Days 72-74: 1/29-31/24 -
1/29
A call home, breakfast, and final attempt to see the national palace (attempt 3, foiled by lunch break halting entrances 45 minutes earlier than we expected). Lunch back at Surn Yi around the corner and some final repacking preceded our final ride with Soonsoon. His cheery demeanor while conveying dismay and doubt for the future of his country, his pay-what-you-want rates (I really hope we overpaid market rate), his willingness to share his own personal tragedies: Soonsoon was as big a part of our visit to Cambodia as any museum or historical site. If you, or anyone you know, is going to Phnom Penh, we got a guy!
The busride was one of our smoothest: a combination of the Giant Ibis company and our acclimation to the bumpy, honk-filled roads. A Tuktuk ride to our stay was longer than most as we were staying a bit outside of the town, on a secluded side-branch of the main river: Preaek Tuek Chhu. We were greeted with fruit and water, dropped our things in our bungalow, enjoyed an open air shower, and a lovely dinner on a deck we would come to know well.
Preak Tuek Chhu at sunset!
1/30
We had long talked about our plans to do less than nothing in Kampot, and today may have been our most successful. From breakfast to dinner, the furthest we moved from the central building’s main deck was back to the hammock outside our room. Views of the lazy river through the bamboo and trees, bird sounds in the morning and evening, and regular bowls of fruit made for a very nice day. We also discovered that they made a MEAN fish amok for dinner, and would go on to have one every night for the remainder of our stay.
We did manage to do some light blog work and planning in the afternoon, but mostly read and lounged. The most exciting part of the day was one of the guesthouse’s cats came up to me!…and peed on my backpack! I caught it in mid-self-relief, but my bag would smell a little strange until we got to Ho Chi Minh City, when it would get washed with many other things, for a completely unrelated reason…
The hammock outside our bungalow door: those large leaved plants are actually growing up out of the river bed! We had to evict toads from our room several times...
One of two cats on the premise. This one we named: "Not Piss". Guess the others name and claim to fame...
1/31
After breakfast, we made use of the home stay’s kayaks, with mixed results. The local river was a little slow and had amassed a fair bit of garbage also, I’m terrible at kayaking. The “one hour loop” was clearly misnamed, but by the time we made it to the larger river, we had found our stride, or paddle if you will.
The midday heat approaching, we hurried back to the shade of the offshoots, resolving to return for sunset in the future. Definitely not today, as we really had wanted our marriage to at least last the trip.
Our afternoon and evening consisted of reading about the history of southeast Asia, enjoying food and the view, and generally lounging about.
The lazy river that meandered past our lodgings.
