Kep, Kampot and Sihanoukville

We're making our way along the west coast, in Kep we stayed in a nice resort, here in Kampot it's a colonial style guest house, but inland so no ocean and also no pool, and Sihanoukville (to deal with the pronunciation of this place, Tori has abbreviated it to snookyville) was a big western style resort. Nice, but not exactly what I need these days... the French seem to do resorts differently, the small tranquil adult-ish places with more class and less gaudiness. This is a different side of Cambodia, the tourist playground side. It's neat, but the prevalence of english expat "town newsletters" of expat businesses tell me were more in the domain of American/Australian/UK/Euro slacker kid backpacker areas, I actually way prefer hot dusty sugar cane fields and translated conversations with old Khmers to which place rents cheaper beds and has better pizza. Maybe we're aging, but one of the articles said Kep was boring unless you're a couple looking for solitude, which we are and therefore it wasn't (to be honest, we didn't see much of Kep other than the oceanside road, after that we lounged in luxury. Actually, scratch that - that one road meant we saw everything in Kep).

Anyway, it's funny... seems like the same crowd that keeps Canadian ski areas running all winter too. I don't have anything against that crowd and their hangouts, serves a place in the world. Just not really my thing, I'm too industrious at heart. I think the guys who dropped out of main world and have run guest houses here for a decade sorta get that sense we're coming at it from different angles too.

Back to things I love, Kampot is home to some of the world's best black pepper. French chef's were wild for it's qualities, and from the food I've had, I have no reason to disagree. I've got a few bags that one of the hotels gave us as a parting gift. Oh yeah!

Our last day of riding took us to the beautiful beaches of Ream - quiet and tranquil. More rides need to have hammock and sand between the toes.

Also if anyone knows what this fruit is in English, let me know. It might be rambutan or something like that, but the guys aren't really sure what language that is.