Kampot, Cambodia
Since the coast of Cambodia appeared to be more our style than the rest of the country, we decided to just keep sliding down the coast until our visa ran out. The next stop down the line was Kampot, a lovely little town on the banks of the Teuk Chhou River. Our minibus dropped us on the outskirts of town and I called our guesthouse owner Thary, a sweet Cambodian woman who spent the last several years with her husband in Belgium and Switzerland, before returning with him and their adorable son to run a guesthouse in her hometown. We tromped off to the local taxi stand where we were set to rendezvous with Thary. We fended off the regular shouted offers from moto drivers and tuk tuks as we walked. Getting closer to the taxi stand, cars started pulling over and shouting at us from their windows, “Phnom Penh?” “Sihanouk?” It slowly dawned on me that these regular looking cars were supposed to be the local taxis and they were assuming that the two white kids with packs on were looking for a ride. Just as three taxi drivers were literally running for us, Thary pulled up in her pickup truck like a knight in shining red steel, and drove us to her little oasis, the Hang Guesthouse. Hang is just a few meters off the map of Kampot, but years in Belgium have given the hoteliers a healthy respect for bicycles which they lend to guests for free, making everything in Kampot easy to reach. Being off the map just means that Hang guests can enjoy quiet seclusion. Read the rest of this entry »
