Right now we are in a taxi on the way to Kampot. This morning we checked out of 4 Rivers Resort on the Tatai River in Koh Kong. I really can't say enough good things about it.
The rooms are actually tents on a floating dock and I don't mean small camping tents these are huge African Safari type tents with a king size bed and enormous bathroom.
There are 12 tents and ours was the furthest west so the shower had a fantastic view of the sunset. You can step out the front door of your tent and jump off the dock into the river. It was such a breath of fresh air (literally) from the dirt and noise of Sihanoukville.
The food was also delicious. Each dinner is a four course feast and they designed a special vegetarian menu for me! During the day on Tuesday we went to the Tatai waterfall and swam, jumped off the rocks and laughed at a monkey. Wednesday we just relaxed in the sun and swam. I got a traditional Khmer massage which was interesting. Mostly we just read and relaxed. It was a great experience and I would recommend checking it out if you are in Cambodia.
Wednesday evening we took a boat ride to see the fireflies. I expected fireflies flying around lazily like they do in the US but here they hang out in the tree together and blink in unison. It's like Christmas lights! It was such a fantastic thing to see! On the way back the sky was so clear we saw a few shooting stars. Once we got back we had dinner and my main course was stir fried vegetables with Kampot peppercorns which were so delicious. I'm definitely going to have to get some in Kampot.
P.S. I started this yesterday and of course forgot to upload it so I'll keep going and talk about what we did today.
We knew we wanted to go to Bokor Hill Station. So we asked our hotel about a tour group and they said they could put us together with one that would be $25 each. We decided to walk around town and see if we could get a cheaper deal. After looking around and seeing nothing we decided to go for it. But, this time the bartender at our hotel told Brandon we could rent a scooter for $5 for 24 hours and go ourselves and do whatever we wanted on our own time.
I was nervous about this idea. We had rented a scooter in Cozumel and had fun but there was a lot less traffic there and going around the beach is different than going up and down a mountain. Brandon felt confident about it so I decided to embrace adventure and try it. Later that evening we talked to a couple at a different guesthouse we stopped at for dinner and she said it was fun and they had no issues so that made me feel better.
Well they dropped off our scooter this morning and off we went! Brandon drove the whole time and it was pretty great. The drive is up a mountain through Bokor National Park and was just beautiful.
At the top is an abandoned hill station that was built by the French in the 20s then taken over by the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge during the civil war. Now it's just abandoned and super creepy looking. The main building which is a palace and casino is the most interesting. Unfortunately the blog publishing app won't let me post pictures right now so I'll have to fill you in when I'm back. It's mostly concrete but there is still some original tile. You can still see bullet holes in the walls from the shootouts between the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge. Tomorrow we will keep the scooter I think and check out some salt fields and caves near Kep.
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