Kampot, home of amazing pepper

After only a four hour bus ride from Pnomh Penh we arrived in Kampot, a small, lazy river side town with a really chilled vibe.  Battling off the tuktuk drivers we headed in the general direction of a couple of guesthouses to see if they had availability for the night and settled on the 'Magic Sponge'.

I have no idea as to the history of the 'Magic Sponge' but at only £6.60 for a double, fan room and supposedly the most awesome curry in town we weren't complaining, plus the added extra of nine hole crazy golf, what more could we need!  After an explore of the town we settled in to enjoy the shady courtyard with fellow backpackers and of course a couple of beers.

Owned by a Bangladeshi man and an extensive Indian menu we ordered chicken madras, garlic naan and settled at the bar where we met Chloe.  Chloe, from Oxford, was working there for twelve weeks and had made good friends with the 'girls from the kitchen' despite the obvious language barriers.  Once a week Chloe would select a film for them to watch, something really visual and easy for them to follow, tonight's screening was 'Enchanted'.  The following photo doesn't do the experience justice but they were absolutely mesmerised, smiles, tears and dismay as the tale unfolded.  I think the owner came in at one point and his face was a picture, seeing all his kitchen staff sat at the bar with us.  He kept looking at them, us, the general direction of the kitchen, twitching with the desire to tell them to get back to work but never daring...I think Chloe had everything well under control! The film ended and our curries slowly appeared, one of the best curries I've ever had and we whiled away the evening chatting at the bar enjoying 'happy hour' and meeting people.

The next day we checked out and headed out of town to the quiet and secluded riverside bungalow which was ours for the next three nights.  The bungalow came complete with hammock which Matt immediately took up residence, swinging gently in the breeze until CRASH the rope snapped and he plummeted to the floor.  Luckily he was OK, if not a bit shocked, and went for a lie down to recover.  Within five minutes the woman in the next bungalow hit the floor with a bump after trying out their hammock, I avoided all hammocks or rope hanging seats after this ;)

The views were absolutely stunning, watching the river-world go by day and night, a refreshing breeze and a complete contrast to Pnomh Penh.

Meet Momo the resident dog and his pal enjoying some paddle boarding.  These dogs were positively frenzied whenever anyone took out a kayak or board, jumping immediately on regardless of the amount of room.  If they were pushed or thrown off (in some cases) undeterred they launched themselves back on.  They also possessed the appropriate skills...unlike some.

The only blight to this peaceful few days was our shower, on arrival we'd been informed there was a slight drip and on inspection we said no problem.  First night all good, second night and the leak had progressed to a very regular and steady drip onto the shower tray, the noise resounding in the quiet of the bungalow.  At about 2am Matt woke me up to say he couldn't sleep because of the dripping (hmmm now I'm awake too).  So I set about looking for something we could use to drape over the tap to get the water running down and reduce the distance to the floor.  Standing naked in the shower trying various objects, including a wire coat hanger, we eventually remembered the Duck tape (thank you Caz for the useful items to take travelling).  This worked a dream, tape hanging from the tap acting as a little drain pipe we headed back to our mossie net and off the mosquitoes dinner menu!  Reporting the problem the next morning and assurance it would be fixed we headed out to Kep for a look see and a massage with 'Seeing Hands', a worthwhile organisation trying to enable employment for the blind.  Well, another one of my bright ideas! The experience whilst hilarious afterwards was far from the relaxing experience we had hoped.  Ushered into a mosquitoe ridden room still trying to communicate our requirement of oil massage of medium intensity was doomed to failure from the start.  Side by side we groaned as fingers seemed to enter our sore muscles like a pneumatic drill entering concrete, trying desperately to indicate less pressure they smiled and continued with their mission.  Every ten minutes the clock would vocalise the time and in silent communication we grimaced at each other, faces contorted in pain and hoping to hell they didn't add on any extra time.  Hobbling out, calves screaming in agony, trying desperately to show the English stiff upper lip, we sat in a nearby bar guzzling water and wondering what the hell just happened.  Matt's elbow was swollen with the largest mossie bite I've ever seen and we sat in stunned silence until the laughter kicked in, another fine mess I got him into.  On return to the bungalow we showered and obviously, of course the shower had been fixed...yeah right what planet were we on.  So we headed for dinner thinking oh well only one more night and our Duck tape solution was holding up well.  On return, the noise of flowing water hit us before we even opened the door, warer was now cascading at a fair flow into the shower tray, we now had our own private river.  So back we go to escalate the problem, to be greeted with blankness at any knowledge of the problem and massive apologies that nothing could be done until the next day. A restless night, listening to the waterfall cascading, wondering when the flow would hit the nearby electrics and would we end up with more of a tan than desired.  The plumber turned up at 10am just as we were moving on, oh well atleast the next people would have peace at night even if they were without a hammock!