Arriving in Kampot in the cool of the early evening, with enough daylight to snap photos of quirky traffic en route (over-laden bicycles, multiple occupant arts, tractors and vehicles, school kids and even hijab in the Muslim districts) and to take in the old "French Colonial" architecture, was a good idea. The sun was setting over the river, which made for beautiful views as fishing boats and tourist fears plied the waters. A friendly American ex-pat approached us, saying he lived over the other side of the bridge, which was more authentically traditional and with seeing.
There appear to be many ex-pats. Brigitte the Customer relations Manager at le Flamboyant, with whom we had a lengthy chat earlier in they due to an emergency phone call from our English dog-sitters back home, provided us with a lot of useful information. So Kampot, according to here is alive with sixty-something, ponytailed, French hippy divorces, looking for all the old like Vietnam Veterans, on the prowl for Cambodian girls. There are hints of prostitution everywhere there is poverty of course. The "girlfriend experience" i.e. renting a woman for couple of weeks for companionship, tour guiding and sex, seems commonplace. Chris was amused to discover the euphemisms in local use while reading a guidebook about Kampot: "sausage massage"; "internal massage" and "love sock", all of which speak for themselves!
Indeed Brigitte and husband Thierry are academic criminologists from ANU, made redundant under Abbott funding cuts. I've started reading their recently-published book (Cambridge University Press), about the history of crime in Cambodia, which involves a lot of anthropology, sociology and history, so is right up my alley and offers some handy information about Cambodia's past before, during and shine the Khmer Rouge era.
We'd asked at a jazz club called NOLA, run by a couple from New Orleans, about live music options. The owner and black Yorkshireman working there directed us to another place, but it involved a steep flight of steps and was hot and stuffy. We eventually settled on a place called Bokor Mountain Lodge, a more spacious ground floor eatery on the road by the river, with happy hour beer, sunset views, light breeze, vegetarian curry options and fresh fish, as well as live solo guitarist called Ace from Phnom Penh, who was very good, and diverse apart from the odd cheesy cover!
On Thursday night, our last night in Kep, we took a tuktuk (tuk a tooktook?!) to Kep Beach, where I put my feet in the sand and shallows and watched local people enjoying a swim. The World Vision crew who were conferencing at our resort, but staying elsewhere, were playing group bonding games on the beach- a strange kind of volleyball involving a Khmer scarf to propel the ball across the net.
We walked from there to The Crab Market, enjoying yet another stunning sunset. Mr Mab's again for happy hour cocktails, followed by dinner at place called Chau Chau which overlooked the water, the head waitress was very chatty, and the young male waiter told us he was 18, but looked about 12!
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