on the 19th of january i set off for kep in the south of cambodia to meet up with two other volunteers who were in kampot (next to kep) checking out the national park there. i had already done that with anouther volunteer and it was very good.
the bus trip lasted about 4hrs and was not to bad as normal in cambodia the bus was overloaded with people but at least the air conditioning worked. i got to kep about lunch time and needed to find a cheap place to stay so i got off the bus walked over to a moto driver and asked or a cheap cheap guest house, he told me there was one for $7 by the sea so i hopped on the moto and off we went. the moto driver was cool his name was long han and he was a part time english teacher so it was easy to talk to him. the people down south seem alot nicer than the people in the city. i got to the guest house and got a room the n went out and sat on the sea front. i had to wait for carolina (canadian) and megan (english) to get to kep from kampot so i had a few hours just to sit around.
when they got to kep we went for a meal at a nice resurant. it was carolinas birthday so it was a good reason for a big meal. we went to a crab resurant and i ordered a big plate of crispy crap. when we were finished we went to find a tuk tuk but they had all gone and our guest house was a fair walk back and was not safe to walk as there are lots of stray dogs that can be quite dangerous so a cambodian that worked at the guest house took us back in his car. we got back and sat out by the sea, it was a full moon that night so i took some pictures of the moon (i will try and put some pics on)
the next morning long han picked us up to go to the port to get a boat to the island. it cost $5 to get to rabbit island. it was really good to sea the island as we approached it we could see as we got closer there was not much there but that was the best thing about it. the boat pulled up on the beach and a woman asked if we would like a bungalow to stay, it was $5 for one and it was comforatable inside very basic. we decided to walk around the isalnd it was slightly bigger than we tought it took about 3hrs i said it would only take an hour but turns out i was very wrong. carolina shoes broke on the way round so we had to fix them with some twine from a tree. we got back very tired so we had somthing to eat on the beach. i had no money by this time i couldnt get any money out of the atm in the city so carolina payed for everything on the island. that afternood we just sat around on the beach and swam in the sea. there is not much to do on rabbit island but relax.
that night was a full moon there were also strong winds wich made the sea very rough, it was so windy that when we were lying down looking up at the moon a palm tree branch fell about a meter away from us. buy then it was quite late and it had bin a long day so we went to bed. it was very cosy in the bungalow it protected us from the strong wind the wind helped to the flys away wich constanly anoy me in my sleep.
the next morning carolina broke the news that she didnt have as much money as she tought. turns out that we only had enough to get off the island pay for the bungalow an get the bus home. we only had enough money for a plate of steamed rice. by this time megan had run out of money aswell so we sat around a table with a bowl of plain steamed rice laughing about how much money we didnt have.
we made it back to main land and sat under a tree for two hours by the road side waiting for the bus. megan had kept half a packet of prawn crakers that we shared to try and contain our hunger. we took one each and passed it on it was funny that it had come to this!
our bus came and all 3 of us got a seat again the bus really packed up and there were people in every avalible space. we made it to a toilet stop and scraped together enough money yo get some street food, it was really nice it was a banana covered in rice rappedin a banana leaf. the last part of the journey was not so bad and we made it back to the city in good time. when we got the apparment there were some new volunteers so we sat and talked to them for a bit and then rushed out to riverside where all the nice resturants are and got a big meal as we had not eaten hardly anything all day.
it was a really good weekend it was really nice to go and meet some nice cambodians in the south and the coast is amazing there it goes from jungle to sandy beaches to blue sea. i did pay carolina back in the end once i found an atm that worked
