Day 47/48 – Kep, Cambodia (Photos are here too!)
We moved onto Kep after just one night in Kampot as our Cambodian visa was running out. We paid $15 for a ride in a beat up Toyota Camry to get us from one place to another. The drive was quite scenic – green, mountainous and less developed. We arrived in Kep where the driver informed us he didn’t know where he was going, so he pulled up to chat with the local tuk-tuk drivers for directions! Of course they informed him that the road to ‘Jasmine Valley’ was very bad for a car and that we should really go by tuk-tuk. I stood my ground and refused to budge from the car. Surely if the road was that bad the owner would have warned us!
So after much discussion and pigheadedness from me, relying on my gut instincts, the car driver continued along the road some more. One more tuk-tuk driver attempted to procure our business to no avail. The road we had travelled from ‘Les Manguiers’ to Kampot was muddy, riddled with potholes and overall crappy so how could this be worse for his car … well it wasn’t!! The road was dry, in good condition and much more easily accessed by a car than a tuk-tuk. When we checked into ‘Jasmine Valley’, the owner Jasmine heard our story and shook her head. Apparently this has happened numerous times where car and tuk-tuk drivers attempt to get more money from customers!
It was a relief to arrive in ‘Jasmine Valley’, a little eco-friendly resort set in the rainforest of Kep National Park. We were shown to our little bungalow and welcomed with freshly made iced lime juice. Just what we needed. The boys were keen to immediately get into the freshwater pool. The pool was a concrete swimming pool but filled with rainwater and full of tadpoles, fish and nature! When you sat with your feet in the water the fish would give you a fish pedicure. Whilst the water was green tinged and full of the above things, it was in fact better than the rubbish filled water of Sihanoukville’s beaches!
As we were a considerable distant out of town and given the drive we had just endured we decided to stay put for meals. We dined on fish and chips for lunch and green mango salad. For dinner the boys had wood fired pizza, Steve and I enjoyed a whole baked fish and fabulous shrimp with Kampot pepper. We met some wonderful travellers along the way and the boys were most excited to meet Ryleigh and Russell, aged 9 and 11, who were travelling with their parents, a US family that call London home. They had a great time hanging out together searching for frogs in the dark and then enjoyed each others’ company again at breakfast.
‘Jasmine Valley’ offers a free ‘hearty’ breakfast and that it was. We had the best bacon and eggs, waffles, pancakes etc to choose from and we chose it all! The four boys all enjoyed another iced lime juice and then went and hung out again. We said goodbye to our new English/US friends and another adventure begun … a first land border crossing from Cambodia to Vietnam.
hi karina
so how much was ‘Jasmine Valley’??