rain where you are not sure if someone isn't just dousing you with a large, never ending bucket. Our tuk-tuk driver pulled over, dropped the plastic sheets on the open sides of the tuk-tuk and crawled in to hang out until the rain passed.

It wasn't but a few minutes, and Jeff and Tom and I headed off to explore Preah Khan. Hope declined to join us, instead remaining with our tuk-tuk driver to chat about the weather, her impressions of Cambodia and other sundry topics.

The vendors at Preah Khan were particularly tenacious. And short. I'm the tall pale one in the back with my hand out to Jeff asking for money. Really, I need to learn to carry my own.

You know, it is really hard to negotiate with children. Of course we bought stuff, which then puts you in the difficult position of choosing which child to purchase things from. It's all very tricky. Tom and I finally shook the wee vendors by making a dash for the temple; perhaps not the best move in the interests of cultural exchange, but it was time to leave them behind.

Random large tree stump photo.

Preah Khan is a huge, highly explorable monastic complex. Full of carvings, passages and photo opportunities. It originally served as a Buddhist monastery and school, engaging over 1000 monks.It seemed kind of narrow, dark and wet while we were there, and I was trying to imagine what it would be like to live in such a place. I imagine that there were wooden living quarters? Something a little more comfortable than wet stone?

Please note the headless statue. We'll come back to that in a minute.

But here's a chunk from Wiki about the place:

"The temple is still largely unrestored: the initial clearing was from 1927 to 1932. Since then free-standing statues have been removed for safe-keeping, and there has been further consolidation and restoration work. Throughout, the conservators have attempted to balance restoration and maintenance of the wild condition in which the temple was discovered.

Maurice Glaize, an Angkor scholar, wrote that;  " The temple was previously overrun with a particularly voracious vegetation and quite ruined, presenting only chaos. Clearing works were undertaken with a constant respect for the large trees which give the composition a pleasing presentation without constituting any immediate danger. At the same time, various buildings were found in a sufficient state of preservation and presenting some special interest in their architecture or decoration."

Since 1991, the site has been maintained by the World Monuments Fund. It has continued the cautious approach to restoration, believing that to go further would involve too much guesswork, and prefers to respect the ruined nature of the temple. One of its former employees has said, "We're basically running a glorified maintenance program. We're not prepared to falsify history". It has therefore limited itself primarily to stabilization work."

Stabilization.
 
And more headless statues. Headless statues are evident all through the Angkor complex, and the story we were told is that during the time of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge ripped out any thing sale-able and sold it. I think the grand scale of horror during that wretched time, selling antiques is probably not even on the Top Ten list.

But it does make me think; who buys this stuff?? What kind of human scum buys antiques, knowing that the currency is going to support genocide? Thought for the day. With that, we'll hit Angkor at Sunset tomorrow.