100 days!

Can you believe it? 100 days of travelling. There is no need to summarise my thoughts to date, as I am pretty sure it obvious that all is well and I really love South East Asia so far.

Every guesthouse you stay in South East Asia has its funny little things. For example, in Kampot the toilet (western style) was on a raised platform, like the Asian ones. But with the western toilet this meant there was pretty much nowhere to put your feet. The bedroom part was also tiled halfway up the walls, like you would do in a bathroom. Here, in Sihanokville the shower head has to holder, so you have to hold it while you try and shower. There always seems to be funny little design flaws that make you wonder what they were thinking.

Spike at Kep beach

We meet these three in Kampot, a guy from Canada, a British chick and an older British guy (Keith Richards younger brother, we swear by it). They were a right laugh and the day after we met them when we were on a tour and had stopped at Kep beach they rocked up on motos yelling “hey kiwis”. They were on the way to do a boarder run to Vietnam to drop off the Canadian, but were having too much fun that his verdict was he would end up back in Kampot after all.

Hard at work gathering salt

The rest of the tour involved a trip to the salt fields (where they are only paid $4USD), a fishing village (where they children were taking photos of us with our blonde hair, a right crack up), a pepper plantation (where we brought some of the world famous pepper and ate a hard fruit that kind of tasted like a fejoa) and some caves at a monastery (were monk boys showed us around the caves, told us facts and a bat pooed on me). Some more interesting facts I though worth noting were that a cow costs 500USD (so you tend to be doing ok to buy a cow), the pepper plantation used to be a killing field, four people is a very small family for Cambodia – most have more like 8 children, there are not many monkeys around Kampot as the Vietnamese used to buy them and eat their brains and the weather means that unlike most rice producing countries Cambodia can only harvest one crop per year due to the weather. It was a fact filled day. I also decided that I am not a fan of the sugar cane drink they have here, it is too sweet. And coming from me I feel that is really something.

Me chomping down on a green mango

Fishing village

Spike with the monks checking out a monkey

The night before that we has been on a ‘sunset river tour’ where we only half saw the sunset because it was cloudy, we were an hour late leaving because of some Cambodians and the boat got stuck, so Spike got out to push (I think pushing vehicles might become a strength of his in South East Asia). We got to see a lot of villages along the river though and it was a nice relaxing way to spend the evening. Much better than the chicken bone feed Spike had and the power cut at dinner the evening before.

On the trip across from Kampot the driver stopped for some lunch where I had a few more neat children experiences(where they battle curiosity with being a bit scared) and we saw one of the most packed vans and tuk tuks I have seen to date. The van had people packed to the ceiling (and as normal, on it) and was filled with fruit, veges and animals too I think. We noticed the tuk tuk as the children started yelling out hello to us (as they regularly do). There was about 10 kids all around 5-8 years old packed in one tuk tuk, happy as larry. They had to spend 30 seconds moving around every time they stopped to pick up another kid to go back to school after lunch.

I have noticed how there are no animal rights here (I know, it sounds all hippy on it). But they pack trailers with fully grown live pigs to three or four pigs high and tie live chickens in bunches of about 5 and pack them as high as the trucks will allow. It makes me happy to say I am vegetarian. It would shock most people quiet a lot though I imagine. It is one hell of a sight too. I have no idea how they get the pigs in packed so high.

I haven’t report on my injury status in a while; I think that is because it is just become part of my daily life. At the moment I am scrapped up from slipping down a deck (my ankle is damn sore) and I am well and truely experiencing lovely purple mosquito bites. I am addicted to insect repellent (well I am trying!) and finally started taking malaria tablets. 

Me and a sunset in Sihanokville

Spike and I enjoyng a cold one

Now I am chilling out in SihanokVille. It is a beachside town with a lot of tourists and lots of children selling things. It is nice though. Great place to relax and catch up with yourself and buy all sorts of ‘treats’ from the seaside restaurants, happy shake anyone? The sellers on the beach are really pushy. But the children selling fruit and bracelets etc are really quiet happy if you simply engage them in decent conversation. They tell you they go to school in the evenings, but it hard to image that when they are working a 12 hour day they are really going to school. Coupled with the fact that I haven’t found on yet who can tell me for how many hours they go to school or what they learn (they just change the subject). Most of them are around 12-15 years old.

Yesterday when we arrived I was absolutely starving so we headed to the beach for some food. After we were done some children came up and asked if we were finished and when informed that we were they proceeded to fight over the leftovers. It was something I hadn’t had happen before. There wasn’t a lot, just a few veges and some steamed rice. 

Yesterday I woke up and went to check my emails to discover about the Earthquakes in Christchurch, no more than 30 minutes after it happened. It is always a shock when there is news like that from home (when we don’t blink an eye to hearing there is fire on the boarder to Thailand, not very far from here at all). My thoughts are with those at home.