Kep, Cambodia

We took a ferry from Phu Quoc to Ha Tien today. Then from Ha Tien we had two scooters rented and drivers to take us to Kep, Cambodia. Getting across the border was easy. It cost $25 per person. On the way to Kep we stopped at a salt field. The men that work these fields work long hours and make about $5 per day. The homes in the farmland are built up on stilts. The above part is for living, downstairs is where the animals live. Easy dinner prep! We arrived at our hotel in Cambodia. It is amazing. It's called the Rega Eco Friendly Guest House. It was $17 for our room. The kitchen and dining area are open to the outside. Surrounded by mango trees, flowers and a pond to stick your feet in and get a fish massage, they nibble on your feet, it tickles. When you order a mango shake they pick they mango right off the tree. We got settled into our hotel room then rented a scooter for two days. We met a guy named Paul from new york state, and he joined us on our tours. He quit his job and has been traveling for two years and will continue for 1 year more so we are very envious of him. We went into a national park and explored. Beautiful lush jungle, with our first glimpses of monkeys! We stumbled across a guy on the road that spotted them, Vincent from Spain. You could hear them swinging from tree to tree. The park also had a few eco guesthouses in which you stay in grass tree houses right in the jungle. After that we headed to the crab market beside the ocean and had fresh seafood with the ocean smashing up against the wall and spraying us with a mist of salt water. On the way back to the hotel we got caught In a flash rainstorm. Eddie and I laughed the whole way home. We were soaking wet. The only concern we had was our wet passports, but we rescued them just in time.
Yesterday we explored the jungle a little bit more. We drove up the mountain and walked down a path to an Eco lodge and spent hours sitting and enjoying the scenery with some food and coffee. It was like we got stuck in a time warp cause it felt like a couple hours and we came out and realized it had been five hours. On our way back to town we took some pictures of all the old colonial French homes, and a few shots of some new construction. That bamboo shoring looks safe eh fellas? Ha! We also talked with some locals to learn some of Kep's history. Kep was a place for the elite French & Cambodians. They built mansions and amazing stone, concrete and rock walls surrounding their giant estates. Now as you drive around what used to be grandiose boulevards you see many remnants of abandoned mansions or just large fenced in estates with nothing left. During the war the Khmer Rouge came through and bombed a bunch of these estates, and then continued to loot them. It's fun to drive around and imagine what it looked like here. Last night we went back up to the forest and enjoyed some pizza with Paul and Roman, an Austrian traveler. The pizza was done in a clay oven and it was delicious! Kep is a beautiful ocean city, it's safe, clean, friendly & backs onto the jungle. This is a place I could live! After all, it is the home of a golden chicken dragon statue, hilarious! We're sad to have to move on to the next spot, but time is of the essence. Now we're off to Phnom Phen.