Road Trip No.2

It seems like only yesterday that we said goodbye to Noa on Koh Rong island but that is because it practically was. Not 3 days have passed but she has decided to follow on now to the same town that we are in and so has decided to come and join us in our hostel to make us a 4some again. Since we still had the mopeds we decided to go on another road trip, this time to the neighbouring town of Kep which we had heard was ok for a day but not worth visiting.

On the way to Kep we found out that there were some caves to explore and so with that information in mind we headed to the caves which also happened to be the base camp for Climbodia, the local climbing centre. When we parked up and headed into the caves the locals kept asking if we wanted a guide which we kept refusing as we just wanted to have a look around ourselves and didn’t really want to be fleeced. Even so we got followed by a couple of local kids with torches that insisted on walking in front of us and pointing out things we could already see while we got a little annoyed because we knew they would ask for money at the end for “guiding us”. After a few mins though the kids did show their worth when they pointed to what seemed to be a tiny hold in an under-hang. If they hadn’t been there we wouldn’t even have seen it and even if we did would have said there was no point looking any further. As it turned out though this route lead deeper into the caves and into some large well lit caverns which were pretty cool to take pictures in. when we were finished we gave the kids a few dollars as they had actually helped us so it wasn’t as bad as we initially thought.

After the cave we headed to the Kampot Pepper farm which is apparently a big attraction to see how the pepper that ends up on your table stars life. Off we went towards the pepper farm on the dodgiest of dirt roads that have ever existed. No time for tarmac out here, all there was as far as the eye could see was red dirt that blew up in the air behind the mopeds leaving us covered in red dust by the end of the ride. The positive thing about the ride though was the scenery. Out on the road that we took there was not much about apart from farms and the occasional house. That made 4 westerners on mopeds the prime attraction and as we passed houses little children would rush to the road side to smile and wave as if seeing us was a special treat. One little boy was even in the middle of getting a bath in big tin tub in his front garden but still stood up and came running to the gate soaking wet while his parents laughed. Some other kids on bike riding the opposite direction to us would also put out their hands for high fives as we slowly passed by. After we had been riding a while the girls on the back of the mopeds went from being slightly nervous of the bumpy roads to getting out their cameras and being mobile paparazzi, grabbing shots of all the locals and beautiful scenery as we passed by.

Kampot Pepper farm turned out to be a bit of a let down when we finally got there. The tour guide that works there had gone on holiday which left the resort and farm there but with not much to see and no information on the process of the pepper etc. The resort was nice and we grabbed a drink in the restaurant before heading back along our dirt road to Kep which turned out to be super quiet. Kep doesnt seem to have a city centre which means that it gets a really weird vibe as there is no location for all the people to be. we grabbed some food at a little restaurant by the sea then headed further down the road to investigate more and managed to find a little beach. On our way walking towards the beach we
suddenly noticed that we recognised some of the people down at the waters edge and they turned out to be the Swedish couple that we had met a few days before on Koh Rong. They knew we were in Kampot and had checked into the same hostel as us before renting a moped and deciding to check out Kep first. Again our little group has become 6 and after taking in the sunset we headed home to get ready for tomorrows adventure. I think we are going to have some fun 🙂