We noticed the inscription ‘Mary Rose’ and a telephone number on the back of this stone seat and hoped it was the name of a restaurant or boat trip company being advertised and not the pseudonym of a local ‘business’ women!! The local rag mag there made for a very amusing read and made reference to 15 such women who ‘work’ in Kampot. The ex-pats call them ‘sausage hunters’ (chuckle)
This guy wasn’t so happy about having his photo taken while he ate his lunch!
As we have indicated previously hygiene isn’t something Asian people seem concerned about. However we noticed in Kampot that the local officials (not sure what you would call them…Ministry of Health maybe) were trying to educate the locals there. It was clear by the photos that they were indicating that you should not use a tin of food if it is rusty or dented. I am not sure what the writing said about the containers of open food, the like of which are everywhere, uncovered and open to the elements and insect life!
Old colonial buildings can be seen around the streets, some have been renovated, some are crumbling. But whether it’s the dirty hawker stall eateries on the pavements or the fancy buildings which have restaurants inside, Kampot had a lovely feel about it. We enjoyed our time back there and revisited our favourite noodle bar and the cafes overlooking the river before travelling back to Phnom Penh where we stayed in a hotel near the airport the night before our flight to Krabi (via Bangkok)
Seeing as Phnom Penh wasn’t my favourite place during our travels and the fact that it was double flight day the next day you can imagine I wasn’t the most happy of travelling companions for Glen. Having said that I loved the three hour minivan journey back. There is always so much to see on each journey as well as ‘our life flashing before us’ as our driver swerved back and forth across the road to overtake and dodge the cows, dogs and bikes, you get to see village life and the lovely scenery. (smile)
I am always very aware of our fragile mortality on every journey but most of the locals in Asia don’t seem to be concerned in the slightest. Whether it’s whole families on their bikes as a bus zooms by just millimetres away from their handlebars or whether when they are sat precariously on top of vans and lorries.
These girls below are relatively safe with the roof rack sort of holding them in, but we saw a number of other people just sat on top of various lorry cabins seemingly without a thought for the basic laws of physics, if their lorry had suddenly stopped then they would have kept travelling forward!
The owner of the newly opened hotel in Phnom Penh was a lovely man so it was a good end to Cambodia despite the smelly, rubbish strewn streets of the Capital city. After a short one hour flight we landed in Bangkok’s International airport and took the free bus across to Bangkok’s DMK airport to catch the short flight to Krabi.